Susan Crockford
Cash quote from Bjorn Lomborg’s response to being ‘fact-checked’ on polar bear numbers, Wall Road Journal, 26 January 2023:
“It does extra good for polar bears, and the remainder of us, if these making an attempt to assist them use correct information.”
Lomborg responds himself after I challenged the ‘fact-checkers’ final week:
Counting on the information I referenced was uncontroversial. When a CNN science journalist did an investigation just like AFP’s in 2008, he spoke to quite a few scientists and so they agreed “that polar bear populations have, in all probability, elevated up to now a number of a long time.” When polar bears in 2008 had been listed as a threatened species beneath the Endangered Species Act, the choice famous that the inhabitants “has grown from a low of about 12,000 within the late 1960’s to a present worldwide estimate of 20,000-25,000.” The information right here haven’t modified, solely the media’s willingness to ignore annoying information.
The result’s that the general public is denied entry to correct knowledge and open debate about these essential matters. Ridiculous factors on one facet are left standing whereas so-called fact-checking censors inconvenient truths. If we’re to make good local weather coverage, voters want a full image of the information. Lomborg 2023, backup hyperlink
I’d add this reality: in 1982, polar bears had been listed by the IUCN as ‘weak’ however by 1996, that had modified to ‘decrease danger/conservation dependent’–now known as ‘least concern‘ (see screencap beneath) as a result of inhabitants numbers had rebounded after greater than 20 years of worldwide safety from over-hunting. The reversion to ‘weak’ in 2006 was based mostly solely on predictions that inhabitants numbers would decline sooner or later attributable to see ice loss, which to date has not occurred (Crockford 2017, 2019; Crockford and Geist 2018).
References
.Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the speculation that routine sea ice protection of 3-5 mkm2 leads to a higher than 30% decline in inhabitants dimension of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open entry. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/
Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Disaster That By no means Occurred. World Warming Coverage Basis, London. Accessible in paperback and book codecs.
Crockford, S.J. and Geist, V. 2018. Conservation Fiasco. Vary Journal, Winter 2017/2018, pg. 26-27. Pdf right here.
