Gore stranded polar bear lie exposed by Aussie TV

[Neville72]

Australian TV Exposes 'Stranded Polar Bear' Global Warming Hoax
Posted by Noel Sheppard on April 6, 2007 - 12:05.

<img src="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/img/2007/ep6/snap1.jpg">

Remember that wonderful picture of stranded polar bears on an ice floe that were used by folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore to demonstrate how dire the man-made global warming issue is?

Well, ABC television in Australia, on a show called “Media Watch,” recently debunked the entire issue (video available here, h/t NB member dscott).

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/watch/ ... 20&story=3

It turns out -- as NewBuster Jake Gontesky reported on March 20 -- the picture was taken in August, “when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.”

The photographer, Australian marine biology student Amanda Byrd, didn’t think the bears were in any jeopardy:

They did not appear to be in danger…I did not see the bears get on the ice, and I did not see them get off. I cannot say either way if they were stranded or not.

Denis Simard of Environment Canada agreed:

You have to keep in mind that the bears are not in danger at all. This is a perfect picture for climate change…you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die...But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim...They are still alive and having fun.

How delicious. Think this kind of broadcast would ever happen in America?

What follows is a full transcript of this segment. Furthermore, here are the e-mail questions answered by the photographer who took the picture. And, here is the full transcript of the interview “Media Watch” did with The Sunday Telegraph’s Neil Breen regarding this matter.

Those stranded polar bears on the shrinking Arctic ice - victims of global warming - certainly tugged at the heart-strings.

That photo was published not only in the Sunday Telegraph.

It made it onto the front page of the New York Times.

And the International Herald Tribune.

It also ran in London's Daily Mail, The Times of London and Canada's Ottawa Citizen - and that's just to name a few.

All used it as evidence of global warming and the imminent demise of the polar bear.

But the photo wasn't current. It was two and a half years old.

And it wasn't snapped by Canadian environmentalists.

It was taken by an Australian marine biology student on a field trip.

And in what month did she take it?

“The time of year was August, summer.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

Summer, when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.

So were the polar bears stranded?

“They did not appear to be in danger…I did not see the bears get on the ice, and I did not see them get off. I cannot say either way if they were stranded or not.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

And they didn't appear stranded to Denis Simard of Environment Canada.

He told Canada's National Post.

You have to keep in mind that the bears are not in danger at all. This is a perfect picture for climate change…you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die...But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim...They are still alive and having fun.

— The National Post (Canada), Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't, 23rd March, 2007

Polar bears are good swimmers. So how did all this come about?

Photographer Amanda Byrd gave her photo to fellow cruiser, Dan Crosbie - to have a look.

“Dan Crosbie gave the image to the Canadian Ice Service, who gave the image to Environment Canada, who distributed the image to 7 media agencies including AP.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

Associated Press released the photo two and a half years after it was taken, on the day the United Nations released its major global warming report.

That's where Sydney's Sunday Telegraph got the photo, running it with a story taken from the Daily Mail as Neil Breen explains.

…the photograph represents polar bears standing on ice that’s melting. Now obviously there’s a disputed account of when that was taken now, and maybe it was taken in the Alaskan Summer when you would naturally expect ice to melt but at the time it was sent to us, Associated Press in their caption to us told us that the picture was taken of melting ice caps and to do with global warming and that it was sent to them by a Canadian ice authority and we had no reason to question it.

— Statement from Neil Breen (Editor of the Sunday Telegraph) to Media Watch

But Amanda Byrd didn't think her photo necessarily described whether global warming is occurring.

I take neither stand, I simply took the photos...If I released the image myself, it would have been as a striking image. Nothing more.

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

That's not how Al Gore saw it.

He used it in a presentation on man made global warming.

"Their habitat is melting... beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet," Mr. Gore said, with the photo on the screen behind him. "They're in trouble, got nowhere else to go."
Audience members let out gasps of sympathy…

— The National Post (Canada), Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't, 23rd March, 2007

Well that's because they're bears… and at a distance, they're rather cute.

