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Polar bears drown as ice shelf melts
The Sunday Times ^ | December 18, 2005 | Will Iredale

Posted on 12/18/2005 9:46:23 AM PST by ATOMIC_PUNK

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To: conserv13
Climate change is real and we need to deal with it.

More sunscreen and more ice for the beer is working for me.......Unfortunately it hasn't done anything in terms of shortening our winters here in Michigan and for that I am pissed off!

61 posted on 12/18/2005 10:47:23 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (It must suck being an Islamofascist.......I don't bring them Christmas presents)
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To: conserv13

What, are we supposed to change Earth's rotation? Drill a hole in the Earth's core and pump ice cubes into it? Put up a massive sun screen across the planet? How do you propose to reverse climate change, exactly? Do you think massive objects working together for eons like the Earth and Sun will be affected by any of our puny efforts?


62 posted on 12/18/2005 10:48:36 AM PST by AmericanChef
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To: conserv13
Let us assume that climate change is real. This is a fairly easy assumption since the climate has been changing since the earth was formed. Let us further assume that man hasn't caused climate change simply for the reason that climate HAS changed constantly over the billions of years the earth has existed.

If this is the case we can't "deal" with climate change. We can't affect it no matter what we do. We will either adapt physically, as will all the animals concerned, or we, and they, will die.

A little history of the Polar Bear is in order here I think. Polar Bears are thought to be a sub species of Brown Bears(Grizzlies to most of us). They can breed with the brown bear and produce a fertile offspring. Sometime in the past these bears learned how to survive in an arctic environment. Why? Because they climate changed from warm to colder providing a steady source of food, seals, and some brown bears learned to live on the ice, the ones with the characteristics that enabled them to survive lived, the others died. Presto, we had polar bears, which actually came into existence about 100,000 years ago.

If climate change causes them to go away again this is called nature and it has always happened and will happen to humans one day probably.

We cannot affect climate change, therefore we can't "deal" with it except to learn how to adapt to it. I am sure getting used to slightly warmer weather will not be that big of a chore for most of us, what will be difficult is when the climate changes back again in the future and we have another ice age.

Speaking of ice age, what happened to the theory that global warming will cause global cooling? Won't that save the Polar Bears?

Just another lie from your friendly liberal scare mongers trying to control the people with fear.

63 posted on 12/18/2005 10:51:02 AM PST by calex59 (Seeing the light shouldn't make you blind...)
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To: redboiling

I'm afraid it does "logically" follow--it just hasn't been indubitably proved yet. We're spewing out CO2 and cutting down the forests that soak it back up. CO2 is increasing. CO2 acts as a greenhouse. The temperature has gone up. Thus . . .


64 posted on 12/18/2005 10:57:19 AM PST by firebrand
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To: Exton1

Whether we are causing it or not, it is real.


65 posted on 12/18/2005 10:57:33 AM PST by conserv13
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To: JRios1968

The rest of the story???


Green groups sue U.S. to protect polar bears
Reuters ^ | Dec 17, 2005 | Reuters

Posted on 12/18/2005 11:06:05 AM EST by Former Military Chick

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Three environmental groups are suing the U.S. government to force consideration of whether polar bears are a threatened species, saying rising global temperatures threaten to kill off the Arctic predators.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Thursday, asks the Interior Department to make an initial ruling on a petition to bestow the broad federal protection of the Endangered Species Act upon polar bears by designating them as "threatened."

An "endangered" species is one that is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Web site (http://www.fws.gov). A "threatened" species is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future, according to the agency.


66 posted on 12/18/2005 11:08:58 AM PST by billhilly (Demo camo is yellow and white)
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To: kanawa
Polar bears depend on a frozen platform from which to hunt seals, the mainstay of their diet.

Yes, that is true, that is why they follow the ice because the seals do also.

If the reduced ice coverage results in more open water, cubs and young bears may also not be able to swim the distances required to reach solid ice.

With a decrease in ice coverage in this area there is more coastal iceline and thus more places to hunt.

Further north, in areas where the ice conditions have not changed as much, seal populations have grown (either through migration or more successful reproduction) and polar bear populations are expanding

Perhaps that is why their assessment seems so bogus to me.

67 posted on 12/18/2005 11:10:19 AM PST by eskimo (Bush on the Constitution: "It's just a goddamned piece of paper.")
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To: firebrand

You misread my post. I said longer-term climate change does NOT mean that people can NOT possibly have affected things. The two are separate issues.


