Hillbilly Davis
2018-01-11 00:34:13 UTC
The Inconvenient Truth About Polar Bears
Transcript:
LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Laura Sullivan.
In 2008, writer Zac Unger had a plan. He was going to save the polar bears
by writing an epic treatise on the demise of the species.
ZAC UNGER: My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental
movement. I was going to go up to the Canadian Arctic; I was going to
write this mournful elegy for the polar bears, at which point I'd be
hailed as the next coming of John Muir, and borne aloft on the shoulders
of my environmental compatriots.
SULLIVAN: There was just one problem - not all the polar bears seemed to
be dying. He realized the truth about the polar bears was complicated. In
the meantime, though, he and his wife and three small kids had the
adventure of a lifetime: moving from Oakland, California, to Churchill,
Manitoba - way up in northern Canada, on the Hudson Bay. It's flat, gray,
accessible only by plane and train; and for a few months out of the year,
there are as many polar bears as there are people. He details their
experience in his new book, "Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye."
UNGER: When I got up there, I started realizing that polar bears were not
in as bad shape as the conventional wisdom had led me to believe, which
was actually very heartening but didn't fit well with the book I'd been
planning to write.
SULLIVAN: A lot of people are going to hear that and say, wait a second -
all we've been told, for a decade now, is that the polar bears are going
extinct, and it's our fault. And they're all dying, and the ice is
shrinking, and their lives are soon going to be over.
UNGER: Well, here's a fact that kind of blew me away when I first realized
it. There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years
ago. There are about 25,000 polar bears alive today, worldwide. In 1973,
there was a global hunting ban. And so once hunting was dramatically
reduced, the population exploded. So this is not to say that global
warming is not real or is not a problem for the polar bears. But polar
bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can't look at it as a
monolithic population that is all going one way or another.
SULLIVAN: You moved your whole family up north, to do the research for
this book. What was that like?
UNGER: Well, you know, the idea was to use my children as bait, of course.
(LAUGHTER)
UNGER: The polar bears love little kids; they're perfect snacks. But we
were in this town in northern Manitoba, where polar bears - literally -
will walk down Main Street. People leave their houses and their cars
unlocked; and it's perfectly good form just to duck into any open door you
can find, when there's a polar bear chasing you.
People use what they call Churchill welcome mats, which is a piece of
plywood laid down in front of the door, or leaned up against the door,
with hundreds of nails sticking out so that when the polar bear comes up
to pad across your porch, he's going to get a paw full of sharp nails.
SULLIVAN: So there are literally, polar bears on the streets, walking the
streets with people, from time to time.
UNGER: Well, I don't want to oversell it. There are definitely polar bears
that come into town. There are polar bears that will take a swipe at
garbage cans. There are polar bears that eat people's dogs. But Churchill
has developed a really innovative polar bear alert program. And the way
that works is, you dial a phone number - 675-BEAR - when you see a bear;
and a bunch of wildlife conservation officers in a truck with a bunch of
guns, come by, and they kind of scare the bears out of town. And they have
a progression that they use. First, they will fire firecracker shells;
then they'll move up to rubber bullets. And then, if necessary - as a last
resort - move up to real bullets.
SULLIVAN: Then they'll actually kill the polar bear, if they have to.
UNGER: If they have to. That's very, very rare. They don't want to do
that. These are conservation officers, so their job is to keep bears safe.
Churchill also has a polar bear jail. These are for bears who keep coming
into town, and can't be hazed out of town. And what they do is, they will
trap these bears and put them in the polar bear jail - which is just a
great big, decommissioned military building. They're given no food.
They're given only snow, to drink. And they just go in there, and they
wait until the bay freezes up. And when the bay freezes up, these bears
can be released, to go back out on the ice. They don't want to be in town.
They're just there waiting for the ice to freeze. But if they're a hassle
in town - put them in jail, give them a short sentence, and the problem is
resolved.
SULLIVAN: So once the bay freezes, they can go back after their natural
food source.
UNGER: Right. The dominant food that they like to eat is seals, and they
can only hunt seals from out on the sea ice. They can't hunt seals from
shore. They need to be able to go on the ice.
SULLIVAN: It would freak me out to walk around with my kids on the street
in a city, and feel like there are going to be polar bears that are going
to jump out of somewhere - and grab my kid out of the stroller.
UNGER: It did freak me out. I mean, it's scary. There's no doubt about it.