[sturmgeshutz]

Polar bears can swin up to 800 km, before needing to get out of the water for the pool guy.

[styky]

Polar bear hunter says his traditional life now a political pawn

Polar bear hunting guide Nathaniel Kalluk poses next to his komatik (or sled) that carries the mobile shelter he uses with his clients, on March 31, 2007 in Resolute, Nunavut. (CP/Bob Weber)
BOB WEBER



RESOLUTE, Nunavut (CP) - In 26 years of chasing polar bears, Nathaniel Kalluk has never had another hunt like it.

"It was springtime, many years ago," he begins, running a hand through hair coal black contrasted by one eyebrow white as the predator he stalks.

"We were travelling all night and in the morning we camped. We were tired and went to sleep - until we heard the dogs howling at about 4 a.m."

Kalluk had staked his dog team downwind of his tent, the side on which bears approach. That way, any bear would have to go through the dogs first and the hunters would have plenty of warning.

But this time, when the dogs woke him, he realized the wind had shifted. When he burst from his tent, right there, "very close," was a bear. A big one, upwards of three metres long.

The hunters scrambled. Confusion reigned.

"I couldn't find my rifle," admits Kalluk, a little embarrassed.

Fortunately, the group had left a cache of seal meat outside the tent. The cache was big enough to distract the bear.

"Lucky thing," says Kalluk, with Inuit understatement.

Finally, one of the hunters found his weapon.

"I saw the bear getting ready to attack. The hunter and the bear looked at each other, and he shot it.

"That was . . . over-excitement."

Kalluk, 52, leans back on a chair in his tidy kitchen and smiles at the memory of the lucky cache. But in truth, he feels a bit like that seal meat these days - chewed by forces much more powerful than he.

He fears the hunt that has been his life since 1981 has become a political pawn for southern interests that understand little of its value and importance.

Late last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans to add the bears to a list of endangered species, citing concerns that climate change is melting sea ice crucial to the way bears hunt seals.

Whether the bears are currently endangered is disputed.

There are probably 25,000 of them in the circumpolar North, about 15,000 in Canada. Some populations are clearly in trouble. Some seem to show early signs of decline, some are healthy and some seem to be increasing.

But the U.S. move, which would tightly restrict the ability of American sport hunters to bring back skins and trophies from their hunt, unleashed an international blizzard of controversy.

The linking of an iconic species to one of today's most heated political debates continues to generate comment from around the world. Newspapers in Hong Kong, Chicago, Boston, New York and London - as well as many Canadian dailies - have sounded off on the issue, which has even provided fodder for serialized comic strips.

"I don't think it's about polar bears," sighs Kalluk. "I think it's about governments."

Kalluk's own life is inextricably bound up with the bears.

He's tried the south. At 15, he moved away for school for four years, finishing up in Ottawa.

"That didn't go well," Kalluk recalls. "Drugs and booze.

"So I quit school and came back up here, which is much better."

Seeking a life on the land, he moved to a remote outpost camp, where he met his wife. The two now have four children and are expecting their third grandchild.

He began hunting polar bears, and soon after, started guiding for southern hunters, mostly Americans.

Kalluk runs Nanuk Outfitting and has four guides working for him. He's already been out on two successful hunts this year and has another 18 tags.

Clients gets a 10-day hunt. They travel by dogsled, watch for bear tracks and stop periodically to scan the horizon. At night, they sleep in a cosy shelter Kalluk has rigged up on the back of a komatik, or sled, on mattresses and caribou skins, wearing traditional caribou clothing made by local women.

"There's nothing to see but ice and bears," he says. "It's pure."

Now is when seal pups are being born in snowy dens on the ice - "just like a little igloo" - and the bears are active and easy to find.

"There's lots of bears. In one day I could see seven bears. I've seen sows with three cubs."

Once a bear is spotted, the hunters begin a chase that can take days. When the hunters get close enough, Kalluk unleashes the dogs, who circle the bear and immobilize it.

Finally, the hunter takes his shot.

