May 25, 2008

Those Pesky Ice Caps

Adapted from Wikipedia

The mystery of melting ice caps in the Antipodes just won’t go away.

Now, environuts worry that polar bears in the Arctic will starve to death if the ice melts away.

We are reminded of the hullabaloo two years ago over a bear shot on the Canadian Arctic Banks Island. The animal had mostly white fur, but with grizzly brown hairs sprinkled in.

It also had long claws, a concave facial profile and a humped back – characteristics of a land-roving grizzly bear.

Results of a DNA analysis disclosed the hybrid’s father was a grizzly bear and its mother a polar bear. Local folks call the creature a “grolar” bear.

Thus, it is apparent that polar bears adjust to environmental conditions and will not disappear if the Arctic polar ice cap melts – just tan up a little.

It is true that the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps are slowly melting away. Not to worry. The ice caps slowly grow and melt away in thousand-year cycles. Bears, seals and penguins adapt.

In Medieval days, the ocean between Norway and Iceland froze solid – isolating and starving colonies. Yet, a thousand years before that, Lief Erikson picked grapes in Iceland and New Found Land.

SNAIL DARTERS

The hullabaloo over melting antipodes is just another Chicken Little scare.

Who can forget the “Snail Darter” fright of 1973? Self-appointed environmentalists fought construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River.

They wept for a “rare” three-inch fish that dined on snails. Surely, the dam would drive the rare Snail Darters to extinction.

After years of delay -- costing millions of taxpayer dollars – the dam was completed. A year later it was found that the Darters had moved upstream and were propagating nicely.

ACID RAIN

Next, we were plagued by “Acid Rain” in 1986. Lakes in Pennsylvania were found to be “acidic” and thus would kill forests and animals far and wide.

The culprit was said to be smoke from Pittsburgh steel mills that wafted east and turned sweet rain to vinegar.

Canadians moaned that the rains falling on them were the fault of careless Yankees. Pay no attention to the Canadian countryside devastated by nickel mining in Ontario.

After awhile, scientists found that rain turned acid when it washed through forest litter -- and was beneficial to forest growth and creatures slurping the lake.

SPOTTED OWLS

“Tree Huggers” in 1996 worked up a snit over Spotted Owls.

It was alleged that lumber companies were logging “mature forests” – thereby depriving the owls of breeding ground.

The lumber companies simply moved on. It was a great victory for nature lovers. However, large Barred Owls moved in to displace little Spotted Owls.

Now, the mature forest which converts carbon dioxide to oxygen is dying of old age – awaiting a lightning strike or arsonist to ignite a great fire and start a new forest.

To help fill the need for building-grade lumber, we import it from South America and Africa.

THREATENED SPECIES

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lists the polar bear as a “threatened” species recognized as such under the Endangered Species Act.

This designation was issued in response to petitions from the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Council.

Says Andrew Wetzler -- director of the endangered species project at the NRC --

“The polar bear is already on thin ice. The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in the summer by 2012.

“Shrinking sea ice drastically restricts polar bears’ ability to hunt their main prey – ice seals. If key threats to polar bears are not addressed soon, zoos will be the only place our grandchildren will be able to see one.”

KYOTO PROTOCOL

Vice-President Al Gore in 1997 represented the United States at the International Framework Convention on Climate Change -- Kyoto, Japan.

Objective of the convention was to require “developed” countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels specified for them.

United States has not signed the controlling “protocol.” China, India and Brazil – leaders in noxious emissions -- have agreed to “monitor” their emissions but not to reduce them.

U.S. President George W. Bush steadfastly refuses to sign the protocol on the basis it shackles our economy.

Gore continues to push for an American acceptance of Kyoto. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his efforts to disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”

CLIMATE CHANGE NATURAL

“Climate has always been changing, sometimes rapidly,” says Dr. Reid A. Bryson -- emeritus professor of Meteorology at the University of Wisconsin, and a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor.

He asserts:

“Before there were enough people to make any difference, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate. Yet, the climate was changing.

“All this argument about the global temperature going up, or not, is absurd.

“Of course it is going up. It has gone up since the early 1800’s – before the Industrial Revolution -- because we are still coming out of the Little Ice Age. Not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”

CONCLUSION

Inasmuch as the earth is wobbling into a universal oven – with or without us -- let’s learn how to shower with bears.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist