Scientist confesses he made up polar bear population estimates..

a reply to: 727Sky

Estimating populations of any wild species is difficult and involves some level of guesswork and utilization of obtained data for areas that may pose significant difficulties in obtaining information. Those are issues with wild population counts that exist in typical natural environments. You're looking at the arctic where it is largely unpopulated, vast, and an extremely hostile to life environment for humans. Anybody who thinks that they can go out into nature and request all members of a wild species to line up for counting is not thinking very rationally.

A case in point to this would be the case of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. This woodpecker, an inhabitant of comparably (and extraordinarily) mild Arkansas, was actually considered to be extinct as it hadn't been seen in decades. It wasn't until 2005 that proof was found to show that the species was still alive. That's Arkansas...now look at the environment of the Arctic and tell me again how they are supposed to know exact numbers.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Any wild population count is likely to have a higher degree of error. Anyone who works in the field is aware of that and all estimates may be either low or high, depending on the researcher and their estimations based on observable data.

a reply to: Phage

The possibility for profit of a speculative carbon market funded by tax dollars from every country in the world is beyond trillions of dollars a year. It reaches a new numerical value that boggles the mind.

Also we are losing control of the petrol dollar. More reason to outlaw the use of fossil fuels.

Its as much motivated by profit as it is politically charged and as such is priceless to our hegemony as a way to curb the development of our political enemies while essentially destroying the middle class at home whose wealth will be increasingly equal to the upper echelon in years to come as the concentration of wealth shifts from the west almost entirely to a more favorable percentage in developing nations.

Oil is the simple answer. Nothing is ever so simple.

a reply to: tadaman

Oil is the simple answer. Nothing is ever so simple.

Right. There is also coal.

I didn't think they were dying out.

All the adverts made me do was question how a piece of ice can hold the polar bear up whilst floating.

I know their terrain will eventually become inhabitable for them. But in terms of numbers, I wasn't aware they were on the brink of extinction. Turns out I was right in not knowing.

I hate humans. We're so corrupt.

a reply to: Phage

Coal is still a form of energy that is not concentrated exclusively in areas of influence that we can guarantee will remain under our control.

The center of control and regulation for global warming will be in the UN and NATO centric nations. Developing nations will not be able to exploit ANY of their local resources without asking for permission from the west.

In essence oil and natural fuels will be heavily regulated making their use illegal unless the west sends big business to do so for developing nations on their behalf.

A second wall street type casino market also centered in our financial institutions will be another point of control.

Who assigns carbon points to he world? The very nations who will be home to the economic centers that will regulate and sanction those who go beyond their allotted points.

Its much more profitable than asking the ME to continue playing ball.

a reply to: tadaman

Who assigns carbon points to he world?

Good question. The US isn't really interested. That's why we walked on Kyoto, it put too much of a burden on the US.

originally posted by: Phage

I posted the links, what I was showing in the items stated as extracts was relevant to what I was saying in the first instance, that still stands. What do you want, blood?

originally posted by: tadaman
a reply to: Phage

The possibility for profit of a speculative carbon market funded by tax dollars from every country in the world is beyond trillions of dollars a year. It reaches a new numerical value that boggles the mind.

Also we are losing control of the petrol dollar. More reason to outlaw the use of fossil fuels.

Its as much motivated by profit as it is politically charged and as such is priceless to our hegemony as a way to curb the development of our political enemies while essentially destroying the middle class at home whose wealth will be increasingly equal to the upper echelon in years to come as the concentration of wealth shifts from the west almost entirely to a more favorable percentage in developing nations.

Oil is the simple answer. Nothing is ever so simple.

Oil, the only thing that matters. From April 2013, Greenpeace protesters:
www.greenpeace.org...

9.30 a.m. the bears chained themselves to oil barrels branded Statoil and Rosneft and unfolded banners: “Arctic worth more than oil” and “We are hostages of your greed”. They were drumming on barrels demanding that Statoil should keep away from their home.

”Statoil’s plan to extract oil at 78 degrees north latitude in the ice-covered Barents Sea is a perfect example of double standards. Drilling in ice-covered waters is not allowed in Norway for safety reasons. It’s remarkable also considering that Statoil postponed indefinitely drilling offshore in Alaska realizing that US regulations are really strict. The company hopes to replenish oil resources in countries like Russia, where it can save money because of poor regulations. Moreover, to do this it partners with Rosneft, the company that is vying for a Guinness World Record with over 10 000 oil spills each year”, says Evgenia Belyakova.

Oil takes priority and over-rides all else.

originally posted by: yorkshirelad
So the world isn't warming ? Glaciers are not retreating ? Flora and fauna are not advancing towards the poles ?

A big fat lying statistic, is this what you are stating ?

I think it's the way things are presented to Joe public is more the issue, which is the case in point here. If you read the footnote which will be in the 'next' report, you can see that it is less than a 'qualified guess' since they admit to including out of date figures. I don't know if they make that a footnote in every report, but I guess not.

“As part of past status reports, the PBSG has traditionally estimated a range for the total number of polar bears in the circumpolar Arctic. Since 2005, this range has been 20-25,000. It is important to realize that this range never has been an estimate of total abundance in a scientific sense, but simply a qualified guess given to satisfy public demand. It is also important to note that even though we have scientifically valid estimates for a majority of the subpopulations, some are dated. Furthermore, there are no abundance estimates for the Arctic Basin, East Greenland, and the Russian subpopulations.Consequently, there is either no, or only rudimentary, knowledge to support guesses about the possible abundance of polar bears in approximately half the areas they occupy. Thus, the range given for total global population should be viewed with great caution as it cannot be used to assess population trend over the long term.”

You see, it is like media using pathos when they do these reports on the bears as 'endangered species', while the report on oil drilling permissions will be stuck in somewhere else. It's more likely the bears will get picked off by oil spills, than global warming.

This is a repost for a reply to Yorshirelad, hopefully correctly sectioned this time.

a reply to: 727Sky

I learnt about certain ways populations are estimated, and yes there is no perfect way to count a population. So it's possible one group of scientists could make on estimate and another could make a different one