Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

US Homebuilder Sentiment Dips Back to Lowest Level Since Late 2022

4 hours ago

Wall Street Muted as Investors Focus on Retail Earnings, Jackson Hole Summit

4 hours ago

Trump Vows to Target Mail-in Ballots Ahead of 2026 Midterm Election

4 hours ago

Thousands of Palestinians Leave Gaza City Fearing Israeli Offensive

5 hours ago

What to Know About Russia-US-Ukraine Peace Talks

22 hours ago

Actor Terence Stamp, Star of Superman Films, Dies Aged 87

22 hours ago

Kevin McCarthy, Redistricting Commission’s Popularity Stand in Newsom’s Way

3 days ago

California Man Safe After High-Tech Rescue From Behind Sequoia Waterfall

3 days ago
Are Polar Bears Becoming Extinct? Actually, They Are Abundant
Inside-Sources
By InsideSources.com
Published 5 years ago on
July 27, 2020

Share

new study warns that polar bears could become nearly extinct by the end of the century if we don’t enact strict climate policies. However, it relies on an exceptionally unlikely climate scenario, where stagnating global coal use will suddenly balloon sixfold over the century.

Opinion

Bjorn Lomborg
InsideSources.com 

The lead researcher calls polar bears the “poster child of climate change” and the study helps revive a particular climate scare that has gone surprisingly quiet over the past decade. In 2007, the online climate news outlet Grist predicted that polar bears would go extinct soon. They told us that models likely underestimated the decline in arctic sea ice, and told us that “when the ice goes, the polar bears will go.” They expected polar bears to be extinct by 2030 — and possibly even by today.

Grist wasn’t alone. A National Geographic videographer of a polar bear declared that with declining arctic ice, we needed to awaken to climate change and lower carbon emissions.

People Magazine promoted International Polar Bear Day to raise awareness for the animal and climate change causes. Before his death in 2007, author Kurt Vonnegut was worried that the last of the polar bears might be dying out. And Al Gore warned us of polar bears drowning in his Oscar-winning 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Such stories of the decline and possible demise of polar bears have been highly effective in galvanizing attention, engagement and action on climate change. The polar bear has been used by environment organizations for fundraising and stamps with cute polar bears have been released around the world to increase climate awareness. Yet, the numbers on polar bears tell a very different story.

Regulation of Hunting Is Helping Polar Bears

The Arctic where polar bears live is huge — about twice the size of the continental United States. That is why counting a few tens of thousands of polar bears will always be a very difficult task. Nonetheless, the international Polar Bear Specialist Group has over the past four decades done its best to estimate how many polar bears exist at any time.

When these conservationists began studying the polar bear population in the 1960s, they clearly identified that the biggest threat to polar bears was indiscriminate hunting. Not surprisingly, there was a great deal of uncertainty about the absolute number of polar bears — it was estimated at somewhere between 5,000 to 19,000. Let us use the midpoint of 12,000 polar bears in the 1960s.

Since then hunting became regulated everywhere, and by 1981 the group estimated that the midpoint of the number of polar bears had increased to almost 23,000. The group estimated the number of polar bears again in 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, 2009, and again in 2015 — which they in 2019 said was the relevant number for “now.”

The amazing, if untold, story is that the midpoint estimate has never been as high as today. The global number of polar bears stands between 22,000 and 31,000, or a midpoint of 26,500.

The simple fact is that polar bears are not going extinct. They are not becoming fewer and fewer. Since society started counting them in the 1960s, polar bears have never been more abundant.

Let’s Be Clear: Climate Change Is Real, and We Should Tackle It

This is a tremendous success story for conservation. We have seen polar bears more than double in numbers since the 1960s. Yet, this is not the story we have heard. For decades we have been told that the polar bears are dwindling and possibly going extinct by 2020. As the drastic claims have become ever more untenable by the facts, campaigners have simply mentioned polar bears less and less.

Let’s be clear: climate change is real, and we should tackle it. But we need to be smart about climate actions. Most of our expensive climate policies will have virtually no effect.

Indeed, The Guardian, a British media outlet whose stated mission is to respond to the climate crisis, decided last year to not use polar bears as much for their climate illustrations.  Similarly, Al Gore’s climate sequel a decade later just never mentioned polar bears.

Let’s be clear: climate change is real, and we should tackle it. But we need to be smart about climate actions. Most of our expensive climate policies will have virtually no effect. Current climate promises from the Paris agreement are expected to reduce temperatures by less than 0.4 degree Fahrenheit by the end of the century, according to U.N. climate models — and reports project we are not even living up to the Paris promises.

Instead, economic research clearly shows that the most effective climate policies should dramatically increase green innovation. Today, it is incredibly expensive to switch entirely to green energy on current technology. But if we innovate the price of green energy down below the price of fossil fuels, we will eventually see everyone — China, India, Africa and Latin America along with rich countries — switch.