You know, we were up there for Halloween. And Halloween is when you're
supposed to go out in the dark with lots of food, and run around with your
kids. So what they do is, when you go out trick-or-treating, you go out
with somebody who has a gun; either a police officer, a volunteer - you
know, somebody from the military. They all come out, and they help you go
trick-or-treating. Now, they have one rule, which is that kids can't dress
in anything white - no princesses, no ghosts - because you don't want to
be dressed as something white in the darkness, when there's a bunch of
guys with guns looking for polar bears.
SULLIVAN: Zac Unger is the author of "Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye:
A Family Field Trip to the Arctic's Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth and
Mini-Marshmallows." Zac, thanks so much for joining us.
UNGER: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
--
Climate Hillbilly Davis
It's "weather" when the temperatures don't agree with what climate
screechers have to say, and then it's climate change, when it does.
"It's all about money in the end. Keeping the Gravy Train running."
Australia Weather Bureau Caught Tampering With Climate Numbers
Climate Change Scientists Caught Tampering With Data to Show Rising Sea
Levels
"NOAA And NASA Corrected Historical Temperature Data And Fabricated
Temperature Data"
"NASA Made Efforts To Discredit Their Own Satellite Data"
"NASA Refused To Give Data And Information Requested By The US
House Of Representatives Science, Space And Technology Committee"
"NASA And NOAA Caught In Climate Data Manipulation"
"NASA Dramatically Altered US Temperatures After The Year 2000"
"Spectacularly Poor Climate Science At NASA"
"NASA/NOAA Mislead, Deceive and Lie About 'Hottest Year' Claim - Concede
2014 NOT "Hottest Year"
"Climate Fraud: NASA's Recent Global Warming "Corrections" Equal a +95.0°C
Per Century Trend"
https://www.google.com/#newwindow=1&q=noaa+nasa+caught
**********************************************************
UN Official Admits That Climate Change Used As A Ruse To Control The
World's Economy
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/diabolical-lie-called-climate-change-used-
un-promote-economic-agenda/
*****
"Unequal Distribution of Wealth and Power" Causes Climate Change
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/un-climate-summit-causes-of-
climate-change-unequal-distribution-of-wealth-and-power/
*****
U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-
destroy-capitalism/
*****
Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-
admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/
*****
United Nations Official Admits the Purpose of the Global Warming Hoax is
to Destroy Capitalism
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/donald-r-may/2015-02-
27/united-nations-official-admits-purpose-global-warming#.V-nGUOM1HmE
Transcript:
LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Laura Sullivan.
In 2008, writer Zac Unger had a plan. He was going to save the polar bears
by writing an epic treatise on the demise of the species.
ZAC UNGER: My humble plan was to become a hero of the environmental
movement. I was going to go up to the Canadian Arctic; I was going to
write this mournful elegy for the polar bears, at which point I'd be
hailed as the next coming of John Muir, and borne aloft on the shoulders
of my environmental compatriots.
SULLIVAN: There was just one problem - not all the polar bears seemed to
be dying. He realized the truth about the polar bears was complicated. In
the meantime, though, he and his wife and three small kids had the
adventure of a lifetime: moving from Oakland, California, to Churchill,
Manitoba - way up in northern Canada, on the Hudson Bay. It's flat, gray,
accessible only by plane and train; and for a few months out of the year,
there are as many polar bears as there are people. He details their
experience in his new book, "Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye."
UNGER: When I got up there, I started realizing that polar bears were not
in as bad shape as the conventional wisdom had led me to believe, which
was actually very heartening but didn't fit well with the book I'd been
planning to write.
SULLIVAN: A lot of people are going to hear that and say, wait a second -
all we've been told, for a decade now, is that the polar bears are going
extinct, and it's our fault. And they're all dying, and the ice is
shrinking, and their lives are soon going to be over.
UNGER: Well, here's a fact that kind of blew me away when I first realized
it. There are far more polar bears alive today than there were 40 years
ago. There are about 25,000 polar bears alive today, worldwide. In 1973,
there was a global hunting ban. And so once hunting was dramatically
reduced, the population exploded. So this is not to say that global
warming is not real or is not a problem for the polar bears. But polar
bear populations are large, and the truth is that we can't look at it as a
monolithic population that is all going one way or another.
SULLIVAN: You moved your whole family up north, to do the research for
this book. What was that like?
UNGER: Well, you know, the idea was to use my children as bait, of course.
(LAUGHTER)
UNGER: The polar bears love little kids; they're perfect snacks. But we
were in this town in northern Manitoba, where polar bears - literally -
will walk down Main Street. People leave their houses and their cars
unlocked; and it's perfectly good form just to duck into any open door you
can find, when there's a polar bear chasing you.
