Too Many Polar Bears: ‘Numbers Exceed Co-Existence Threshold’

There are too many polar bears in parts of Nunavut and climate change hasn’t yet affected any of them, says a draft management plan from the territorial government that contradicts much of conventional scientific thinking.

The proposed plan — which is to go to public hearings in Iqaluit on Tuesday — says that growing bear numbers are increasingly jeopardizing public safety and it’s time Inuit knowledge drove management policy. —Bob Weber, The Canadian Press, 12 November 2018

Pond Inlet wants to be able to kill any polar bear within a kilometer of the community without the animal being considered part of the town’s quota. Rankin Inlet simply wants to lower bear populations. In its submission, the Kitikmeot Regional Wildlife Board expresses frustration with how polar bears are used as an icon in the fight against climate change. “This is very frustrating for Inuit to watch. We do not have resources to touch bases with movie actors, singers, and songwriters who often narrate and provide these messages,” it says. —Bob Weber, The Canadian Press, 12 November 2018

Academics who are frightened to explore controversial topics, in case it provokes a backlash, will soon have a safer route to publish such work. An international group of university researchers is planning a new journal which will allow articles on sensitive debates to be written under pseudonyms. —Martin Rosenbaum, BBC News, 12 November 2018

We have come to the point where even liberal academics in good standing will feel the wrath of leftist orthodoxy if they depart from the party line. So what to do? Imitate the late Soviet Union, and start a samizdat literature. A group of scholars from across the political spectrum is launching the Journal of Controversial Ideas, which will publish pseudonymous peer-reviewed articles in a wide range of disciplines, so that authors can write candidly. —PowerLine, 13 November 2018

Climate science is done by experts, often using equipment of the high kind of tech. But we can crowd-source valuable information for the policy debate. Forecasts are the tool used to shape public. Here are some. Post in the comments those that you have found. We can list them and track their accuracy. The answer will reveal much. —Larry Kummer, Fabius Maximus, 12 November 2018

Physicist and climate researcher Jochem Marotzke explains why humanity has more time to stop global warming than previously thought.” Or in other words, German skeptics Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt write at their Die kalte Sonne blog, “the sensitivity of CO2 was obviously overestimated.” —P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, 10 November 2018

Tens of thousands of plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) bought with generous government grants may be burning as much fuel as combustion-engine cars. Data compiled for the BBC suggests that such vehicles in corporate fleets averaged just 40 miles per gallon (mpg) when they could have done 130. —BBC News, 9 November 2018