Lomborg-errors:
"Cool
it!"
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Polar bears |
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Home Cool it |
"Cool it!", chapter 1: Polar
Bears: Today´s Canaries in the Coal Mine?
POLAR BEARS |
List of
errors in
Lomborgs text:
GROUNDLESS
DEROGATION
Page 5 top, page 6 top and page 7 top: "The World Wildlife Fund
actually warns that polar bears might stop reproducing. . ."; "That its
population has declined . . has
gotten much press. Not mentioned
though, is that . . " and "Yet we are told that global warming will
make polar bears extinct, possibly within ten years. . "
Error:
The quote on page 2 from
Washington Post of what WWF said is not correct. WWF was quoted for
saying that bears in Hudson Bay
might stop reproducing by 2012. This is a correct citation of what
scientists say (except that it should have been only the western Hudson
Bay). But Lomborg distorts the citation and make us
believe that WWF said that polar bears - worldwide - would go extinct
within ten years. Actually, when you consulted the WWF web pages as
they appeared in 2006-2007, you saw a very different picture.
There was a balanced
presentation of what populations are declining, now and formerly, and
what populations are increasing, now and formerly. The news story on
decline in the Western Hudson Bay was presented as just what it was -
one
story from one limited part of the distribution range. There was one
page on hunting (this version was indeed placed on the internet already
when
Lomborg was writing his book) stating that the main threat to polar
bears remains over-hunting. The present version of the WWF
web
pages is changed relative to 2006. Now, retreat of sea ice, rather
than hunting, is mentioned as the most serious threat, probably in
accordance with changes in the real world since 2006. Still, however,
the web site also contains a pdf document stating that overharvesting
is the most serious threat. It is still true, as it was in 2006, that
you get much better and more
balanced information on polar bears on the WWF web pages
than the information in Cool
it, which is based on data that partly were outdated already when
Lomborg wrote it, and partly are not founded in scientific facts.
This text has been written by Lomborg in bad faith. He has consulted
the WWF web site and knows what it said. WWF have never said that
"global warming will make polar bears extinct, possibly within ten
years". This is Lomborg´s deliberate
distortion of what they said. We have here a case of deliberate
groundless derogation. Read more here
about why Lomborg does that.
(COMMENT)
Page 5 top: " . . polar bears will be consigned to history . . ."
Comment: It is true that
Catarina Cardoso from WWF in UK is cited for this in a BBC news web
site. However, it is evident from that web site that she is speaking of
the situation by the end of the century, when the summer sea ice will
have disappeared completely. Lomborg, however, places the quote in such
a contexdt that the reade may think that she speaks of the situation in
less than a decade.
FLAW OF CITATION
Page 5: "The Independent tells us . . . "
Flaw:
The source that Lomborg gives does not contain the cited sentence.
(COMMENT)
Page 5 " . . research published in 2001 by the Polar Bear
Specialist Group . . ."
Comment: The link given
by Lomborg does no longer work. A functioning link is here.
(GROUNDLESS DEROGATION)
Page 5, bottom: "Contrary to what you might expect - and what was not
pointed out in
any of the recent stories - the two populations . . .
"
Comment:
Lomborg insinuates that "the recent stories" were not honest, omitting
evidence that decline concurs with a cooling climate. But as the
climate was actually warming, not cooling, during the periods when
polar bears declined, this insinuation is
groundless.
FLAW
Page 5 to 6: "Al Gore´s comment on drowning bears . . in an
area
housing one of the increasing bear populations."
Flaw:
The episode of four drowned bears was related to a situation
where many bears had already problems swimming in open water far
from the nearest ice or land. See this link. Specialists say in the recent report
(14th meeting) that "The primary concerns for this
subpopulation are from climate warming that continues to expand
both the expanse and duration of open water in summer and
fall." And the population is probably decreasing, not
increasing.
ERROR
Page 6, top: ". . the western coast of Hudson Bay. . . since 1981 the
population has soared from just 500 . . ."
