The Polar Bear Paradox

With the last posting on global warming ending with a note about public school teachers frightening little children with tales of cute polar bears dying because of global warming, it seemed appropriate to draw your attention to the plight of the global warming mascot. Not only are they supposedly dying from a loss of habitat, but as you’ll see, they are being killed by the native Inuit.

This piece, from the Business and Media Institute, addresses some of the media’s obsession with the polar bear. Be sure to click on the GMA link within the story. It is great fodder for discussion. What do you think?

Curbing Global Warming ... To Hunt Polar Bears
Now we must save the polar bear – so that we can kill it?

In the October 1 Time Magazine – an issue that is dedicated to “who owns the Arctic” – Managing Editor Richard Stengel compares two Arctic regions that have been affected by the warmer swing in temperatures in the northern regions of Norway and Canada.

Stengel reported on two different Arctic attitudes based on what two Time reporters are telling him. In Norway, the people are “delighted” because they are now able to harvest natural gas reserves. But people in Canada’s Nunavut territory are “not so sanguine.”

“In Resolute [in Nunavut territory], the native Inuit are not so sanguine about the benefits of balmy weather,” wrote Stengel. “One man invited [James] Graff [London-based senior editor of Time] to watch a videotape of his 16-year-old daughter killing her first polar bear, a rite of passage that is under threat as the melting ice reduces the bear population. For the Inuit, says Graff, ‘the idea that a warmer Arctic would be an easy place to live would occur only to someone from the South.’”

So, are we supposed to be saving the polar bear or hunting it?

Saving the lives of polar bears has been one of the focuses of global warming alarmism hysteria. On the September 18 “Good Morning America,” ABC’s global warming reporter Bill Blakemore stressed how important it was for the polar bear’s habitat that we curb greenhouse gas emissions.

If the polar bears are struggling because of global warming, they’re certainly not showing it according to at least one report. A study reported in the September 3 Telegraph (U.K.) showed the polar bears are thriving.

“There aren't just a few more bears,” said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals, to the Telegraph. “There are a hell of a lot more bears.”