People use what they call Churchill welcome mats, which is a piece of
plywood laid down in front of the door, or leaned up against the door,
with hundreds of nails sticking out so that when the polar bear comes up
to pad across your porch, he's going to get a paw full of sharp nails.
SULLIVAN: So there are literally, polar bears on the streets, walking the
streets with people, from time to time.
UNGER: Well, I don't want to oversell it. There are definitely polar bears
that come into town. There are polar bears that will take a swipe at
garbage cans. There are polar bears that eat people's dogs. But Churchill
has developed a really innovative polar bear alert program. And the way
that works is, you dial a phone number - 675-BEAR - when you see a bear;
and a bunch of wildlife conservation officers in a truck with a bunch of
guns, come by, and they kind of scare the bears out of town. And they have
a progression that they use. First, they will fire firecracker shells;
then they'll move up to rubber bullets. And then, if necessary - as a last
resort - move up to real bullets.
SULLIVAN: Then they'll actually kill the polar bear, if they have to.
UNGER: If they have to. That's very, very rare. They don't want to do
that. These are conservation officers, so their job is to keep bears safe.
Churchill also has a polar bear jail. These are for bears who keep coming
into town, and can't be hazed out of town. And what they do is, they will
trap these bears and put them in the polar bear jail - which is just a
great big, decommissioned military building. They're given no food.
They're given only snow, to drink. And they just go in there, and they
wait until the bay freezes up. And when the bay freezes up, these bears
can be released, to go back out on the ice. They don't want to be in town.
They're just there waiting for the ice to freeze. But if they're a hassle
in town - put them in jail, give them a short sentence, and the problem is
resolved.
SULLIVAN: So once the bay freezes, they can go back after their natural
food source.
UNGER: Right. The dominant food that they like to eat is seals, and they
can only hunt seals from out on the sea ice. They can't hunt seals from
shore. They need to be able to go on the ice.
SULLIVAN: It would freak me out to walk around with my kids on the street
in a city, and feel like there are going to be polar bears that are going
to jump out of somewhere - and grab my kid out of the stroller.
UNGER: It did freak me out. I mean, it's scary. There's no doubt about it.
You know, we were up there for Halloween. And Halloween is when you're
supposed to go out in the dark with lots of food, and run around with your
kids. So what they do is, when you go out trick-or-treating, you go out
with somebody who has a gun; either a police officer, a volunteer - you
know, somebody from the military. They all come out, and they help you go
trick-or-treating. Now, they have one rule, which is that kids can't dress
in anything white - no princesses, no ghosts - because you don't want to
be dressed as something white in the darkness, when there's a bunch of
guys with guns looking for polar bears.
SULLIVAN: Zac Unger is the author of "Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye:
A Family Field Trip to the Arctic's Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth and
Mini-Marshmallows." Zac, thanks so much for joining us.
UNGER: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
--
Climate Hillbilly Davis
It's "weather" when the temperatures don't agree with what climate
screechers have to say, and then it's climate change, when it does.
"It's all about money in the end. Keeping the Gravy Train running."
Australia Weather Bureau Caught Tampering With Climate Numbers
Climate Change Scientists Caught Tampering With Data to Show Rising Sea
Levels
"NOAA And NASA Corrected Historical Temperature Data And Fabricated
Temperature Data"
"NASA Made Efforts To Discredit Their Own Satellite Data"
"NASA Refused To Give Data And Information Requested By The US
House Of Representatives Science, Space And Technology Committee"
"NASA And NOAA Caught In Climate Data Manipulation"
"NASA Dramatically Altered US Temperatures After The Year 2000"
"Spectacularly Poor Climate Science At NASA"
"NASA/NOAA Mislead, Deceive and Lie About 'Hottest Year' Claim - Concede
2014 NOT "Hottest Year"
"Climate Fraud: NASA's Recent Global Warming "Corrections" Equal a +95.0°C
Per Century Trend"
https://www.google.com/#newwindow=1&q=noaa+nasa+caught
**********************************************************
UN Official Admits That Climate Change Used As A Ruse To Control The
World's Economy
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/diabolical-lie-called-climate-change-used-
un-promote-economic-agenda/
*****
"Unequal Distribution of Wealth and Power" Causes Climate Change
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/un-climate-summit-causes-of-
climate-change-unequal-distribution-of-wealth-and-power/
*****
U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-
destroy-capitalism/
*****
Another Climate Alarmist Admits Real Motive Behind Warming Scare
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-
admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/
*****
United Nations Official Admits the Purpose of the Global Warming Hoax is
to Destroy Capitalism
http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/donald-r-may/2015-02-
27/united-nations-official-admits-purpose-global-warming#.V-nGUOM1HmE