NYTimes Uses Polar Bear Knut to Push Discredited Global Warming Threat
By Clay Waters | January 06, 2012 | 13:24
New York Times reporter Nicholas Kulish filed a light story from Berlin Friday on tributes to Knut, the cute, internationally famous polar bear who died last year: “In Death as in Life, Knut the Polar Bear Demands Attention.” But Kulish also included some of Al Gore’s guff about global warming driving polar bears into extinction that made good picturesbut were evetually shown to be without factual basis.
Whether one bear needs three memorials in a single city is debatable. For Knut the polar bear, that unusual, some might be tempted to say excessive, distinction is on the verge of becoming a reality.
Last month, fans unveiled a white marble marker for the fifth birthday of the world-famous cub at a graveyard in the far western neighborhood of Spandau. At the Natural History Museum in central Berlin, officials say plans are proceeding to mount an exhibit in Knut’s honor, with his stuffed remains as the centerpiece, despite controversy. And the Berlin Zoo plans to dedicate a bronze statue in March on the first anniversary of his death.
....
Knut arrived on the scene at a moment when global warming was a growing topic, born the same year that the climate-change film “An Inconvenient Truth,” starring Al Gore, was released. The bear’s personal peril seemed to reflect that of his species. Knut’s brother died after they were abandoned, but the future star was saved by Mr. Dörflein, who moved into the zoo temporarily to care for him.
Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” claim that polar bears were drowning in the Arctic because of melting ice packs has since been discredited.
- Clay Waters's blog
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Comments
⇒ How hateful!
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 1:32pm.
Don't they know Knut committed suicide because he longed for his little ice cube up north?
I wonder who hid the note.
Just looking for a kiss.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 1:36pm.
Knut, the cute, internationally famous polar bear
A fellow Democrat when Reagan was one.
Of course, it makes sense
Submitted by jon_torlin on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 1:40pm.
They, being liberals, continue to pursue an agenda that's based on falsehoods, but as it was recently discovered, liberals have some brain damage that make them what they are. It's only fitting as Knut was also brain damaged(after an autopsy discovered this) which was the reason why the mother abandoned him in the first place.
But instead, rather than following their idol's stance on "Natural Selection," they defy it and allow the seemingly cute little cub to live.
This is just one example when liberals will try to go against real Nature and wind up looking like fools for it.
-Jon
I'm sure Al Gore will be stuffed and mounted one day, too.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 1:47pm.
"What's that thing, Mommy?"
"That's a ManBearPig, dear. The only one ever found."
Al Gore is a super dork
Submitted by upcountrywater on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 2:00pm.
Who are those guys?
A fellow Democrat when Reagan was one.
Just what you want to see
Submitted by CO2Maker on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 3:29pm.
A stuffed sex poodle trying to mount and stuff a masseuse. Call John the pony boy Edwards and get the name of a real hunter.
Saw this ridiculous piece on Yahoo the other day
Submitted by bkeyser on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 2:18pm.
on global warming:
Are sharks interbreeding to survive climate change?
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – Wed, Jan 4, 2012
The gist of the piece was that researchers in Australia (real AGW nuts down under) found breeding was occurring between two similar, but different shark species in the Coral Sea, which they assume was a reaction to warmer ocean temps. They never mentioned any data to support the claim; no sea temperatures, nothing about the shark's behavior relative to shallow vs. deep water excursions, etc.
I checked the sea temperature anomaly for that area which showed on that day, the water temps were 1° to 2° F warmer than the historical norm. (Sea temps over the globe vary both directions, above and below the norm, by no more than this same 1° to 2° F.) So, it seems to me, these researchers were claiming -apparently, given the stunning lack of data in the story- these sharks live in water that, in the range of depths they inhabit and through the change of seasons, la Niñas, el Niños, weather events and ocean currents, never varies more than 2° without scaring them to interbreed as their only hope for survival. I'd be willing to bet they experience greater temperature changes through 50 feet of depth.
Shameless exploitation of lies
Submitted by Galvanic on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 3:26pm.
My wife and I followed the development of Knut from abandoned cub into adult bear, so we're familiar with his story and his death.
It has nothing to do with global warming or climate change, but advocates like the WWF will continue to promote lies about polar bear survival.
He didn't die of AGW?
Submitted by CO2Maker on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 3:57pm.
What did he die of, second-hand smoke? Bisphenol? Growth hormones in industrially grown food? Alar? Treatment by non-union zookeepers?
Well, what an appropriate blog topic
Submitted by CO2Maker on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 3:34pm.
I just started reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear," which is about the dark dealings and power struggles in the world of climate science! BTW, it's the first novel I've ever read with genuine footnotes with citations to journal articles about climate data! Whodathunk?
Damn good book
Submitted by jon_torlin on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 4:39pm.
I read that book a couple of times and it was very good and well written. I especially liked the part where Crichton confessed as to hoping to find proof of global warming when he started looking at the data and found the truth was indeed the exact opposite as opposed to the global warming crowd.
And the helluvit was, if you think about it, some of that stuff could actually be pulled off to perpetuate the biggest hoax since cold fusion!(not going to give away too much, you be the judge)
Ever since I read that book, I picked up a couple of the Jurassic books plus the Timeline book, the movies that were based on them were good, but didn't do the books enough justice.
State of Fear is high on my recommended readings to everyone I know.....even though libs won't touch it.
-Jon
Just curious
Submitted by Tugboat Phil on Fri, 01/06/2012 - 6:35pm.
Would roast polar bear call for red or white wine?
_______________________
Don't Give Up The Ship!
Knut, RIP (oh, and common sense too)
Submitted by deadeyedan on Sat, 01/07/2012 - 1:10am.
Jon, you and the CO2maker are correct about "State of Fear".
Ran out of time for the following question I wished to pose at a campus debate at Triton College about five yeasrs ago on the subject of ATW (the audience ran overtime on their questions):
It has been established through DNA analysis that polar bears evolved from Kodiak bears about 250,000 years ago and that they are still related closely enough to their ancestors that they can still mate with them and produce fertile offspring. Most species are much older than that and the Age of Mammals is a full 65,000,000 years old, so why did it take so long for polar bears to fill their ecological niche when our own ancestors, according to best fossil evidence, have been walking upright for nearly four and a half million years?
The answer of course is that earth has not been cold enough long enough for the machinations of DNA trial and error to manifest themselves with the onset of a creature designed so perfectly for a frigid environment. Knut and his kin are a very recent addtion to the fauna of earth and have been threatened far more by natural warming than by any anthropological influence.
A cold atmosphere has been a recent phenomenon, geologically speaking, but do not expect that little factoid to emerge anytime soon in the MSM.
GLOBAL WARMING - authoritarian, rather than authoritative, science
CLIMATEGATE (now I & II) - the revelation that the pseudo-scientists at East Anglia University know just as much about the atmosphere as Harvard law professors know about the Constitution