Polar Bears, Arctic Ice, and Food Shortages – Watts Up With That?

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John Stossel

Climate zealots tell us the end is near. It’s the era of “global BOILING!” says the UN Secretary General.

Climate alarmists say the Arctic will soon be ice-free and cities will be underwater!

But what do the facts say?

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The facts say that the climate change fanatics’ catastrophic claims are wrong.

In this video and the next, we’ll debunk 7 myths about climate change.

First up: melting ice, polar bear extinction, and climate change famines.

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Transcript:

The Era of Global Warming Has Ended

The era of global warming has ended. The era of global boiling has arrived. Global boiling! The world’s doomed, I’m told. We’re in the sixth mass extinction right now. I only wish someone could have warned us about this apart from every scientist for the last 50 years.

[Applause]

Every scientist agrees. But here’s the thing: they don’t. Well, yes, they agree that the climate’s warming. Climate changes. But scientists don’t agree on the catastrophic claims activists and the media make. The icebergs are melting, the coral reefs are dying, and no one is helping. If we don’t stop the sea level rising, millions of people will be in danger.

In this video, and the next, we’ll look at seven myths about climate change, starting with the great polar ice sheets, which are melting faster than many scientists had anticipated. If global warming continues at the present rate, then the Arctic could already be ice-free by the summer of 2030. That’s Myth 1: The Arctic will soon be ice-free.

We don’t have decades. We hardly have years. These glaciers are on the brink. Some are already past the point of no return. If the entire Greenland ice sheet was lost, sea levels would increase by seven meters. That’s 22 feet. At just six feet, one storm surge could leave London underwater, says this BBC documentary. This could happen this century, they say. But is the ice really melting that fast? No.

As we exit ice ages, you should expect some ice melt, but it’s not happening at nearly the catastrophic pace that they claim. Heartland Research Fellow Linnea Lueken researches environmental threats. She points out that studies on Arctic sea ice don’t show a catastrophic decline. Although ice has melted, it’s really leveled off in recent years.

A lot of the time when you are looking at these very alarming images, it seems like, where’d all the ice go? There’s no ice; it’s all these walruses laying out on a stony beach. They should be on big icebergs. Well, it’s because it’s the summertime, and in the winter, it all comes right back to where it was before. All of it? In recent years, yeah, all of it. For the past 20 years, it’s been largely stable.

And anyway, this is just sea ice, ice in the water, not the total amount of ice in the Arctic. Almost all the Arctic’s ice is on land. And this is the trend line for that ice. You can barely see any decline. Compared to the amount of ice that’s in the Arctic, it is like a grain of sand on the beach. It is so minuscule compared to the amount of ice that’s there that it doesn’t even show up on a trend chart when you plot it.

[Glacier collapsing]

It’s so frustrating. Media keep interviewing “experts” who claim we still see an ice-free Arctic by the middle of the century. Zealots have predicted doom for years. There is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years. Well, those years have long passed. Nobody calls him on it. They absolutely should be calling him on it.

A lot of these kinds of claims are based on what computer models are projecting. And they pick the ones that are alarmist. Oh, absolutely. Well, those are the ones that generate headlines, right?

Here’s another myth that generates headlines: Arctic polar bears are facing near-extinction by the end of the century. Imagine your family disappearing. It’s happening to polar bears right now. That’s Myth 2: Polar bears are going extinct.

[Laughs]

This is the worst one. Polar bears have increased their populations. Environmental groups ignore that increase to sucker you into giving them more of your money. “Don’t give up on polar bears. Don’t give up on threatened species. Your support can help Environmental Defense Fund save the polar bears.” These environmental groups are really being sleazy. Absolutely, because the data is right there. It’s not hard to find out that polar bears are fine. Finding some sick polar bear out there to take a picture of does not indicate the health of the species.

So, polar bears aren’t going extinct. But I’m told we might. The U.N. is warning of mass extinctions and food shortages within this century if global warming continues. Climate change could create a massive global food shortage. That’s Myth 3: Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food.

There is no claim less true. Agricultural output keeps setting record highs. Food production has skyrocketed even amid the modest warming of the past 100+ years. Extra carbon dioxide is good for food production. Well, we inject CO2 into greenhouses for a reason. It’s because it helps to fertilize plants for faster and better growth. And NASA data show that the earth has significantly greened over the past couple of decades. And that, NASA even attributes to increased carbon dioxide fertilization.

As the climate has warmed, the world experienced the biggest drop in hunger and malnutrition ever. But climate activists don’t tell people that. The United Nations says Madagascar is on the verge of experiencing the world’s first climate crisis famine. Climate crisis famine? No! Madagascar’s problems are mostly caused by bad governance, corruption, and cronyism, not climate change.

But whenever there’s a food shortage, or even when prices rise, the media blame climate change. “Food shortages, driven by the effects of climate change. We’re going to see starvation and famine on multiple continents at the same time.” When coffee prices rose, The New York Times blamed “devastation that climate change wrought.” But since the 1990s, global coffee production has increased by 82%. The Times focused on a brief decline in Honduras. But even there, coffee production since 1990 is up more than 200%.

It does not mean that there is a long-term climate issue if you have one bad year. But The New York Times acts like it does. It absolutely does not. And they get egg on their face when you look at the historic data and you see they have been setting records for coffee production. But they never apologize. They never say, “Oh, we got this wrong.” No, and even if they did have a retraction, the damage is already done. The false report already went out.

Alarmist media and environmental groups never apologize. They keep predicting doom. And when they’re wrong, they just move on to the next scare. Like this one: It’s climate change creating infernos larger than ever. That’s just not true.

My next video will cover that and three more myths about our warming planet.

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