For this, each client pays US$27,000, 20 per cent of which goes to Kalluk's American agent. The rest stays in Resolute. It goes to the guides, the women who sew the parkas and the local Co-op that provides supplies. The meat goes to anyone who wants it.

"It tastes a little like lamb," says Kalluk, who has a tub full of polar bear haunch frozen outside his storage shed.

Kalluk has clients booked through 2009.

"People call me and say, 'Nathaniel, if there's any cancellations, book me in.' They think it's the hunt of a lifetime."

Kalluk also offers muskox and caribou hunts, but neither pay as well and local muskox numbers are declining. He also takes a few non-hunting tourists around in the summer.

Outside of the public sector, polar bear guiding is almost the only game in town.

"We need the polar bears."

Kalluk understands concerns about global warming. He understands, too, why the image of a struggling polar bear makes such a powerful and persuasive image.

But he doesn't understand why the debate he sees in the south seems so detached from the reality he sees out his front door.

And he doesn't understand why Inuit like him should have to pay to salve someone else's conscience.

"We're just caught in the middle where the governments are clashing.

"I'm happy. I like life. Why do you want to stop the hunt?"

<a href=http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/070407/n040719A.html>source</a>

[nigelf]

Only goes to show the left will lie, steal and cheat to get their way.

[Muddy]

If i want to know the state of the Cod I will ask the guy fixing his net who does it for a living. If he tells me the Seals need culling I believe him. If I want to know about the health of Polar Bears I will ask Kalluk.
But definately not Gore or his ilk.

[styky]

Knut Rock Me Font Size:

By Douglas Kern : BIO| 06 Apr 2007
http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=040607A

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where the German environmentalists declared the fatwa against the baby polar bear.


"So, Helmut, what was wrong with my 'Kick a Puppy to Eliminate Air Pollution' promotional campaign proposal?"


"You're not thinking big enough, Konrad. We need something more compelling - more dramatic! How about 'Mock Handicapped Children to Prevent Global Warming?'"


"Ach! Derision of the enfeebled is too baroque; too recherché. Perhaps 'Deface a Cemetery to Raise Awareness of Mercury Contamination?' Or what about 'Fart Noisily in Public to Protest Fossil Fuel Dependence?'"


"Those are no better than my 'National Day of Spitting on Subway Seats to Save the Rainforest' or 'Cut off the Guy in the Next Lane If You Hate Urban Sprawl.' We need to think bigger, Konrad! Something dramatic. Something that will show the petty bourgeois that we aren't just spoiled trust fund kids engaging in low-impact street theater!"


"I've got it, Helmut! Let's demand that a polar bear be killed in the name of animal rights."


"Eh. Pass."


"But it's not just any polar bear, Helmut. It's a baby polar bear."


"Pass."


"You don't understand. It's not just any baby polar bear. It's the cutest baby polar bear who ever lived. It's absolutely heart-meltingly adorable. It has a cute name and cute beady little black eyes and a cute back-story and soft fuzzy white fur that was made for hugging."


"...I'm listening..."


"It will sell cute pictures across the globe. Animal lovers the world over will pay good money for little dolls of it. It will captivate the media and win the hearts of billions. I say - we condemn it to death!"


"Sounds good! But what reason will we offer for ending the life of our enemy, the adorable baby polar bear?"


"It must perish...because it is inauthentic."


"Inauthentic?"


"Yes. Its anthropocentric upbringing has forever alienated it from its polar bear nature. It can never achieve a state of one-ness with its true primal self. It is a dead baby polar bear walking. For its own good, for the good of all polar bears seeking spiritual integrity, it must be euthanized."


"Konrad, I believe you've found a symbol for our cause. The sweet fuzzy baby polar bear must die!"


I'm not joking much. The Berlin Zoo has recently displayed its newest baby polar bear to the world: Knut, a cub whose mother abandoned him at birth. Raised with love by his surrogate human parent, Knut is on his way to a fine career as an international photo model and celebrity spokesbear.


