An interesting article that highlights how money and other motives gets in the way of conservation, the environment, and just plain old common sense when it comes to climate change.

This article chronicles recent events in the plight of the polar bears, who are unfortunately pretty well screwed when it comes to finding somewhere else to hunt seals when the Arctic completely melts.

As summer sea ice disappears, polar bears are increasingly likely to den on land because sea ice is not as stable as it once was.

A sample:

“What most concerns Canadian polar bear experts is that by failing to acknowledge the threat, the Canadian government has not adopted a management plan to help polar bears adjust to a warming world. That plan could include controls on Arctic development, reduced hunting of polar bears, and pollution reduction.

No one is disputing that polar bears have survived periods of warming that occurred during the last interglacial period, about 120,000 years ago. The issue, however, is a red herring. The maximum temperatures of the last interglacial were roughly 2 degrees F warmer than now. Given the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions and temperatures are currently rising, the Earth could easily undergo 3 to 4 degrees F of warming by the end of this century — significantly greater than anything polar bears have experienced during their evolutionary history.

Derocher also noted that the current situation is much different.“There were no people back then hunting bears,” he says. “There was no oil and gas development, no shipping or pollution. People weren’t pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere like they are today. You can’t compare the situation today to the one 125,000 or 250,000 years ago and suggest that bears will do just fine.”

Said Stirling, “Given all the controversy, it might sound complicated, but it isn’t: Without sea ice to hunt seals, polar bears are in big trouble.”

Related article about forecast Arctic ecosystem productivity.

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Related posts:

1. Third lowest Arctic sea-ice minimum for 2009
2. More on Ocean Acidification
3. Arctic Multi-Year Ice Effectively Gone

According to a report from the BBC, climate change is driving a decrease in body size of wild sheep on a remote Scottish island.

Researchers found that the local environment had a stronger effect on the animals than the evolutionary pressure to grow larger.

In the past, only the big, healthy sheep and large lambs that had piled on weight in their first summer could survive the harsh winters said researchers.

Because of climate change, though,  food (grass) is now available for more months of the year on the island. This makes survival easier, allowing slower growing sheep to make it through their first winter. This means smaller individuals are becoming increasingly prevalent in the population.

Researchers said that the effects of a warmer climate had overriden what they would expect through natural selection.

climate change is making wild sheep in Scotland smaller

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