68 posted on 12/18/2005 11:11:10 AM PST by redboiling
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To: billhilly

I think we should send some environmentalists to the arctic to see about the polar bears. This could provide much needed food to the polar bears. ;-)


69 posted on 12/18/2005 11:11:27 AM PST by SubMareener (Become a monthly donor! Free FreeRepublic.com from Quarterly FReepathons!)
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To: Laserman

Where is your data that human energy waste is at insignificant levels? CO2 levels have significantly risen above overall climate patterns. since Industrial Revolution. The butterfly analogy is misleading.


70 posted on 12/18/2005 11:14:19 AM PST by redboiling
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To: redboiling
You said:

The climate of the earth has been changing for billions of years on its own, but that does not mean people cannot have affected it in recent times. Just doesn't logically follow.

You meant it just doesn't follow that they CANNOT have affected it. Well, that's logical of course. It's important to remember that it is POSSIBLE that man has affected the climate. OK.

I was saying something more relevant, which is that it is "logical" in a certain way that we HAVE affected it.

71 posted on 12/18/2005 11:16:32 AM PST by firebrand
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To: CROSSHIGHWAYMAN

"As Antartica has drifted south for millions of years, native penguins have adapted to the most extreme weather on earth."

By the way: did the penguins get a vote on whether or not to internationalize the Antartic continent as a scientific site?

Maybe they would like to commercialize it and put up hotels and restaurants and get a little tourist business. Maybe they might want to see if Branson would be interested in a southern franchise--you know, like a farm system for the guys would like to eventually take Glenn Campbell's and Yakov Smirnoff's et al's place when the major stars decide to retire.


72 posted on 12/18/2005 11:16:38 AM PST by righttackle44 (The most dangerous weapon in the world is a Marine with his rifle and the American people behind him)
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To: conserv13
Climate change is real and we need to deal with it.

Describe to me one thing that we can do that guarantees the reversal of Global Warming within the next 10 years or that we can do to save one Polar Bear from drowning.

I'm am really tired of hearing that Global Warming is happening, it may well be, but given the number of natural factors that seem to control the climatic model, "dealing with it" in terms of human actions or lack thereof seems to be futile except to the extent that someone might make money from of feel better by the attempt.

73 posted on 12/18/2005 11:20:15 AM PST by Mike Darancette (Mesocons for Rice '08)
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To: righttackle44
By the way: did the penguins get a vote on whether or not to internationalize the Antartic continent as a scientific site?

The vote was unanimous against internationalizing it!!

But since penguins look like nuns, the UN disregarded the vote.

74 posted on 12/18/2005 11:20:52 AM PST by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN (expell the fat arrogant carcasses of Congress)
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK

The polar bears at the zoo are always swimming


75 posted on 12/18/2005 11:22:35 AM PST by Vision (“We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the duty of intelligent men")
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To: Jigsaw John
Like humans, they can. But try swimming 10 miles sometime

Sixty miles is nothing for a polar bear. They regularly swim over a hundred and have been doing so for as long as man has been watching them.
.
76 posted on 12/18/2005 11:24:24 AM PST by mugs99 (Don't take life too seriously, you won't get out alive.)
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To: Mike Darancette
Describe to me one thing that we can do that guarantees the reversal of Global Warming within the next 10 years or that we can do to save one Polar Bear from drowning.

I'd like to net millions of unwanted Canada Geese which ruin many a park and pond with their droppings and air drop them into Polar Bear hunting grounds.

Global warming will reverse itself in time as it has always.

The earth is in equilibrium.

More liquid water creates more clouds which causes snow and cold.

The patient man gets to freeze his ass off in old age.

The impatient man sells his ski lodge and retires to Cancun....see you there.

77 posted on 12/18/2005 11:26:28 AM PST by CROSSHIGHWAYMAN (expell the fat arrogant carcasses of Congress)
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To: firebrand

Yes, maybe I was unclear. By "doesn't logically follow," I was referring to the idea that humans can't have had any effect. I had pointed out that little piece of obviousness because I was responding to someone who was implying the opposite, that's all. Which is why it was relevant.


78 posted on 12/18/2005 11:26:45 AM PST by redboiling
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To: SubMareener

I was thinking that if they want to keep them green they might want to catch and paint them. They can feed the green ones, and nature can feed the white ones. Eventually the feeders will become the feed, and that is the end of the cycle.


79 posted on 12/18/2005 11:28:56 AM PST by billhilly (Demo camo is yellow and white)
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK

Polar Bears don't Surf?


80 posted on 12/18/2005 11:30:00 AM PST by BallyBill (I want NY Times publishers added to the Ten Most Wanted list.)
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