Don't take it from me. Look at the pictures. Read the story. The Germans have precision-engineered Knut to win your heart with a kind of cuteness whose intensity borders on the ruthless. Behold: Knut, playing with a ball. Knut, rasslin' with his blankie. Knut, waving to his adoring fans. He sleeps every night with a teddy bear. The zookeepers play guitar for him. Show me the man who can reject such sweetness, and I'll show you German animal rights spokeskiller Frank Albrecht, the Grim Reaper of Lovable Animals. "The zoo must kill the bear," said Captain Killjoy. "Feeding by hand is not species appropriate, blah blah blah kill the cute bear, blah blah blah goofy animal rights reasons, blah blah blah I hate everything good and pure." I paraphrase, but only a little. In fairness, Albrecht has clarified his homicidal rant, claiming that he only wanted to see the little fellow croaked when he was tiny and especially helpless. "'If a polar bear mother rejected the baby, then I believe the zoo must follow the instincts of nature,' Albrecht said. 'In the wild, it would have been left to die.'" Thanks for the explanation, Angel of Baby Polar Bear Death. Can't we just buy some dead baby polar bear offsets instead?


The real motivations for snuffing Knut have more to do with the ideological predilections of his would-be assassins than with any harm that Knut may suffer or inflict. Says Knut-knocker Ruediger Schmiedel: "They [the zoo] cannot domesticate a wild animal." The real problem for these people isn't the wild animal; it's the domestication. Isn't it odd that the same people who want to leave cuddly Knut to the tender ministrations of "nature" reject out of hand the possibility that "nature" plays any role in the domestication of the baby humans? How strange, that those who embrace natural law so energetically for animals reject it so completely for humans.


Yes, let's concede the point: Knut is not an authentic polar bear. He likes people, he eats people-prepared food, and he lives in a people-controlled environment. So what? Authenticity is a hang-up for neurotic Western intellectuals, not polar bears. Animals crave food, sleep, health, and reproduction, and Knut will probably receive as much of those things as he can stand. Then again, environmentalists will also receive those things, and yet they are discontented and Knut is not. But one good solution for discontent is righteous suffering. The radical environmentalists want to inflict it on Knut - and on you, too.


Don't think for a minute that the sheer perversion of killing a sweet cuddly baby polar bear is incidental to the goals of Frank Albrecht and those of his ilk. The sheer perversion is the point. For example: have you ever noticed how the global warming aficionados almost seem to relish the prospect of massive economic rollback and worldwide belt-tightening? Al Gore and his minions aren't interested in arguments that global warming might make people healthier and richer on balance; neither do they care about proposals to reverse global warming through relatively simple attempts at global weather engineering (e.g., lacing the world's oceans with iron to stimulate plankton production, thereby changing the atmospheric CO2 balance). To make such arguments is to misunderstand why global warming alarmism is so popular. Its adherents embrace it because they savor the doom that it portends. They want a massive shrinkage of the world's economies. They want reduced industrial development. They want a world made spiritually pure, liberated from the defilement of modern life. And in the same way, radical greens want little Knut sacrificed on the altar of a fictitious, pristine nature. They want these things because some neglected part of the human heart yearns for sacrifice; for a rejection of worldly goods and concerns in pursuit of higher goals.


Rightly or wrongly, the Western world is committed to affluence and consumption. We make little room for the renunciation of what we like; we look upon any kind of material deprivation as an intolerable ill. The cult of environmental doomsday-ism allows otherwise un-spiritual people to express their otherwise suppressed ascetic desires in a socially acceptable way. For many soft-core green disciples, the fight against environmental catastrophe is more an aspiration than an imperative; a bogeyman, but one to be resisted incrementally, at one's leisure, in much the same way that Sundays-only Christians casually resist evil.


