For more than three decades, scientists have been warning that climate change could drive polar bear populations extinct. That message infiltrated the public psyche, perhaps more than any other about the scourge of global warming. . . .
Now, research in the journal Scientific Reports adds yet another wrinkle of hope for the species. The study, an analysis of hundreds of polar bears in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, found that declining sea ice is not causing polar bears to starve. They actually appeared healthier in the last two decades of the analysis, from 2000 to 2019. The overall population, meanwhile, is either stable or growing, according to Jon Aars, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute.
“I was surprised,” Aars told Vox from Svalbard. “I would have predicted that body condition would decline. We see the opposite.”
Mother Nature designed creatures, individual & species for survival by mandating the "Survival of the Fittest" rule. Incidentally, although most deny it, despite a very thin veneer of human created "civility" that rule applies to us creatures as well.
ReplyDeleteThe other aspect of this that is hard to pick out of this text is that polar bear populations have been doing better throughout the global warming fad. They've been predicting polar bear populations would collapse since the warming idea started and every measurement echoes that last line from Jon Ars. “I would have predicted that body condition would decline. We see the opposite.”
ReplyDeleteNor do global warming alarmists ever mention the scary increase in temperatures they scream about are in reference to the 1800s Little Ice Age, which works out to be one of the coldest points in the last half billion years.
It's a wonder people still fall for that stuff.