Scientists Find No Evidence Polar Bears Are Undergoing A ‘Climate Crisis’

A new study by Canadian scientists once again debunks the notion polar bears are currently being harmed by global warming. Researchers with Canada’s Lakehead University found “no evidence” polar bears are currently threatened by warming. “We see reason for concern, but find no reliable evidence to support the contention that polar bears are currently experiencing a climate crisis,” Canadian scientists wrote in their study, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. Scientists looked at 13 polar bear subpopulations and found “much of the scientific evidence indicating that some polar bear subpopulations are declining due to climate change-mediated sea ice reductions is likely flawed by poor mark–recapture sampling.” This means researchers aren’t able to put together accurate “demographic parameters.” Polar bears became the poster child for environmentalists who argued melting Arctic sea ice could kill thousands of bears that would have nowhere to rest while hunting in the summer months. Former Vice President Al Gore even featured polar bears swimming for their lives in his 2006 film on global warming.  Scientists, however, have increasingly been questioning alarmists, like Gore, and the U.S. government for listing the bears under the ESA. For starters, there are way more polar bears alive today than 40 years ago. In fact, polar bears have likely survived past ice-free periods in the Arctic. Scientists recently found there’s no evidence of marine life extinctions in the Arctic in the past 1.5 million years, despite the Arctic going through periods of prolonged periods with no summer ice cover. What’s more interesting is that periods in the Arctic when sea ice was exceptionally thick, polar bears and other Arctic animals had the hardest time surviving...more