Andrew Wetzler's Blog
Apples and Orange Groves
February 16, 2008
Posted by Andrew Wetzler in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
I normally don't respond to every argument by folks who oppose protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act because, well, it's just not worth the bother. But this bit of idiocy in the Miami Herald just cries out for a response. It's not that Ben Lieberman makes any new or particularly interesting arguments--he doesn't--it's that one of his arguments gets repeated far too often. Lieberman says of protecting the polar bear:
It might make sense -- if the polar bear were endangered. But the worldwide population of these bears has more than doubled since 1965, to an estimated 20,000-25,000 today. Far from being threatened, by all accounts the bears are thriving.
Now it is true that the worldwide population of polar bear has increased since 1965, from what was once thought to be about 5,000 or 6,000 bears to 20,000 - 25,000 today. But, as I previously explained in another post, polar bear populations have increased because we stopped killing them. In the 1950s and 60s there simply were no controls on the harvest of polar bears. Today, Norway and Russia prohibit polar bear hunting entirely (although poaching still remains a concern) and hunting in the United States is strictly limited to subsistence purposes. Canada has also significantly reduced harvest levels, although some populations are still being culled at an unsustainable rate.
Now, you may well be asking yourself, what does this have to do with the threat to polar bears from global warming? Not a thing. The increase in polar bear population numbers in the last few decades is simply irrelevant to whether or not polar bears are imperiled by rising temperatures in the Arctic, which are literally melting away the habitat (frozen sea ice) on which they depend. Why doesn't Lieberman want to talk about that evidence? Well, probably because the evidence of retreating of sea ice and its affect on polar bears is so strong.
As Dr. Andrew Derocher, one of the world's leading experts in polar bears and Chairman of the Polar Bear Specialists Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature puts it "Comparing declines caused by harvest followed by recovery from harvest controls to declines from loss of habitat and climate warming are apples and oranges. Ignorant people write ignorant things."
(bookmark or email this entry)
Comments are closed for this post.
- Andrew Wetzler
- Director, Endangered Species Project
- Chicago
- I grew up in New York City but spent my summers canoeing and hiking in...
- more→
Comments
John Platt — Feb 19 2008 01:19 PM
What's that old saw? "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics?"
Lieberman works for The Heritage Foundation, which is about as far right as they come. And look at his bio: "A specialist in energy and environmental issues, Lieberman has been a strong advocate for free-market solutions in response to rising energy prices. He opposes unnecessary energy regulation and government mandates while supporting increased access to domestic energy supplies." This is a man who supports profits over everything else, and uses statistics full of half-truths to sell his points.
Andrew Wetzler — Feb 19 2008 02:06 PM
Unfortunately, Lieberman's column was pretty widely printed. I've seen it also pop up in Hartford, Colorado, and a few other regional newspapers.
David McFadden — Feb 19 2008 09:47 PM
I am interested in knowing if anyone has ever considered geothermal heat as a cause of melting ice sheets. This makes much more sense, to me, than a 1 degree change in the atmosphere. For instance, if the average temperature is a -20 degrees in a polar region how could ice melt so dramatically if the average temperature rises to -19 degrees?
In our northern communities (U.S.) many homes and businesses have electrical wires in the driveways and walkways that warms the ground to melt ice. Warming the ground in this manner quickly removes the ice and snow.
Geothermal activity would explain the spotty and unexplainable melting of glaciers in some regions and not others.
Science should be science and not a political football. I want the air to be clean and breathable as much as anyone. I appreciate the work that has been accomplished in the last 30 years. But I don’t appreciate that true science has been seemingly high-jacked for personal gain or to advance a particular agenda.
I truly would like to hear of research that has exhausted every possibility of geothermal activity being a source that is contributing to melting ice and changing habitats.
Steve Sheridan — Feb 23 2008 01:54 PM
I am astonded that the widely debunked polar bear argment is still ongoing. I have no idea where you get your info, but Canada recently released a study of its polar bear population, noting a 250% increase in population since the mid 1980s.
Andrew Wetzler — Feb 23 2008 02:06 PM
I'm not sure what study you're referring to Steve--I suspect it's some unpublished data concerning the Davis Straight sub-population of polar bears (only one of several in Canada). Canada actually has 13 polar bear sub-populations. In 2005, a group of scientists and managers from five Arctic nations with polar bears unanimously concluded that 2 of these sub-populations were depleted, 5 were declining, and the rest were stable with only one reported as increasing. Check out this article: Aars, J., N. J. Lunn and A. E. Derocher (Eds). 2005. Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 14th working meeting of the IUCN/SSC polar bear specialist group, 20-24 June 2005, Seattle, Washington. (it can be found here: http://pbsg.npolar.no/)