From Polar Bear Science

Susan Crockford

Money quote from Bjorn Lomborg’s response to being ‘fact-checked’ on polar bear numbers, Wall Street Journal, 26 January 2023:

“It does more good for polar bears, and the rest of us, if those trying to help them use accurate facts.”

Lomborg responds himself after I challenged the ‘fact-checkers’ last week:

Relying on the data I referenced used to be uncontroversial. When a CNN science journalist did an investigation similar to AFP’s in 2008, he spoke to numerous scientists and they agreed “that polar bear populations have, in all likelihood, increased in the past several decades.” When polar bears in 2008 were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the decision noted that the population “has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960’s to a current worldwide estimate of 20,000-25,000.” The data here haven’t changed, only the media’s willingness to disregard annoying facts.

The result is that the public is denied access to accurate data and open debate about these very important topics. Ridiculous points on one side are left standing while so-called fact-checking censors inconvenient truths. If we’re to make good climate policy, voters need a full picture of the facts. Lomborg 2023, backup link

I would add this fact: in 1982, polar bears were listed by the IUCN as ‘vulnerable’ but by 1996, that had changed to ‘lower risk/conservation dependent’–now called ‘least concern‘ (see screencap below) because population numbers had rebounded after more than 20 years of international protection from over-hunting. The reversion to ‘vulnerable’ in 2006 was based entirely on predictions that population numbers would decline in the future due to see ice loss, which so far has not happened (Crockford 2017, 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018).

References

.Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open access. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/

Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. Global Warming Policy Foundation, London. Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Crockford, S.J. and Geist, V. 2018. Conservation Fiasco. Range Magazine, Winter 2017/2018, pg. 26-27. Pdf here.

Essay by Eric Worrall

An example greens want demonitised: “Wind Turbines Not Only Shred Birds But Are Piling Up In Landfills“.

Google let Daily Wire advertise on ‘climate change is a hoax’ searches

Exclusive: Data shared by Center for Countering Digital Hate shows Ben Shapiro’s site bought ads on climate crisis denial search terms

Geoff Dembicki in New York
@GeoffDembicki Fri 27 Jan 2023 22.00 AEDT

A media outlet founded by conservative influencer Ben Shapiro paid Googleto advertise on search pages questioning whether the climate crisis is real, according to new research from a disinformation watchdog group.

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“Google’s hypocrisy knows no bounds,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the US and UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, which provided its research exclusively to the Guardian. “They’re actually selling the right to climate deniers to spread disinformation.”

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Last July, the Daily Wire paid Google to promote its story “Wind Turbines Not Only Shred Birds But Are Piling Up In Landfills” anytime someone searched “the real truth about wind turbines”.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/27/daily-wire-google-ads-climate-crisis-deniers

The full video of that poor eagle;

It is not difficult to find videos of turbines smashing birds, or horrible stories – like this story of a rare bird which returned to the UK after 22 years without a sighting, only to be killed shortly after arrival in front of 40 bird watchers.

Birdwatchers see rare bird killed by wind turbine

A travelling group of bird watchers witnessed a rare bird die after flying into a community wind turbine.

By ALISTAIR MUNRO
27th Jun 2013, 4:29pm

The White-throated Needletail – the world’s fastest flying bird – was thousand of miles off course after turning up at Tarbert on the Isle of Harris.

It was first spotted by two bird spotters from Northumberland on Monday.

There has not been a sighting of the species in Britain since 1991 when a single bird was seen four times – in Kent, Staffordshire, Derbyshire and finally Shetland.

Now 22 years later another White-throated Needletail turned up in the UK.

But after over 80 twitches flocked to Harris – with scores more on their way – the bird flew into a wind turbine at Tarbert, watched by about 40 people.

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Read more: https://www.scotsman.com/news/weather/birdwatchers-see-rare-bird-killed-wind-turbine-1569849

Bear in mind people have to be in exactly the right place at the right time to see such tragedies, so it stands to reason stories of people witnessing death by wind turbine must represent only a small fraction of the total death toll.

The problem is worse than videos and anecdotal stories of tragic individual deaths. The following is a US Geological Survey scientist discussing the potential death of hundreds of thousands of bats every year. The author Paul Cryan is a US Government Research Biologist at the Fort Collins Science Center.

WIND TURBINES AS LANDSCAPE IMPEDIMENTS TO THE MIGRATORY CONNECTIVITY OF BATS

BY
PAUL M. CRYAN∗

Unprecedented numbers of migratory bats are found dead beneath industrial-scale wind turbines during late summer and autumn in both North America and Europe. Prior to the wide-scale deployment of wind turbines, fatal collisions of migratory bats with anthropogenic structures were rarely reported and likely occurred very infrequently. There are no other well-documented threats to populations of migratory tree bats that cause mortality of similar magnitude to that observed at wind turbines. Just three migratory species comprise the vast majority of bat kills at turbines in North America and there are indications that turbines may actually attract migrating individuals toward their blades. Although fatality of certain migratory species is consistent in occurrence across large geographic regions, fatality rates differ across sites for reasons mostly unknown. Cumulative fatality for turbines in North America might already range into the hundreds of thousands of bats per year. Research into the causes of bat fatalities at wind turbines can ascertain the scale of the problem and help identify solutions. None of the migratory bats known to be most affected by wind turbines are protected by conservation laws, nor is there a legal mandate driving research into the problem or implementation of potential solutions.

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Read more: https://docs.wind-watch.org/cryan-wind-turbines-migratory-bats.pdf

There is no known way to deter eagles from approaching wind turbines.

As an amateur pilot I’ve had to change course to avoid eagles many times on takeoff or landing, or even occasionally when cruising thousands of feet above the ground. Not once have I ever seen an eagle attempt to evade my airplane, when the eagle is in the air.

Many species such as Ibises do take evasive action when confronted by something flying towards them, though they don’t always take the right evasive action. But eagles are the top of the food chain. Millions of years of evolution has taught eagles that they have nothing to fear when they are in the air. From what I have personally witnessed, I am firmly convinced Eagles are incapable of learning to avoid wind turbines, their brains are simply incapable of perceiving the wind turbine as a threat.

Is renewable energy worth mass deaths of protected birds, and the potential destruction of entire species?

That is not my decision to make, but it is a conversation society should be allowed to have, via an unfettered and open exchange of ideas.

Attempts by greens to suppress, demonetise or otherwise impede legitimate conversations about climate change and government policy responses, in my opinion are nothing short of a brazen attack on freedom and democracy, and should be treated with the utter contempt they deserve.