One wonders how they survived the last 25,000 years. I’m talking about bears, polar bears, specifically. Or more so, survived the last 300,000-500,000 years. What with climate change and all that. The last 25,000 have been especially cruel: lots of warming interrupted by the cooling periods like the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age.
Polar bears are supposedly not long for this world, at least according to a report from CBS. They’re going to succumb to a glacier-free world. Surprising, I’d say, because polar bears don’t live on glaciers of which there are two kinds: 1) Continental, a category that includes ice sheets, ice caps, and ice fields like those of Greenland and Antarctica and 2). Alpine, also called valley and mountain glaciers.
No, polar bears aren’t in danger because of retreating glaciers. They roam sea ice, tundra and taiga in some 19 subpopulations. They should not be affected by the comings and goings of glaciers. If the diminution of glaciers were an extinction event for polar bears, the species would probably not still exist in their current numbers.
But this isn’t a blog about polar bears; it is, rather a note about the laziness of reporters—and their gullibility. CBS has, it seems, bought into the extinction of polar bears hook, line, and Nunavik harpoon. That CBS would throw up a video on the demise of polar bears that associates them with glaciers reveals a laziness: How long would a brief perusal of polar bear literature take? And then there’s the just plain ignorance revealed in the report.
The polar bear is classified as Ursus maritimus. See the cognate? Yes, “maritime.” Yes, polar bears are classified as an oceanic species, not as hard land sheet glacier or mountain glacier dwellers. They do hunt on sea ice, but not all year, and as human victims of polar bears can attest, in addition to purely marine environments, they also hunt in shrubland, forest, grassland, marine coastal/supratidal, and marine intertidal environments, so all apply as the habitats of polar bears.
So why the CBS interest in polar bears? Well maybe some young editor or reporter who grew up when children were making posters and wearing t-shirts with pictures of polar bears said, “Hey, let’s do a story on….” After all, it’s been awhile since the world’s children were conned into believing pictures and a National Geographic video of emaciated polar bears indicated the status quo of all polar bears was dire. The video was seen 2.5 billion times, too many for National Geographic’s subsequent apology for misleading the public to counter the belief the video generated. Goodness! Even the supposed site (Baffin Island) where the videographer shot his film was a lie (it was Somerset Island in the Canadian Arctic).
And that sea ice?
Well currently there’s a patch of sea water around Nova Scotia that has less ice this January (2025, see image) than it has had during some years. But there’s no way to predict that the same area will be ice free next year, in 2050, or in 5025. Was the same area ice free when Erik the Red, founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland (Grœnland)? Was it open water when his son Leif “The Lucky” Erikson and company explored Vinland during the Medieval Warm Period? If so, what happened?…Oh! Yeah, the Little Ice Age that followed the Medieval Warm Period. And today? Could a repeat of the Maunder Minimum (Sun spots) throw the Arctic into another super freeze?
But why ask CBS, once home of venerable Walter Cronkite, to fact check? Isn’t it too busy fact-checking Donald Trump to fact-check its own reporters and editors? Doesn’t CBS have an obvious culture-driven agenda?
Journalism Schools
What do journalism schools teach other than obedience to causes célèbres pushed by entrenched vocal groups or political parties? For US undergraduate journalism students that means mostly following assumptions and goals of the Left and the Democrat party—as evidenced by the number of politicians who have been reeled into climate frenzy by hook, line, and Nunavik harpoon.
Is any of this worth talking about? After all, how many will see the CBS report? And isn’t the world already convinced that polar bears are headed for extinction? Those kids wearing “Save the Polar Bears” t-shirts are young adults now, pretty much with fixed assumptions and ready to spend a trillion of their future dollars on the Green New Deal, risking their supply of cheap and abundant energy.
I’ll bet that CBS and other news outlets will continue to prophesy the demise of polar bears even as some of their subpopulations proliferate. It’s the message that matters; not the facts. They’ll repeat Al Gore, who said, “The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our very eyes. It's been the size of the continental United States for the last 3 million years and now 40 percent is gone and the rest of it is going.” “Entire,” mind you, “entire.” That “40%”? You be the judge: look at the map. Hey, I said, “LOOK AT THE MAP.”
And those journalism schools? I say revise the curricula. Make all journalism students take at least two courses in biology (one in genetics), two in earth science (one in climatology/paleoclimatology), and two in history (one in 20th century history). Require them to take historical geology, physics, statistics, and geography. And, of course, require them to take a course in logic. Skip the sociology course and replace it human geography.
The result of the curriculum change will be fewer agenda-driven journalists and more inquisitive journalists with no skin in the game of reporting. We’ll get more truth and less official narrative.
