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Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

news.nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#11

Post by eemax »

Individual animals in the wild die cruel, slow, painful deaths all the time, regardless of whether their species as a whole is thriving or not.

So while this video might evoke a strong emotional response, it is just an anecdote and not actually evidence one way or the other for human-caused climate change.

Of course, human-caused climate change is obviously real, but it's not OK to use bad arguments even if your conclusion is correct.

EDIT: To clarify further, I am not disputing that polar bears are not being harmed by climate change, or even that the particular bear in the video is not starving because of climate change. I am merely pointing out that one could produce a video of a starving polar bear both in our world and in the world where climate change is not happening, because wild animals starve all the time.

Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#12

Post by ant6n »

brakmic wrote: post #8
000000000000001 wrote: post #5

The changing climate conditions are going to wreak havoc on countless species in the coming century. The only question is would we be ready when things start rolling faster than we could control?

If the richest and most powerful countries say "there is no climate change" and "others want to destroy our economy", then the answer is a pessimistic one. The same applies to countries that say "yes, there is a climate change and we must do something", but in the end avoid doing anything to unwind the death spiral.

Most rich countries acknowledge climate change and try to come up with solutions. The big outlier is the US.

Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#15

Post by ant6n »

eemax wrote: post #11

Individual animals in the wild die cruel, slow, painful deaths all the time, regardless of whether their species as a whole is thriving or not. So while this video might evoke a strong emotional response, it is just an anecdote and not actually evidence one way or the other for human-caused climate change. Of course, human-caused climate change is obviously real, but it's not OK to use bad arguments even if your conc…

> I am merely pointing out that one could produce a video of a starving polar bear both in our world and in the world where climate change is not happening, because wild animals starve all the time.

Good thing most people already know we don't live in the world where climate change is not happening, so this doesn't need to act as proof of it happening, but rather as an individual example of what is happening all over.

Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#16

Post by pbhjpbhj »

PostOnce wrote: post #10
tim333 wrote: post #3

While it's sad that the bear died it's a bit of a jump to link it to global warming.

The article is mostly about global warming and contains a wealth of citations / references / relevant links. They provided their evidence as to why it's not a jump to link it to global warming -- where is your evidence that it is, in fact, a jump?

The polar bear situation really doesn't look like good evidence to me, they state the bear's lameness is assumed to be due to starvation-based atrophy but it seems as likely that this is just an injured bear that can't hunt effectively.

I'm certainly not denying climate change is wiping out polar bears, just that this shows good evidence of that.

The article states bears starve through summer until sea ice forms on which they catch seals .. but the image is from Summer, when the sea ice presumably is yet to form. I guess it could be cumulative from the previous Summer being too warm; again it's not good, clear evidence as it's presented.

Could someone answer where the seals go? I'd have expected if they weren't resting/mating on sea-ice that they'd rest on land and actually be easier to catch? Do they instead stay at sea?

Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#17

Post by perbu »

sparkzilla wrote: post #14

Polar Bear populations are not declining. Also, the plural of anecdote is not data. https://polarbearscience.com/2017/02/15/baffin-bay-and-kane-...

Observed polar bear populations are not declining. However, since there is far less ice the polar bear are much easier to find these days, making the counts go up, rather than down. This has been the case in Svalbard, at least.

Re: Video Shows Starving Polar Bear on Iceless Land

#18

Post by eemax »

ant6n wrote: post #15
eemax wrote: post #11

Individual animals in the wild die cruel, slow, painful deaths all the time, regardless of whether their species as a whole is thriving or not. So while this video might evoke a strong emotional response, it is just an anecdote and not actually evidence one way or the other for human-caused climate change. Of course, human-caused climate change is obviously real, but it's not OK to use bad arguments even if your conc…

> I am merely pointing out that one could produce a video of a starving polar bear both in our world and in the world where climate change is not happening, because wild animals starve all the time. Good thing most people already know we don't live in the world where climate change is not happening, so this doesn't need to act as proof of it happening, but rather as an individual example of what is happening all over…

Yes, this is probably effective propaganda, and moreover, propaganda for a just cause.

Nonetheless it is not evidence for climate change, and moreover it is not even necessarily an example of the effects of climate change - even we 100% fix climate change, there will still be plenty of starving wild animals available for sad videos.

The actual way to ensure there are no starving wild animals is to exterminate them in the wild. But that's probably not a good idea.

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