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Polar Bear BS
townhall.com ^ | August 17, 2009 | Bill Steigerwald

Posted on 08/17/2009 1:03:53 PM PDT by kellynla

Environmentalists and the media have successfully bamboozled half the populace and every school child in America into believing large numbers of polar bears are starving and drowning in the Arctic because of global warming.

But it's obviously not even close to being true. How do we know this?

Because if even just one emaciated drowned polar bear's body had been fished from Arctic waters in the last five years, we'd have seen its sorry carcass a thousand times on TV and on the covers of Time and Vanity Fair.

By now the poor dead bear would have been given a trademarked first name, marketed as the official victim of Exxon Mobil-caused climate change and starred in three Pixar movies.

Alas, not a single drowned polar bear corpse has come along. Until one does, professional polar bear-saving groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council will have to scare up money and new members with traditional direct-mail campaigns like "Polar Bear SOS!"

NRDC's latest effort to save the iconic, majestic, magnificent, precious polar bear cleverly combines the environmental left's blind hatred of Sarah Palin with the general public's mindless love for cuddly polar bears.

With six pages of exclamation points, underlined sentences, boldfaced type fonts and apocalyptic predictions about imminent planetary and polar bear doom, it looked like a direct-mail parody when I first pulled it from my mailbox the first week of August.

It was the real thing, however.

NRDC celebrity senior attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent two pages warning that unless we act swiftly and join NRDC or send it money, "Governor Palin" and "some of America's biggest polluters could help push America's polar bears to the very brink of extinction" by 2050.

NRDC -- which has an $87 million annual budget, 1.2 million members and a staff of 400 busy lawyers, scientists and lobbyists - can get a little loony when it's shaking down its target audience of unquestioning "caring Americans."

For example, Kennedy's cry for help was backed up by four pages of polar bear pathos from Frances Beinecke, the group's distraught $300,000-plus-per-year president.

Evidently chosen as NRDC's emoticon-in-chief because she can channel the distress signals of polar bears all the way from the melting Arctic ice packs, she presumed -- incorrectly in my case - that it probably pained the reader as deeply as it pained her to imagine:

"... The last gasp of a polar bear before it drowns in the vast waters of the Arctic, unable to reach the increasingly distant ice floes it needs to find food."

"... The muffled cries of newborn polar bear cubs as they are buried alive when their snowy den collapses from unseasonable rains."

"... The exhaustion of a mother polar bear and her young as they succumb to starvation after enduring longer and longer periods without food."

Beinecke's Arctic soap opera blathered and blubbered on and on, ultimately leaving the impression that it was a proven fact many polar bears were starving, drowning and even eating each other in heretofore unseen numbers because global warming is melting more and more of the sea ice they live on and hunt from.

Beinecke didn't use her great imagination to interview any polar bears for NRDC's unintentionally hilarious package of tear-jerky propaganda.

But since it's apparently OK to make up anything you want about polar bears, let's imagine how a wise old bear might react to his proud species being defamed by NRDC as helpless victims and having their allegedly endangered lives exploited for money-raising purposes.

"Dear NRDC," the average Grandpa polar bear might write. "Thanks a lot for your love and concern. But please don't worry so much about us. In fact, please leave us alone.

"We and the Arctic sea ice are doing just fine. We've lived on the frozen top of the world for 250,000 years. We've survived two ice ages and a meteor that killed off the wooly mammoths.

"We've seen a lot of climate change and a lot of pack ice come and go over the eons. Believe us, it's natural. It's cyclical. It's unpredictable. But we'll adapt, as we always have.

"We are not endangered. We are not going to go extinct in 30 years -- or 10,000 years. There are at least 25,000 of us living quite well up here and, trust me, we're going to survive the coming ice age with a lot less trouble than you will."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News
KEYWORDS: arctic; environmentalists; globalwarming; polarbear; polarbears
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1 posted on 08/17/2009 1:03:54 PM PDT by kellynla
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To: kellynla
What if.... theres too many Polar Bears?.. as there is with Wolves in Alaska..

Too many means killing off, too many, of the Moose and Caribou.. and with Polar Bears various seals..

2 posted on 08/17/2009 1:10:49 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
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To: hosepipe

A baby polar bear asks his mother “Mummy, am I 100% polar bear?”

The mother looks up in thought, and replies “Well, your father is 100% polar bear, and I’m 100% polar bear, so I’d say yes, you’re 100% polar bear.”

Not satisfied with this answer, the baby polar bear goes to his father and asks “Daddy, am I 100% polar bear?”

The father pauses briefly, and responds “Well, your mom’s parents were both 100% polar bear, and my parents were both 100% polar bear, so yes, you’re 100% polar bear.

The father then looks at his son and says “why do you ask?”

“Cause I’m FRICKEN FREEZING!!!!”


3 posted on 08/17/2009 1:14:21 PM PDT by eddie willers
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To: kellynla
The World Wildlife Federation's Polar Bear Video is classic BS too.
4 posted on 08/17/2009 1:14:54 PM PDT by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: OKSooner; honolulugal; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; RW_Whacko; SideoutFred; Ole Okie; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

FReepmail me to get on or off

Ping me if you find one I've missed.



5 posted on 08/17/2009 1:15:17 PM PDT by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: kellynla
kelly, you are one hard-hearted member of the VRWC of Global Warming deniers. Last January, while sailing across the flats on my way to a PETA meeting in Sarasota, I think I saw a Polar Bear on a small white ice floe.

He ... or she ... looked at me very hungrily. I was so frightened I accidentally gybed and damned near spilled a pitcher of margaritas on my shorts.

This global warming must be stopped. Stopped I tell you. My wife saw it, too. Only she thought it was pink. At any rate, I am calling your Senator Boxer to demand, demand I tell you, that Polar Bears be covered under the Obama Health Care Initiative. Won't you join me? These creatures must be restored to their rightful place in the food chain.

6 posted on 08/17/2009 1:16:17 PM PDT by Kenny Bunk (Congratulations Obama Voters! You are not prejudiced. Unpatriotic, maybe. Dumb definitely.)
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To: kellynla; All

7 posted on 08/17/2009 1:17:56 PM PDT by potlatch ( There is no education in the third kick of a mule.)
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To: kellynla

Frankly, why should we care about polar bears?

Adapt, or die. Think of it as evolution in action.


8 posted on 08/17/2009 1:22:32 PM PDT by clee1 (We use 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile, and 2 to pull a trigger. I'm lazy and I'm tired of smiling.)
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To: Kenny Bunk

Wondering if that was a Forrest Brooks impersonation?


9 posted on 08/17/2009 1:22:38 PM PDT by rockinqsranch (Dems, Libs, Socialists...Call 'em What you Will, They ALL have Fairies Living In Their Trees.)
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To: kellynla
I've seen two or three specials on the Polar Bears on the History Channel and towards the end of all of them they point out that global warming is going to wipe out all of these beautiful creatures. National Geographic isn't much better.
10 posted on 08/17/2009 1:27:23 PM PDT by fish hawk (Lord, help us to attain knowledge and the wisdom to apply it toward your ultimate will.)
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To: kellynla
But it has to be true ... Noah Wyle said so.
11 posted on 08/17/2009 1:29:53 PM PDT by al_c (Our government is not a spectator sport.)
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To: rockinqsranch
Wondering if that was a Forrest Brooks impersonation?

Au contraire. It is Forest Brooks who has been doing Kenny Bunk imitations. I hope he is smart enough to stay out of Maine ... and away from Polar Bears.

12 posted on 08/17/2009 1:32:33 PM PDT by Kenny Bunk (Congratulations Obama Voters! You are not prejudiced. Unpatriotic, maybe. Dumb definitely.)
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To: kellynla

I guess the iceberg suddenly melted. Or else polar bears are USED to swimming around in arctic waters and the so called scientists are lying again.

13 posted on 08/17/2009 1:33:14 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (There is no truth in the Pravda Media.)
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To: hosepipe

Polar bears are excellent swimmers. Those images of polar bears “stranded” on tiny icebergs are a joke.


14 posted on 08/17/2009 1:44:28 PM PDT by The Duke ("Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Democrat Party?")
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To: kellynla
Good point here. Whenever there's an oil spill we see hundreds of images of petroleum-covered sea-life on the beaches.

Where are all the pictures of the dead polar bears? Even if they drowned, they'd eventually wash up somewhere, wouldn't they?

15 posted on 08/17/2009 1:51:59 PM PDT by Tanniker Smith (Obi-Wan Palin: Strike her down and she shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.)
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To: eddie willers

Lol...


16 posted on 08/17/2009 2:03:18 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole....)
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To: kellynla

17 posted on 08/17/2009 2:06:44 PM PDT by CholeraJoe (I'm not a useless eater, I pay taxes to support them.)
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To: kellynla; Liz; sickoflibs; abb; Tolerance Sucks Rocks
But it's obviously not even close to being true. How do we know this?

Because if even just one emaciated drowned polar bear's body had been fished from Arctic waters in the last five years, we'd have seen its sorry carcass a thousand times on TV and on the covers of Time and Vanity Fair.

... and as true as the day is long...

18 posted on 08/17/2009 2:14:57 PM PDT by GOPJ ("Fishy rumors posters" Check 'em out:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2311664/posts)
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To: kellynla
Polar Bear killing baby seal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef1VMw6XRt4

19 posted on 08/17/2009 2:17:34 PM PDT by seawolf101
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To: kellynla; Horusra; Delacon; Entrepreneur; Defendingliberty; WL-law; Genesis defender; proud_yank; ..
 


Beam me to Planet Gore !

20 posted on 08/17/2009 2:19:22 PM PDT by steelyourfaith ("Power is not alluring to pure minds." - Thomas Jefferson)
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