If the polar bears are (THEY AREN’T) headed for extinction, they’ll be late goers to termination. Journalism has already died.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/polar-bears-increasingly-under-threat-as-glaciers-melt-faster-than-ever/
Polar bears are supposedly not long for this world, at least according to a report from CBS. They’re going to succumb to a glacier-free world. Surprising, I’d say, because polar bears don’t live on glaciers of which there are two kinds: 1) Continental, a category that includes ice sheets, ice caps, and ice fields like those of Greenland and Antarctica and 2). Alpine, also called valley and mountain glaciers.
No, polar bears aren’t in danger because of retreating glaciers. They roam sea ice, tundra and taiga in some 19 subpopulations. They should not be affected by the comings and goings of glaciers. If the diminution of glaciers were an extinction event for polar bears, the species would probably not still exist in their current numbers.
But this isn’t a blog about polar bears; it is, rather a note about the laziness of reporters—and their gullibility. CBS has, it seems, bought into the extinction of polar bears hook, line, and Nunavik harpoon. That CBS would throw up a video on the demise of polar bears that associates them with glaciers reveals a laziness: How long would a brief perusal of polar bear literature take? And then there’s the just plain ignorance revealed in the report.
The polar bear is classified as Ursus maritimus. See the cognate? Yes, “maritime.” Yes, polar bears are classified as an oceanic species, not as hard land sheet glacier or mountain glacier dwellers. They do hunt on sea ice, but not all year, and as human victims of polar bears can attest, in addition to purely marine environments, they also hunt in shrubland, forest, grassland, marine coastal/supratidal, and marine intertidal environments, so all apply as the habitats of polar bears.
So why the CBS interest in polar bears? Well maybe some young editor or reporter who grew up when children were making posters and wearing t-shirts with pictures of polar bears said, “Hey, let’s do a story on….” After all, it’s been awhile since the world’s children were conned into believing pictures and a National Geographic video of emaciated polar bears indicated the status quo of all polar bears was dire. The video was seen 2.5 billion times, too many for National Geographic’s subsequent apology for misleading the public to counter the belief the video generated. Goodness! Even the supposed site (Baffin Island) where the videographer shot his film was a lie (it was Somerset Island in the Canadian Arctic).
And that sea ice?
Well currently there’s a patch of sea water around Nova Scotia that has less ice this January (2025, see image) than it has had during some years. But there’s no way to predict that the same area will be ice free next year, in 2050, or in 5025. Was the same area ice free when Erik the Red, founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland (Grœnland)? Was it open water when his son Leif “The Lucky” Erikson and company explored Vinland during the Medieval Warm Period? If so, what happened?…Oh! Yeah, the Little Ice Age that followed the Medieval Warm Period. And today? Could a repeat of the Maunder Minimum (Sun spots) throw the Arctic into another super freeze?
But why ask CBS, once home of venerable Walter Cronkite, to fact check? Isn’t it too busy fact-checking Donald Trump to fact-check its own reporters and editors? Doesn’t CBS have an obvious culture-driven agenda?
Journalism Schools
What do journalism schools teach other than obedience to causes célèbres pushed by entrenched vocal groups or political parties? For US undergraduate journalism students that means mostly following assumptions and goals of the Left and the Democrat party—as evidenced by the number of politicians who have been reeled into climate frenzy by hook, line, and Nunavik harpoon.
Is any of this worth talking about? After all, how many will see the CBS report? And isn’t the world already convinced that polar bears are headed for extinction? Those kids wearing “Save the Polar Bears” t-shirts are young adults now, pretty much with fixed assumptions and ready to spend a trillion of their future dollars on the Green New Deal, risking their supply of cheap and abundant energy.
I’ll bet that CBS and other news outlets will continue to prophesy the demise of polar bears even as some of their subpopulations proliferate. It’s the message that matters; not the facts. They’ll repeat Al Gore, who said, “The entire North Polar ice cap is disappearing before our very eyes. It's been the size of the continental United States for the last 3 million years and now 40 percent is gone and the rest of it is going.” “Entire,” mind you, “entire.” That “40%”? You be the judge: look at the map. Hey, I said, “LOOK AT THE MAP.”
And those journalism schools? I say revise the curricula. Make all journalism students take at least two courses in biology (one in genetics), two in earth science (one in climatology/paleoclimatology), and two in history (one in 20th century history). Require them to take historical geology, physics, statistics, and geography. And, of course, require them to take a course in logic. Skip the sociology course and replace it human geography.
The result of the curriculum change will be fewer agenda-driven journalists and more inquisitive journalists with no skin in the game of reporting. We’ll get more truth and less official narrative.
If the polar bears are (THEY AREN’T) headed for extinction, they’ll be late goers to termination. Journalism has already died.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/polar-bears-increasingly-under-threat-as-glaciers-melt-faster-than-ever/
RSS Feed