Error:
Earlier estimates were less certain. Lomborg´s information is
from a paper by Stirling, Lunn & Iacozza (1999), which presents a
graph indicating that the population estimate for the Western Hudson
Bay was about 500 in 1981 and 1,500 in 1985. Unfortunately, in
that paper the graph is presented without explanatory comments. More
original data are in the following paper: A. E. Derocher & I.
Stirling (1995): Journal of wildlife management 59(2): 215-221. Here,
it is seen that the error bars around each point estimate are larger
than the variations from year to year. And indeed, the paper says (p.
220): "Poulation size did not show any trend between 1980 and 1992".
The estimate is about 1,000 bears for the whole period. Lomborg has
also found a graph indicating about 850 bears in 1985 and
about 1,200 bears in 1987 (Amstrup 2006). This graph too gives
uncertainty intervals, and it is
clear from the graph that the difference between the figures of 850 and
1,200 are not statistically significant. Having taught statistics,
Lomborg should have been able to understand that the rise is not
significant.
Unfortunately others,
including Rosing-Asvid, cited by Lomborg, have taken the
figures literally, without considering that a rise from 500 to 1,500 is
impossible, and without considering the uncertainties involved . Over
a period of four years, a polar bear
population can maximally grow by about 15 %, i.e. if there were 1,500
bears in 1985, there must have been at least 1,300 bears in 1981.
It is believed that the population was exposed to
overhunting before hunting regulations in 1968, and it is believed
therefore that it increased especially from the late 1960s and well
into the 1970s. But the apparent increases that Lomborg refers to are
statistical artifacts.
Experts corresponding with
Lomborg have tried to explain to him how large are the uncertainties
and methodological problems involved. So Lomborg should have understood
that the low figures for the early 1980s are
simply due to statistical variation because of low sample sizes. But he
has chosen to neglect these reservations pointed
out to him by experts in the field, and has draw his own false
conclusions. If
he had taken account of known facts on polar bear biology,
he would have known that isolated populations can grow by maximally 3-4
% per year, and that growth by immigration from neigbouring populations
is very limited. The population increase that Lomborg postulates
can impossibly have occurred.
ERROR
Page 6; top: " . . since 1981 the
population has soared from just 500, thus eradicating any claim of
decline."
Error:
Lomborg knows that evidence right since 1981 points to a decline,
because the average body mass (weight) of polar bears, and the sruvival
of youngs, has
declined steadily in this area since the mid 1980s. This is
demonstrated clearly in
the paper by Stirling, Lunn and Iacozza (1999) that Lomborg has read.
There have been
significant declines in the body condition of adult male and
female polar bears, and in the proportion of independent
yearlings captured during the open water season in western Hudson
Bay. Over the same period, the average date of spring break-up of
the sea ice in the region has advanced by three weeks, presumably
due to increasing spring air temperatures. Lomborg knows about this
evidence, but does not want to include it in his story. There is
evidence that the changes in body condition and breeding success may
also partially be explained by other factors that act only temporarily
(Rosing-Asvid 2006, cited by Lomborg), but this does not "eradicate any
claim of decline".
FLAW
Page 6: "it means we have lost about 15 bears to global warming each
year, whereas we have lost 49 each year to hunting."
Flaw:
With this sentence, Lomborg either demonstrates a blatant lack of
understanding of ecology, or purports to lack this understanding.
In a stable population, it is possible to obtain a `sustainable
yield´, because the population each year produces a surplus of
young, some of which will die from natural causes if they are not
shot by man. Calculations are made by wildlife biologists to find
the size of the `sustainable yield´, i.e. how many bears may be
shot each year without causing the population to decline. Permits are
then issued to shoot this amount of bears, with the
local inuit population receiving most of the permits. However, if
conditions get worse, the bears produce less
young, and the sustainable yield decreases. That is, the
increased melting of sea ice means that the population tolerates
less hunting than before. So harvesting the sustainable yield does not
imply a lasting reduction of the population (a "loss"), whereas a
decline in
the size of the sustainable yield is indeed a loss, to the polar bear
population and to the people hunting them.
