Save the Polar Bears!

Greenpeace’s "Project Thin Ice" seeks to save the polar bears "because the sea ice the bears depend on to hunt is melting." The webpage includes a pledge for all the good little socialists to see Al Gore’s hit comedy "An Inconvenient Truth."

Inconveniently for Greenpeace, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Marlo Lewis, Jr, in his Congressional Briefing Paper "Al Gore’s Science Fiction," has taken the time to research Gore’s research, and expose the one-sided or misleading statements, exaggerations, speculations, and just plain wrong statements contained within Gore’s book version of "An Inconvenient Truth."

With regard to polar bears, AIT states "A new scientific study shows that, for the first time, polar bears have been drowning in significant numbers," (AIT p. 146). Lewis found the study that Gore used and found that the TRUTH is: ""4 dead bears were seen floating far offshore," apparantly drowned by "an abrupt wind storm."" Further, data from the World Wildlife Fund demonstrates that "polar bear populations are increasing in arctic areas where it is warming and declining in areas where it is cooling" (AGSF p. 64).

Finally, during the early Holocene period of the Earth’s development (the last 10,000 years or so), "Arctic summer temperatures…were significantly warmer than present and there was less sea ice, as already noted. More tellingly, Arctic summer temperatures during the Last Interglacial Period were 4-5 [degrees] warmer than the present for thousands of years…Yet the polar bears managed to survive," (AGSF p. 64).

We at FreedomWorks let the scientists battle out the science, but one thing is certain: If Congress buys into Al Gore and his support for economy-wrecking policy like Kyoto, all based upon this misleading and speculative view of the science surrounding global warming, the economy as we know it is in great peril.