And how to best help the polar bears? Current climate policies that will change temperatures infinitesimally in a century will help nothing. But another approach could. You rarely hear about it, but hunters each year kill  900 polar bears. If we want more polar bears, maybe we should simply stop shooting quite as many.

About the Author 

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book is “False Alarm — How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Trump Administration Revoked More Than 6,000 Student Visas, State Dept Says

DON'T MISS

Poll: Fewer Americans Satisfied With Treatment of Immigrants, Minority Groups

DON'T MISS

Trump Administration in Talks to Take 10% Stake in Intel, Bloomberg News Reports

DON'T MISS

Trump Eyes Reclassification to Make Cannabis Easier to Buy and Sell

DON'T MISS

America’s Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

DON'T MISS

Zelenskiy Arrives at White House for High-Stakes Trump Meeting

DON'T MISS

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, Alleged Mexican Drug Lord, Set to Plead Guilty

DON'T MISS

Hamas Accepts Proposed Deal for Ceasefire With Israel and Hostage Release, Egyptian Source Says

DON'T MISS

Texas Democratic Lawmakers End Walkout, Setting Stage for Vote on Redrawn Map

DON'T MISS

Costa Bill Could Mean Grant Money to More Rural Towns Facing Water Disasters

UP NEXT

Poll: Fewer Americans Satisfied With Treatment of Immigrants, Minority Groups

UP NEXT

Trump Administration in Talks to Take 10% Stake in Intel, Bloomberg News Reports

UP NEXT

Trump Eyes Reclassification to Make Cannabis Easier to Buy and Sell

UP NEXT

America’s Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

UP NEXT

Zelenskiy Arrives at White House for High-Stakes Trump Meeting

UP NEXT

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, Alleged Mexican Drug Lord, Set to Plead Guilty

UP NEXT

Hamas Accepts Proposed Deal for Ceasefire With Israel and Hostage Release, Egyptian Source Says

UP NEXT

Texas Democratic Lawmakers End Walkout, Setting Stage for Vote on Redrawn Map

UP NEXT

Costa Bill Could Mean Grant Money to More Rural Towns Facing Water Disasters

UP NEXT

Gavin Newsom Warms to Big Oil in Climate Reversal

Trump Eyes Reclassification to Make Cannabis Easier to Buy and Sell

19 minutes ago

America’s Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

56 minutes ago

Zelenskiy Arrives at White House for High-Stakes Trump Meeting

1 hour ago

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, Alleged Mexican Drug Lord, Set to Plead Guilty

1 hour ago

Hamas Accepts Proposed Deal for Ceasefire With Israel and Hostage Release, Egyptian Source Says

2 hours ago

Texas Democratic Lawmakers End Walkout, Setting Stage for Vote on Redrawn Map

2 hours ago

Costa Bill Could Mean Grant Money to More Rural Towns Facing Water Disasters

2 hours ago

Gavin Newsom Warms to Big Oil in Climate Reversal

2 hours ago

Madera County Authorities Arrest Two During Oakhurst Law Enforcement Operation

3 hours ago

Valley Crime Stoppers’ Most Wanted Person of the Day: Koby Dupree Foster

3 hours ago

Trump Administration Revoked More Than 6,000 Student Visas, State Dept Says

The administration of President Donald Trump has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for overstays and breaking the law, including a small...

4 minutes ago

A general view of a U.S. State Department sign outside the U.S. State Department building in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2025. (Reuters File)
4 minutes ago

Trump Administration Revoked More Than 6,000 Student Visas, State Dept Says

A group of young adults of different racial and ethnic backgrounds stand side by side outdoors, looking directly at the camera with serious expressions.
11 minutes ago

Poll: Fewer Americans Satisfied With Treatment of Immigrants, Minority Groups

A smartphone with a displayed Intel logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken March 6, 2023. (Reuters File)
15 minutes ago

Trump Administration in Talks to Take 10% Stake in Intel, Bloomberg News Reports

President Donald Trump shouts to reporters as he walks on the roof of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 5, 2025. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
19 minutes ago

Trump Eyes Reclassification to Make Cannabis Easier to Buy and Sell

US Forest Service firefighters in San Luis Obispo California
56 minutes ago

America’s Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

President Donald Trump greets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House, amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 18, 2025. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque)
1 hour ago

Zelenskiy Arrives at White House for High-Stakes Trump Meeting

Accused Mexican former drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada appears in Brooklyn federal court, New York, U.S, October 18, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. (Reuters File)
1 hour ago

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, Alleged Mexican Drug Lord, Set to Plead Guilty

Smoke rises after an explosion in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, Israel August 18, 2025. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
2 hours ago

Hamas Accepts Proposed Deal for Ceasefire With Israel and Hostage Release, Egyptian Source Says

Search

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Send this to a friend