ERROR
Page 6: " In 2006, a polar-bear biologist from the Canadian government
. ."
Error:
The biologist referred to is Mitchell Taylor. The quote may be seen in
full in this link.
He
does
not
work
for
the Canadian federal government, but for the
government of the Nunavat territory, where local interests in allowing
large quotas for beer hunting probaly have a greater weight.
FLAW
Page 6, bottom: "we hear vastly exaggerated and emotional claims that
are
simply not supported by the data."
Flaw:
The claims are not exaggerated, and they are supported by the
data.
ERROR
Page 6 bottom: " Yes it is likely that disappearing ice will make it
harder . . and that they will incresingly take up a lifestyle similar
to that of brown bears
. ."
Error:
In the notes, Lomborg writes: "The Arctic Climate Assessment finds it
likely that disappearing ice will make polar bears take up `a
terrestrial summe lifestyle similar to that of brown bears . .´
". But here follows the original text in the assessment report (Symon,
Arris and Heal 2005 p. 509; Berner is not among the editors): "It is
difficult to envisage the survival of polar bears as a species given a
zero summer sea-ice scenario. Their only option would be a terrestrial
summer lifestyle similar to that of brown bears, from which they
evolved. In such a case, competition, risk of hybridization with
brown bears and grizzly bears, and increased interactions with people
would then number among the threats to polar bears." Thus, in the cited
text, the eventual survival of polar bears on land is presented as a
hypothetical possibility, fraught with several difficulites. It is
certainly not presented as something "likely".
ERROR
Page 7, top: "But over the past forty years, the population has
increased
dramatically. . "
Error:
As stated above, this is not true.
FLAW
Page 7, top; ". . and the populations are now stable."
Flaw:
This might have been true up to 2001, but in 2005 it was no longer
true.
(COMMENT)
Page 7: "In general, the Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment projects that the Arctic will experience increasing species
richness . . . "
Comment:
Lomborg usually accuses biologists of focusing on negative trends and
ignoring positive trends. But the ACIA report presents in a neutral way
positive as well as negative trends. There is no obvious bias. But
Lomborg can always twist his text in such a way that we are left with
the impression of overly pessimistic environmentalists - also in this
case when they make a neutral contribution. On the other hand, Lomborg
himself is not neutral here. He only cites those parts of the text on
pages 997-998 that deal with positive trends, and ignores all text
dealing with various species that will probably decline or go extinct.
He ignores that species disappearing from the Arctic will disappear
completely from the globe, whereas species that will immigrate to the
Arctic already exist elsewhere - that is he ignores the risk that the
total number of species on the globe will decline.
Page 7: ". . the
plight of the polar bears shows "the
need for stricter curbs on greenhouse-gas emissions . . "
Comment:
The cited newspaper article did not exactly say so. The reason given in
the article for the need for curbs is rather that the polar bear are
indicators of climate change in the Arctic areas, and that these areas
provide a bellwether of what´s coming to the rest of planet Earth.
(GROUNDLESS DEROGATION)
Page 7: "Even if we accept the flawed idea of using the
1987 population of polar bears around Hudson Bay as a baseline . . ."
Flaw:
The idea is not flawed.The population around Hudson Bay did not have an
aberrant size in 1987.
FLAW
Page 7, bottom: "Thus, if we really want a stable population of polar
bears,
dealing first with the 49 shot ones might be both a smarter and a
more viable strategy."
Flaw:
This is nonsense due to Lomborg´s lack of understanding of the
concept of sustainable yield (as explained above). If we want a stable
population, we can shoot 49 bears annually without compromising the
stability. If the 49
bears were not shot, a similar number of bears would die from other
causes. On the other hand, when the environment becomes less
favourable, then the
sustainable
yield decreases, and the number of bears shot annually will have
to be reduced to avoid an acceleration of the ongoing decline.