Contrary to enviro-hype, listing polar bears as "threatened" does not endorse greenhouse warming or the need to control CO2 emissions ("Polar Bear Politics," Review & Outlook, Jan. 3). It means only a lengthy period of hearings and analysis, whose outcome is hardly in doubt. The government of Nunavut (northern Canada) plans to oppose such a listing -- which would hurt its lucrative polar bear hunting industry. Polar bears are doing well and have survived many cycles of warming in the historic past. Thermometer records of the 20th century show that temperatures there do not follow global values but are controlled by an "Arctic Oscillation" with a period of decades.But the polar bear has now become a symbol of global warming. So Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" plays up the animal's plight. It shows a swimming bear with a desperate look on his face, searching in vain for an ice floe to rest on.Needless to say, he was computer-generated; no real bear in his right mind would go swimming in the open Arctic Ocean.
An editorial in the Jan. 7 Washington Post opines that the "threatened" designation may be the first step to mandatory controls on fuel use and refers to polar bears as "cuddly, lovable animals." Clearly, the writer has never come face to face with this relative of the grizzly bear. But furry seals and their cute, cuddly pups would be delighted if polar bears were to disappear. Ah, such are ecological realities.
S. Fred Singer
Arlington, Va.
(The writer is professor emeritus of environmental sciences, University of Virginia. He co-authored "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years," Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.)
As one of my friends quipped, looks like Al invented more than the internet.
UPDATE: Another explanation of our odd weather having to do with sunspot cycles---warming going on now, and then when the sunspot activity stops--- abrupt cooling, which is more damaging, posited by a Cambridge astrophysicist.
Related post: Sister Cities, Kyoto-Wilmette
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