Consider Al Gore again. No man who genuinely believed in a looming apocalypse would live like a prince while soothing his conscience with carbon offsets - the latter-day equivalent of plenary indulgences. For Gore, and for too many environmentalists, global warming is simply a pretext for a secular Lent: a time of sacrifice and reflection, but without that pesky God business to get in the way of the really fun stuff. As aging Baby Boomers look with trepidation upon the much-avoided reality of their own mortality, expect ever more stringent acts of self-denial camouflaged as environmental politics. Our graying cultural overlords have a great many sins for which to atone, and a great deal of money to waste atoning for them.


Into this morass tumbles our little Knut, whose only crime is making people happy about nature at a time when our environmental betters want us to be sad about it. It's fun to wallow in apocalypse porn for a time, I suppose; it's pleasant to believe that our sacrifice and purity of suffering will somehow redeem the world from its failings - environmental, moral, or otherwise. It's nice to feel that important; to believe that our pain gives us that degree of control over the world. But I refuse to trust any ideology whose righteousness deprives us of the ability to appreciate the unbought grace of life. And sometimes that grace is as simple as a cute baby polar bear enjoying himself at the zoo.


So God bless Knut, and all creatures that annoy the right people for the right reasons.

[styky]

Polar bears in danger? Is this some kind of joke?
James Delingpole: Thunderer

Now, in a new cinema release called Earth – a magnificent, feature-length nature documentary from the makers of the BBC’s Planet Earth series – comes the most sob-inducing “evidence” of all: a poor male polar bear filmed starving to death as a result, the quaveringly emotional Patrick Stewart voiceover suggests, of global warming. <a href=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2852551.ece>Full Article</a>

[styky]

Proof that these people are not working on all cylinders.

<a href=http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,519271,00.html>"POLAR BEARS FOR THE SOUTH POLE? </a>Biologists Debate Relocating Imperiled Species" - "As global warming changes the face of habitats around the world, scientists are asking if humans can help save species from extinction by moving them to cooler climes. But before polar bear resettlement and tiger transports begin, is it time to take a look at easier alternatives?" (Der Spiegel)

[styky]

Study: Canada failing polar bears

Mike De Souza
CanWest News Service
<a href=http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/story.html?id=82296a40-1f1a-412a-9d4a-f35c1ff964b6&k=90807>source</a>

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

OTTAWA - The federal, provincial and territorial governments of Canada are all failing to protect polar bears from the threat of extinction, a new study charges.

The report, produced by the David Suzuki Foundation, concluded Monday that only two of seven Canadian provinces and territories (Newfoundland and Labrador and Ontario) recognize that the species may be at risk. Despite repeated warnings from government scientists and independent studies about the polar bear's vulnerabilities, only Newfoundland and Labrador has a plan to protect them.

"This report finds that Canada's response to the crisis has been inadequate," reads the report, written by Rachel Plotkin, a biodiversity analyst at the foundation. "In short, Canada has no plan. This country minimally protects the habitat of polar bears and offers few restrictions to curb toxic chemicals that harm the polar bear. Most importantly, Canada also lacks an effective policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

An independent government advisory body, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, has concluded three times - in 1991, 1999 and 2002 - that the polar bear is a species of "special concern." However, in 2005, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, then environment minister, referred the matter back to the committee for further study.

Although Plotkin warns that the process of finishing the review and then putting the polar bear on Canada's official list of species at risk could delay the implementation of a protection plan until 2012, Environment Minister John Baird indicated that he wanted the committee to finish its work before acting on the file.

"COSEWIC is actively looking at the science into this and will be making recommendations to the government next year," Baird said after question period in the Commons. "I'm asking them to be able to report back as soon as they possibly can because I think it's a very important issue and it's one with which we're very concerned about."

Canada has 13 of the world's 19 polar bear populations in its three northern territories, as well as in the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service recommended in 2006 that it be recognized as a threatened species, while the U.S. Geological Survey predicted that the polar populations would shrink by two-thirds by the middle of the century because of disappearing summer ice that the species rely on for hunting.

"The polar bear is a national icon and I think it behooves the federal government, in the interest of polar bears to all Canadians, come up with a national management plan," said Plotkin. "But resource development is under the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories so it also behooves the provinces and territories to list the polar bear (as a species at risk) and develop the appropriate management plans."

