Al Gore’s “Drowning Polar Bears”
Remember this photograph?
Photo: Amanda Byrd
Those stranded polar bears on the shrinking Arctic ice – victims of global warming – certainly tugged at the heart-strings. That photo was published not only in the Sunday Telegraph. It made it onto the front page of the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune. It also ran in London’s Daily Mail, The Times of London and Canada’s Ottawa Citizen – and that’s just to name a few. All used it as evidence of global warming and the imminent demise of the polar bear. But the photo wasn’t current. It was two and a half years old and it wasn’t snapped by Canadian environmentalists. It was taken by an Australian marine biology student Amanda Byrd, on a field trip in the summer, when every year the fringes of the Arctic ice cap melt regardless of the wider effects of global warming.
So were the polar bears stranded? They didn’t appear stranded according to Denis Simard of Environment Canada. He told Canada’s National Post, “You have to keep in mind that the bears are not in danger at all. This is a perfect picture for climate change…you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die…But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim…They are still alive and having fun.”
Photographer Amanda Byrd gave her photo to fellow cruiser, Dan Crosbie – to have a look. Dan Crosbie gave the image to the Canadian Ice Service, who gave the image to Environment Canada, who distributed the image to 7 media agencies including AP. The Associated Press released the photo two and a half years after it was taken, on the day the United Nations released its major global warming report.
Al Gore (”The planet has a fever”) saw the photo and he used it in a presentation on man made global warming. “Their habitat is melting… beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet,” Mr. Gore said, with the photo on the screen behind him. “They’re in trouble, got nowhere else to go.” The audience members let out gasps of sympathy.
The MSM led by Al Gore and the recent United Nations report are once again saying the world’s coming to an end. What ever happened to that Ozone Hole crisis or the return of the ice age theory in the 70’s?
See: Global Warming: The Very Inconvenient Truth
Posted: 1655PT 04/07/07
autone.wordpress.com
http://lordnazh.com/DailyRamble/2007/04/gcc-again.html
A good piece by a respected scientist/professor in Metreology from MIT