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Last updated on August 6th, 2017 at 07:03 am
Oh no! Polar bears stranded on melting ice! As the Daily Mail wrote in early February:
They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.
Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice.
The same story and image later ran in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph; the image was also published on the front page of the New York Times, followed by a correction one month later:
A front-page picture caption on Feb. 3 about polar bears floating on chunks of glacial ice, illustrating an article on a global warming report, carried incorrect information from the Canadian Ice Service about when and where the photograph was taken, and about who took it. The picture was taken in August 2006 in the Chukchi Sea, not in 2004 in the Bering Sea, farther south. The photographer was Amanda Byrd, not Dan Crosbie.
That correction needs a correction. Byrd’s photograph first appeared in 2004, not 2006, alongside this journal entrydetailing a Joint Western Arctic Climate Study cruise. The original caption:
Mother polar bear and cub on interesting ice sculpture carved by waves.
Not “stranded”; not “clinging precariously”. Byrd – an Australian studying at the University of Alaska Fairbanks – was interviewed about this by spiked a week or so back:
Over the past few months the photo has been published widely as a snapshot of the dangers of global warming. Byrd, however, is wary of seeing the photo as direct evidence of manmade climate change. ‘I believe in the climate change phenomena, but for me to say that the image is a direct link, I would be speculating’, she tells spiked. ‘The ice in the Arctic is definitely growing less, and the bears in the migratory route in the Beaufort Sea (where this image was taken, 90 miles off Barrow) have to swim further.’ Byrd is clearly a little miffed that ‘the image you have seen around the world was distributed without my consent, and [with] the wrong byline’.
Ann Althouse and (especially) Dan Riehl were quickly alert to this polar bear photo caper, but as of last week someone was yet to catch up:
For Al Gore’s presentation yesterday to a conference of human resources executives, his second Toronto visit in a month, the Oscar-winning envirogelical recycled just about everything from his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
From his opening line—“I used to be the next president of the United States”—through the Churchill quotes, the slick computer graphics and the boiling frog analogy, to his rousing finale, the presentation was a live action carbon copy of the film.
But there was one notable addition, an iconic photograph that was distributed worldwide last month by Canada’s Environment Ministry, and for which the Canadian government is about to be sued by an Alaskan photographer.
The photo, taken in summer, shows two polar bears on a melting ice floe in the Beaufort Sea, north of Barrow, Alaska.
“Their habitat is melting … beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet,” Mr. Gore said, with the photo on the screen behind him. “They’re in trouble, got nowhere else to go.”
Photographer Byrd knew where to go – to her lawyers:
In an interview yesterday, she said Environment Canada “distributed it to seven agencies without my consent. They were amicable, but it’s under legal action right now.”
She has not filed a lawsuit, but has hired a lawyer to pursue a breach of copyright case. She does not accept the government’s explanation that it was “an honest mistake.”
But how does she feel about Gore’s use of her picture?
She said she was flattered when Mr. Gore approached her and offered to pay for use of the photo.
“The image is an icon. It’s definitely pulled the heartstrings of people and it says a lot, in itself. But I don’t have really any opinion myself on what the image says,” she said. “I don’t know what happened to the bears after that… They migrate over 100 miles, swimming.”
She now charges newspapers US$500 for use of the photo on inside pages, and US$700 for the front.
Further items here, here, and here (spiked’s otherwise excellent item mistakenly cites Sydney’s Daily Telegraphrather than the Sunday Telegraph).
(Much thanks to Lee Matthews for links and research)
- I’m waiting for a picture of a polar bear eating a plastic turkey.Posted by James Fulford on 2007 03 25 at 01:16 PM • permalink
- I’m a wimpy little old man lap swimmer, so I have “absolute moral authority” when I say if there’s an animal that can routinely swim 100 miles in arctic water, we do not have to worry about its well-being.
Elmer GantryAlgore is an ass.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 03 25 at 01:36 PM • permalink
- You’ll forgive me if I seem callous, but we get bears on our back porches here, and I don’t feel that kindly toward them. It’s much like the recent news that the American crocodile was taken off the endangered species list, when the question should have been what was it doing on that list in the first place. Aren’t alligators enough, without increasing the number of crocs?
We have more than enough bears as it is.
Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 03 25 at 01:58 PM • permalink
- Here’s a photo of poor endangered penguins walking away from their ancestral colony, looking for colder climes. Oh, the
humanitypenguinity! An example of globAL GOREming in action!Posted by ElectronPower on 2007 03 25 at 02:13 PM • permalink
- Discovery Channel is having a Deadliest Catch marathon today (yes, I am that desperate). I am watching crab fishermen load and unload crab pots covered in three inches of ice, on boats that are covered in ten thousand pounds of ice, in a rapidly forming ice pack in the Bering Sea that was heavier than it’s been in decades. If I hear one more person whining about the global warming crisis, I won’t be responsible for my actions.
- Hmmmm.
1. When people talk about global warming they invariably talk about the earth’s temperature increasing, but that’s utter nonsense. So I generally like to ask:
“What exactly is the temperature of the Earth today?”
That’s a nonsense question because there is no such thing. All climate temperatures, along with weather, are local. There is no overarching global temperature. And even if someone were insane enough to try and figure out one, it would be impossible because the available temperature readings are normally concentrated in populated areas. Even then what are you going to do? Add up all the temperatures and then divide by the number of sensors? Total nonsense.
And if you cannot discern a global temperature then how can you say the globe is either warming or cooling? You cannot. You can say that this place is warmer or colder than some other previous time, but that’s the absolute limit. And that limit doesn’t allow for inferring that the climate or temperature anywhere else can be derived from this basic knowledge.
It’s a fool’s game for political advantage and nothing else.
Posted by memomachine on 2007 03 25 at 02:52 PM • permalink
- Who knew polar bears could swim? Besides ANYBODY WHO’S EVER BEEN TO A ZOO.Posted by Jim Treacher on 2007 03 25 at 03:42 PM • permalink
… in a rapidly forming ice pack in the Bering Sea that was heavier than it’s been in decades.
And of course, next year, if the ice pack isn’t as big, we’ll have front-page headlines screaming about the diminishing Bering Sea ice pack.
(And don’t apologize for watching The Deadliest Catch, it’s probably the best show on the Discovery Channel. It sure beats the heck out of those two idiots on Mythbusters, which Discovery Channel seems to show 22 hours a day.)
Posted by David Crawford on 2007 03 25 at 03:44 PM • permalink
- Oh, that explains it. It was supposed to be between 8ºC and 16ºC in Toronto over the weekend and carrying over into next week and it’s only been about 3ºC. No one told me Al was coming to town so that I would have worn my winter coat yesterday instead of my spring coat (or spring coat with a sweater underneath).
Re. Amanda Byrd, obviously, she should be beaten to death using Knut the German polar bear cub thus killing two birds (one Byrd?) with one stone: saving Knut from a life of “performing” for tourists at the Berlin zoo; and allowing environuts to use the photo captioned and bylined anyway they want without having to pay for it. (Although that’s something that most of them are used to doing already, I’m sure.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 25 at 03:52 PM • permalink
- Will no one think of the polar bears?
(via Hot Air)Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 25 at 04:35 PM • permalink
- Oh, sure, laugh at the drowning polar bears, but that’s only the tip of the global warming iceberg!
Number Watch has compiled the complete list of things caused by global warming: I, for one, am especially concerned (compassionate head tile) that global warming is causing
polar bear population growth and extinction,
coral reef growth and extinction,
ocean salinity to decrease and increase,
fish catch to decrease and increase.Oh well, at least the beer will be better!
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 03 25 at 05:11 PM • permalink
- Oh? Is is freezing, aaron_? Maybe Al’s visiting the site at the same time as you?Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 25 at 06:29 PM • permalink
Hey, anyone been to Ken Summer’s page today? It’s not loading for me.
Nor me, aaron. I e-mailed Ken and Emily about it this morning.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 25 at 07:06 PM • permalink
- I call upon all disciples of the global movement – yes, that means you, child – to ignore this information that there is no correlation between temperature and CO2 in the atmosphere.
Anyone who stumbles across this information is advised, no, instructed – to wash out their eyes with organic vinegar.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 25 at 07:10 PM • permalink
- Here’s an exhausted polar bear adrift on a ice-floe.
I like Mythbusters.
They blow things up.And they have a cute redhead. Pity she’s a vegetarian, though.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 25 at 07:25 PM • permalink
- #16 – But here’s the one that really ruined my day. I’ve cancelled my holiday to BulgariaPosted by Whale Spinor on 2007 03 25 at 09:24 PM • permalink
PANIC AT NASA
International Space Station imperiled by swarming free-fall polar bears.
Desperate for any solid home, the bears are grabbing onto every exterior structure of the station, damaging antennae and even lighter structural members…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 25 at 09:39 PM • permalink
- It’s the effing canadians again, ain’it.