The study was released as Baird faced a barrage of questions from opposition parties in the Commons about whether his government was deliberately sabotaging international climate negotiations by blocking calls for rich countries to accept binding targets for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that are linked to global warming.

But Baird insisted that he wanted to see real reductions in the heat-trapping gases from all large polluting countries, distancing himself from a statement with vague language about long-term climate goals that was endorsed last weekend by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Africa.

"Aspirational goals do not cut it," Baird said in the Commons. "We need solid targets by all major emitters."

[Charles J. White]

These people are sterilizing themselves to save the planet, and now are doctoring polar bear film, the entire indidan rain dance movement is a lie and sham created to make man feel guilty for something he has no control over.

[CdnRepublican]

Polar bear population has doubled in 25 years - the animals are in no danger whatsoever of going extinct. In fact an argument can be made as one of the postings makes clear, that an increase in poaching might be necessary to control the population increase.

They are used as propaganda - next will be baby seals; doe eyed fawns and cute cuddly lap dogs -- all will die etc. from globaloney warming.

It is a relief to find out that the polar bear population has actually doubled over the last 40 years. "Based on the report "Bears: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan," issued by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), polar bear populations are in no immediate danger except for one or two groups on the West cost of Greenland which are subjected to excessive hunting. All of the other populations which have been documented are either stable or increasing." Source: "The Polar Bears of the Hudson Bay, Miceal O’Ronain.

For data and citations on the growing polar bear numbers please go http://www.partnershipforamerica.org/Po ... ence.asp#1.

[Peter O'Donnell]

Based on the current state of Canadian law, I would advise polar bears to sue Imperial Oil for their hate crimes against the species. It's pretty clear they would win easily.

[styky]

http://forecastingprinciples.com/new.html#Polar_bears


"Are polar bears endangered? It is all about the forecasts" (30 November, 2007)

A forecasting audit conducted by Scott Armstrong, Kesten Green and Willie Soon has concluded that the government's administrative reports do not rely on scientific forecasting procedures. Thus, it would be irresponsible to classify polar bears as an endangered species. The authors are seeking additional peer review for their <a href=http://forecastingprinciples.com/Public_Policy/polarbear.html>paper</a>.

[styky]

<a href=http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/80118_858.html>Bear litigation a ploy, say Inuit groups</a> - The push by environmentalists to have polar bears declared a threatened species by the U.S. is a cynical ploy that puts politics ahead of science, says Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapariit Kanatami.

Three environmental groups announced last week they would sue the U.S. government for missing its deadline to decide whether polar bears should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. In response, ITK and the Inuit Circumpolar Conference issued a joint press release Jan. 14 that condemns the groups.

Simon said environmentalists are "using the polar bear for political reasons against the Bush administration over greenhouse gas emissions, and as Inuit we fundamentally disagree with such tactics."

On Jan. 7 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it needed another 30 days to decide whether polar bears should be classified as "threatened" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. (Nunatsiaq News)..........................

<a href=http://www.adn.com/240/story/285933.html>Polar bear status won't halt oil exploration</a> - WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is just weeks away from a decision that most likely will designate polar bears as a threatened species but said today that it won't budge on issuing oil and gas leases in their shrinking Alaska habitat.

A House committee on global warming called on the U.S. Interior Department to hold off auctioning oil and gas leases in northwest Alaska's Chukchi Sea until it makes a decision about whether to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service postponed the decision last week for at least another 30 days, and it is not expected to be issued before the Feb. 6 oil and gas lease sale by the Minerals Management Service. The agency estimates that the Chukchi Sea holds 15 billion barrels of oil and as much as 76 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

"Every time there is a choice between extinction and extraction in this administration, extraction wins," said the committee's chairman, U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. "This must not be the case for the polar bear." (ADN)........................

[jiboom]

Australian TV Exposes 'Stranded Polar Bear' Global Warming Hoax
Posted by Noel Sheppard on April 6, 2007 - 12:05.

<img src="http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/img/2007/ep6/snap1.jpg">

Remember that wonderful picture of stranded polar bears on an ice floe that were used by folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore to demonstrate how dire the man-made global warming issue is?

Well, ABC television in Australia, on a show called “Media Watch,” recently debunked the entire issue (video available here, h/t NB member dscott).

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/watch/ ... 20&story=3

It turns out -- as NewBuster Jake Gontesky reported on March 20 -- the picture was taken in August, “when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.”

The photographer, Australian marine biology student Amanda Byrd, didn’t think the bears were in any jeopardy:

They did not appear to be in danger…I did not see the bears get on the ice, and I did not see them get off. I cannot say either way if they were stranded or not.

Denis Simard of Environment Canada agreed:

You have to keep in mind that the bears are not in danger at all. This is a perfect picture for climate change…you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die...But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim...They are still alive and having fun.

How delicious. Think this kind of broadcast would ever happen in America?

What follows is a full transcript of this segment. Furthermore, here are the e-mail questions answered by the photographer who took the picture. And, here is the full transcript of the interview “Media Watch” did with The Sunday Telegraph’s Neil Breen regarding this matter.

Those stranded polar bears on the shrinking Arctic ice - victims of global warming - certainly tugged at the heart-strings.

That photo was published not only in the Sunday Telegraph.

It made it onto the front page of the New York Times.

And the International Herald Tribune.

It also ran in London's Daily Mail, The Times of London and Canada's Ottawa Citizen - and that's just to name a few.

All used it as evidence of global warming and the imminent demise of the polar bear.

But the photo wasn't current. It was two and a half years old.

And it wasn't snapped by Canadian environmentalists.

It was taken by an Australian marine biology student on a field trip.

And in what month did she take it?

“The time of year was August, summer.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

Summer, when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.

So were the polar bears stranded?

“They did not appear to be in danger…I did not see the bears get on the ice, and I did not see them get off. I cannot say either way if they were stranded or not.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

And they didn't appear stranded to Denis Simard of Environment Canada.

He told Canada's National Post.

You have to keep in mind that the bears are not in danger at all. This is a perfect picture for climate change…you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die...But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim...They are still alive and having fun.

— The National Post (Canada), Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't, 23rd March, 2007

Polar bears are good swimmers. So how did all this come about?

Photographer Amanda Byrd gave her photo to fellow cruiser, Dan Crosbie - to have a look.

“Dan Crosbie gave the image to the Canadian Ice Service, who gave the image to Environment Canada, who distributed the image to 7 media agencies including AP.”

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

Associated Press released the photo two and a half years after it was taken, on the day the United Nations released its major global warming report.

That's where Sydney's Sunday Telegraph got the photo, running it with a story taken from the Daily Mail as Neil Breen explains.

…the photograph represents polar bears standing on ice that’s melting. Now obviously there’s a disputed account of when that was taken now, and maybe it was taken in the Alaskan Summer when you would naturally expect ice to melt but at the time it was sent to us, Associated Press in their caption to us told us that the picture was taken of melting ice caps and to do with global warming and that it was sent to them by a Canadian ice authority and we had no reason to question it.

— Statement from Neil Breen (Editor of the Sunday Telegraph) to Media Watch

But Amanda Byrd didn't think her photo necessarily described whether global warming is occurring.

I take neither stand, I simply took the photos...If I released the image myself, it would have been as a striking image. Nothing more.

— Email from Amanda Byrd to Media Watch

That's not how Al Gore saw it.

He used it in a presentation on man made global warming.

"Their habitat is melting... beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet," Mr. Gore said, with the photo on the screen behind him. "They're in trouble, got nowhere else to go."
Audience members let out gasps of sympathy…

— The National Post (Canada), Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't, 23rd March, 2007

Well that's because they're bears… and at a distance, they're rather cute.

This seems to indicate that the global warming advocates have borrowed the playbook of the animal rights groups to twist and contort facts to suit their cause. These people are all cut from the same cloth and will not let facts get in the way of their agenda.