A new report tells us that the polar bears are all about to disappear as a result of climate change. Do not believe this report.
There is the usual point that we’ve been told about the decreasing numbers for decades as populations out there in reality explode. But we can go further with this new research. It is wrong, undoubtedly so.
Most polar bears to disappear by 2100, study predicts
No, that’s not what the study does say. Rather, if, then. If emissions run at some particular level then this is one of the possible - if you prefer, likely - outcomes. That does depend upon what the emissions level is of course.
Scientists have predicted for the first time when, where and how polar bears are likely to disappear, warning that if greenhouse gas emissions stay on their current trajectory all but a few polar bear populations in the Arctic will probably be gone by 2100.
No, it does not say “current trajectory”. It says if emissions are very much, hugely, greater than the current path then it might happen.
The researchers found that under a business-as-usual emissions scenario, polar bears will likely probably only remain in the Queen Elizabeth Islands – the northernmost cluster in Canada’s Arctic archipelago – at the end of the century.
This is not true. The error is in the definition of “business-as-usual”. From the paper itself:
Intersecting these thresholds with projected annual fasting periods under business-as-usual (Representative Concentration Pathway to 8.5 Wm−2 (RCP8.5)) or mitigated (RCP4.5) scenarios
RCP 8.5 is not business as usual. The one specific thing that it was necessary to do to avoid this scenario was to have fracking. For it depends upon the idea that we will run out of conventional oil and gas and thus turn back to coal. Vast amounts of coal, not just more than we used to use but for a larger portion of the very much greater future energy use. This is actually pointed out in the original models back in the SRES from the 1990s. If unconventional (ie, fracked) oil and gas come into use then RCP 8.5 simply isn’t going to happen. This is before we start to talk about solar power getting cheaper by 20% a year, windmills and all the rest.
RCP 8.5 is not BAU, it’s is hugely, vastly, worse than the path we know that we’re on.
We’re all in favour of the science of climate change. But we do rather insist that it be science. Incorrect, incorrect to the point of already having been disproved, assumptions are not science. Nor are the outputs of models starting from those known to be incorrect assumptions.
What puzzles here is that we do agree with the underlying thought, that climate change could indeed be a very large problem. It’s therefore necessary to use that scientific method to explore it. Why is it, therefore, that so many claiming to do so aren’t?