I hope some major global warming enviro-mentalists in
EnvironmentBureaucrats-Looking-For-Further-Funding Canada get the heave-ho.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 09:42 PM • permalink
- #3 rightwing, the problem is that you and I know nature. These sillinesses are spread by the suburban senti-mentalists, or enviro-mentalists. People who have completely lost touch with history and nature.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 09:46 PM • permalink
- #4 Aagh boy, I sees they bes Alaskan Penguins. Agah, that’s the truth.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 09:50 PM • permalink
- #16 Oh come on Bruce. Mixed metaphors So much rhetoric. Global warming tip of the iceberg. Obviously an impossibilty. With global
warming, there will be no iceberg tips.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 09:58 PM • permalink
- #20 repent never!! I will die after I have had several good meals of other living things and basically science hasn’t advanced enought to keep me alive for ever. It will come.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 10:03 PM • permalink
- Meanwhile in Boston, they’ve found the real culprit behind global warming:
Turf wars heat up: grass vs. syntheticGuive Mirfendereski, a Newton lawyer, says artificial turf gives off much more heat than grass, and, if used widely, could contribute to global warming.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 03 25 at 10:03 PM • permalink
- I understand penguins and polar bears are quite tasty. Can anyone confirm, this?Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 10:04 PM • permalink
- #35 No you’re wrong. It will get hotter in hell until it gets colder, then hotter again.
I live in Ottawa, Canada. The temperature varies 60 degrees Celsius every six months. I’m supposed to be concerned about 0.7 degrees Celsius in 100 years??? Get real. When we can control the short term temperature, then let’s start thinking long term. Until then, ignore it.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 10:09 PM • permalink
- #46
Not bad, but not a patch on suckling platypus.
Congratulations to wimpy for cracking 1,000 posts.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 25 at 10:12 PM • permalink
- “I mean, where do you stick the thermometer?”
Well, Grimmy dear if it’s the old fashioned kind, I’d say stick it in Al Gore, he seems to be the asshole of the planet.” I don’t have really any opinion myself on what the image says,” she said. Like if I were to explain those “yeti” photos are of Mr Stinky, my schnauzer, I won’t keep getting the big bucks from Yeti Fanciers International for printing it, will I?”
- #40 Grimmy, exactly my question. Answer, up the arse of enviro-mentalists.Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 25 at 10:19 PM • permalink
- Bears used to be noted for their tremendous endurance in regards to swimming. Now they to are fat and lazy like every one else in Canada and just drown.
The thing they don’t get is that as far as the ice in the north goes it melts every year so the real question is if hudsons bay is covered in ice one week less each year will the one week cause the bears to drown. It’s friggin ludicrous.
Posted by hollingshead on 2007 03 25 at 10:35 PM • permalink
I understand penguins and polar bears are quite tasty. Can anyone confirm, this?
According to this site, the Inuit derive income from guiding sport hunting of polar bears, and harvesting their meat and pelts. The meat is said to be delicious, but should be well cooked to avoid trichinosis. Avoid the liver, though. High levels of vitamin A in the form of retinol are found in the liver. As little as 30 grams (about 1 ounce) of polar bear liver can be lethal.
As for penguins, since many of them are endangered, eating them is not encouraged. With the aid of Google, I found this penguin recipe page, but I think it’s a joke.
- For crying out loud. Is this the year of the freaking bear? The unstoppable bear PR machine is driving me nuts.
Further proof – Bears Hindering British Army – Kind of.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 03 25 at 11:34 PM • permalink
- #51
Have researchers/ice breakers noticed any change in the multi-year ice … wouldn’t that be a longer-term indicator?
Haven’t seen anything on the Net in that regard …Isn’t the Arctic ice sheet now reportedly 6 ft thick vs 10 feet … but is this AGW?
IIRC Earth’s magnetosphere’s polarity reversals are linked to Ice-age cycles: anyhthing on this in the IPCC (doubt it, it’s all AGW isn’t it?)?
Isn’t there some research indicating the magnetosphere field strength weakening (by @10%?) in the last few decades, but I’m sure that someone will link that to AGW, somehow?
- Last year, somebody in Alaska shot a bear that turned out to be a polar-grizzly hybrid. This is a National Geographic article about that bad boy, which to my surprise contains some refreshing “nope – glowball warming doesn’t have anything to do with it” quotes from a couple of different animal experts.
