4/4/12, "Healthy polar bear count confounds doomsayers," Globe and Mail, Canada, Paul Waldie
"The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing.
The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic.
The study shows that “the bear population is not in crisis as people believed,” said Drikus Gissing, Nunavut’s director of wildlife management. “There is no doom and gloom.”
Mr. Gissing added that the government isn’t dismissing concerns about climate change, but he said Nunavut wants to base bear-management practices on current information “and not predictions about what might happen.”
The study’s conclusions drew concern from Andrew Derocher, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta who has been studying polar-bear populations for years. Prof. Derocher said the 1,013 figure is derived from a range of 717 bears to 1,430. “It’s premature to draw many conclusions,” he said, adding that there were no comparative figures and the upper end of the range, 1,430, was highly unlikely.
Prof. Derocher also said some details in the survey pointed to a bear population in trouble. For example, the survey identified 50 cubs, which are usually less than 10 months old, and 22 yearlings, roughly 22 months old. That’s nearly one-third the number required for a healthy population, he said. “This is a clear indication that this population is not sustaining itself in any way, shape, or form.”
The debate over the polar-bear population has been raging for years, frequently pitting scientists against Inuit. In 2004, Environment Canada researchers concluded that the numbers in the region had dropped by 22 per cent since 1984, to 935. They also estimated that by 2011, the population would decrease to about 610. That sparked worldwide concern about the future of the bears and prompted the Canadian and American governments to introduce legislation to protect them.
But many Inuit communities said the researchers were wrong. They said the bear population was increasing and they cited reports from hunters who kept seeing more bears. Mr. Gissing said that encouraged the government to conduct the recent study, which involved 8,000 kilometres of aerial surveying last August along the coast and offshore islands.
Mr. Gissing said he hopes the results lead to more research and a better understanding of polar bears. He said the media in southern Canada has led people to believe polar bears are endangered. “They are not.” He added that there are about 25,000 polar bears across Canada’s Arctic. “That’s likely the highest [population level] there has ever been.”
There’s much at stake in the debate. Population figures are used to calculate quotas for hunting, a lucrative industry for many northern communities. Hunting polar bears is highly regulated but Inuit communities can sell their quota to sport hunters, who must hunt with Inuit guides. A polar-bear hunting trip can cost up to $50,000. Demand for polar-bear fur is also soaring in places like China and Russia and prices for some pelts have doubled in the past couple of years, reaching as high as $15,000.
The Nunavut hunting quota in the western Hudson Bay area fell to 8 from 56 after the 2004 report from Environment Canada. The Nunavut government increased it slightly last year but faced a storm of protest. Over all, about 450 polar bears are killed annually across Nunavut. Mr. Gissing said a new quota is expected to be announced in June." via Climate Depot
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7/2/09, "The Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation Since the Great Depression," Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi
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April 2009, "Wall Street realized there was money to be made in 'going green.'" Robert Redford
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Ed. note: The Globe and Mail article says much is at stake then fails to mention multi-trillion dollar 'climate' industry stakeholders such as bankers and organized crime. The article only presents natives wanting to make "up to $50,000" for a polar bear hunting trip. The 'climate' industry is too big to fail. They have the NY Times, Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and ABC which helps.
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7/16/10, "Carbon Trading Used as Money-Laundering Front," Jakarta Globe
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2/1/11, ""Broken" EU spot CO2 market will struggle to revive," Reuters, Chestney
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12/2009, "Tax fraud loses EU carbon trading billions: Europol," EUBusiness.com, The Hague
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11/29/09, "Europeon Climate Exchange Chief Patrick Birley defends the Carbon Trading System, UK Telegraph by Rowena Mason
""Carbon-related products are probably the most profitable part of trading for any of the investment banks right now,
- because the margins are so good," Mr. Birley admits....
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Sept. 2008, "Pensions in Peril: Are State Officials Risking Public Employee Retirement Benefits by Playing Global Warming Politics? "by Steven J. Milloy, MHS, JD, LLM
and Thomas Borelli, Ph.D.
"Ceres lobbies and pressures corporations on global warming, holds
investor “summits” on global warming,
- directs a coalition of institutional investors focused on global warming, publishes reports on global warming, and
lobbies the government for global warming regulation.
- Not only did Ceres lobby for the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill in May 2008,29 it recently
gave credit to its pension fund members for successfully pressuring the Senate Appropriations Committee to approve legislative language calling for
climate change disclosure by publicly-traded companies."----------------------------
12/4/09, "Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives," Bloomberg
"Estimates of the potential size of the U.S cap-and-trade market range from $300 billion to $2 trillion....
Even George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator, says money managers would find ways to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. “The system can be gamed,” Soros, 79, remarked at a London School of Economics seminar in July. “That’s why financial types like me like it -- because there are financial opportunities.”" ...
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4/26/10, "Global warming: La CO2a Nostra," Examiner, Thomas Fuller
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10/8/10, "Murder on the Carbon Express: Interpol Takes on Emissions Fraud," Mother Jones, by Mark Schapiro
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12/1/10, "EU Carbon permits missing from registry due to (computer) virus," Reuters, Nina Chestney
"One million European carbon permits (valued at $19.54 million US) have gone missing from the Romanian subsidiary of cement company Holcim's (HOLN.VX) emissions registry account due to a computer virus,
- the EU Commission said on Wednesday."...
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7/29/11, "Polar Bear Researcher Suspended, Spurring Alarm," LiveScience.com
5/30/09, "Dick Durbin: Banks "Frankly Own The Place"," Huffington Post
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