Weekly Reading On Thin Ice

My daughter had trouble sleeping last night.

She brought home the latest issue of “GeoTrek”, brought to us by The Weekly Reader. On the cover, the lead story: “When Temperatures Are Leaving The Artic On Thin Ice”. Of course, such an issue on climate “change” wouldn’t be complete without pictures of those cute, cuddly polar bears.

People are entitled to their opinions, but one would hope that when disseminating information to grade schoolers, that information would be factually correct, not politically correct.

I explained, as quickly as a parent could to alleviate the trauma a young girl was experiencing from reading this booklet, that the pictures were probably shot during the Arctic summer, when it is warm enough for humans and their cameras to take them. Seeing how it was summer there, that would explain the thinning ice packs, not “global warming.”

I then sent scans of the booklet to Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, a renowned environmental consultant and former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg, for his opinion on the contents of this Weekly Reader “publication”.

Dear Bob,
The exploitation of children is despicable and this is a perfect example. First let me quote Mitch Taylor probably the world expert on polar bears. Here is a comment he made last year. It still holds true today.

“Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present.” – May 2006

Mitch has lived in Nunavut for over 30 years and agreed with the Inuit who were saying the counts by “fly over” scientists were wrong. He said, “The Inuit were right. There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears.”

That should help my daughter sleep better tonight. Too bad I can’t reach the hundreds of thousands of children who’ve also read this booklet.

Dr. Ball continued….

The article is wrong because it assumes the bears depend solely on the seals for food. At the Alaska State hearings on polar bears, Tina Cunnings, a biologist and polar expert, pointed out they descended from grizzlies and have retained the ability to change diets and scavenge successfully on land. This helps explain how they survived previous warmer periods than today when ice conditions were significantly less than today.

With regard to the ice, which is the heart of the issue, the GeoTrek article is very selective and extremely limited in its information. The map it uses shows summer conditions only and that is deceitful. We only have accurate records in the modern era from 1980 to the present. Every winter about 16 million square kilometers of ice form, here is a satellite image for April 2 of 2007.

Here is the map for August 1, and here is the map for November 27.

The public don’t know that the about 10 million square kilometers of ice (equal to the area of the US) melts ever year.

There have been nor reports that the ice has formed more rapidly this year than any in the satellite record.

They haven’t told the public that Antarctic sea ice was the most on record.

Apparently, there’s a lot the public hasn’t been honestly told, especially kids who are the most impressionable.

If those at the Weekly Reader truly believe humans can stop “global warming” and wish to debate someone who truly knows the issue, I can set it up.

But there’s no nobility in indoctrinating little kids in an effort to turn them into little, liberal, eco-activists. It’s cowardly, and intentionally sending kids to bed crying is just plain sick.