NG article, with a photo of the newly-deceased fur rug
Wikipedia page with photos of a stuffed specimen
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 26 at 12:12 AM • permalink
- Lethal Lee Matthews?Posted by Captain Wacky on 2007 03 26 at 12:51 AM • permalink
- #56 Blue State Sil
…which to my surprise contains some refreshing “nope – glowball warming doesn’t have anything to do with it” quotes from a couple of different animal experts.
Although your Wikipedia link does, which should surprise no one…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 26 at 01:21 AM • permalink
- Once more with feeling:
Your Wikipedia link does blame Gorebal Warmening, which should surprise no one . . .
Drat!
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 26 at 01:25 AM • permalink
- Imagine that some time this week, a climbing team in the Himalayas stumble into a previously-unknown cave. Looking around, they find a giant knob (not Gore!) with the legend on it (in Esperanto) Earth’s Thermostat. When they emerge and let everyone know, what do you think would happen?
The greens party would take control, based on a UN unanimous mandate?
The delegation of 20 people from the Maldives and Tuvalu would be given the responsibility of turning it down so that their islands would not be swamped by a one foot rise in sea-level?
Or would the major powers (Russia with millions in Siberia, US/Canada with many frozen citizens, China with a large part of the country suffering freezing conditions and Northern Europe which suffers every winter with zero growing conditions and high energy costs) fight for control of the magic knob?
Who do they really care about – Zimbabweans who have shown how to kill a country without the help of warming, or their own citizens suffering under extremely cold conditions. Even Australia would have to suffer for what many would see as the common good, as you can still mine a desert but you need temperate climate to grow food.
Yet, this is what the warmenators are talking about – grabbing control of the Earth’s thermostat, and affecting the beneficial results for much of the world of some warming to keep the broken (Africa, Central America, the Middle East) and the sparsely populated (Australasia/Polynesia/polar regions) from being warmed. All this with the destruction of the lifestyle for the many that have become accustomed to living in the first world.
Does this make any sense from the cost/benefit point of view?
- If Al Gore used that hoary old tale about the “boiling frog” which is too stupid/nerveless to jump out of a heating saucepan, it is yet another bullshit tale. see http://www.snopes.com
Like a fable, the “boiled frog” anecdote serves its purpose whether or not it’s based upon something that is literally true. But it is literally true? Not according to Dr. Victor Hutchison, a Research Professor Emeritus from the University of Oklahoma’s Department of Zoology, whose research interests include “the physiological ecology of thermal relations of amphibians and reptiles to include determinations of the factors which influence lethal temperatures, critical thermal maxima and minima, thermal selection, and thermoregulatory behavior”:
The legend is entirely incorrect! The ‘critical thermal maxima’ of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water. If the container size and opening allow the frog to jump out, it will do so.
- Slightly OT:
Mr Gore was in Toronto again this weekend to replay his gospel on global warming (he came here last month). And guess what.
As you well know, Spring season has finally come in these parts. March 21st was a glorious sunny day, so was the next day with forecasts all over the air waves that even warmer days are in the immediate future, i.e., weekend with double-digit temperatures. They were dead wrong. It’s closer to zero and it actually felt freezing last Saturday and Sunday. It’s now Monday morning and cold rain is falling. I never believed 100% in these forecasts but they could have been more accurate if they factored in the gore variable.
Sorry, no pictures this time. My excuse is that the rains don’t make good impressions on pictures.
- 46, 53. Whether I’d like to eat polar bear meat doesn’t seem important to me. I’m more worried about whether the bears would like to eat me …Posted by Chris Chittleborough on 2007 03 26 at 08:01 AM • permalink
- By the way – there’s a poll just out on the public’s view of Al Gore’s climate credentials.Posted by Jack Lacton on 2007 03 26 at 09:04 AM • permalink
- #68 That’s because most immigrants, e.g. Latinos, East and West Indians, are too spicy for the bears, Grimmy. Thus the preference for going after Aussie journalists instead.
And #10 & #72: Al must have finally left Toronto as the weather has improved noticeably since about 13:30 hours.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 26 at 04:02 PM • permalink
- #70, Skeeter:
That’s because of where the polar bears are located. By the time folk get to where the polar bears are, it’s so damn cold, all the folk can do is stand around and gripe about how miserable they are from the cold.
That tends to kick the playfulness right out of them.
Some get so desperate for relief from the cold that they’ll offer themselves up to the polar bears as a meal in the mistaken assumption that being inside the bear is more comfortable than being outside the bear.
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