Not sure if anyone saw or read about this, but I merged the two videos from BBC and CNN from todays news regarding Protecting the Polar bears, global warming and the Bush administration. I also provided related links on the video information as well:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvmgh_pro...-bears-12282006

Seems the Bush administration is FINALLY taking notice due to a lawsuit.

NOTE: If the video hangs, click on video window to pause it so it can load, then hit play

I remember reading that all but two species of polar bears (11 of 13 I think) are thriving. What I read may have been a few years old, but, why should we try to stop the change? Animals come and go, the same with empires. We should adapt to change, not change the change.

There is only one species of polar bear. Its habitat is under threat due to the ice cap melting, this is a man made threat, not a natural one. This is a different scenario to natural extinction patterns.

Alright, you made me look it up, it's 11 of 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, which is where almost all the polar bears are. One of these populations is talked about in this CBC article dated July 15, 2005. And the Toronto Star site has an article, but its been taken down or moved somewhere else.

Populations makes more sense than species.

I think you'll find there are popualtions that are much larger in Russia. The population according to the IUCN currently vunerable. The threat is from melting ice caps, restricting the food availabilty for the bear.

Personally, I believe that the warming is natural, not man made. And the polar bears need to adapt to the change. The climate is always changing. Some extinctions are probably caused by man, but animals cannot be expected to survive forever. It'll happen sooner or later. I don't know what will help them besides protection from hunting, relocation, hope for recovery in the arctic regions. I don't think there's anything else to do for them. Hunting protection only does so much. Relocation would take money to fund the capture and transport. But where would the bears go to? Would there be a large preserve created, such as the Tallgrass Prairie, where bison are kept? What will be done about it? the warming will probably continue for a few decades or and then slowly cool off as it did after the Medieval Warm Period.

The warming is very much a)man made, the earth should actually be cooling right now and b)happening at an unpresidented rate. Whether people like it or not it is happening because of CO2 and other green house emmisions being so high. This is not at all like other mild warming cyclical events, this is causing fundermental whether pattern and ocean current shifts and is in fact our fault.

The Earth is in an interglacial period, we should be warm. The last Ice Age ended about 20,000 years ago, not long on a geological scale. The Earth just got out of the Little Ice Age, which was during the 1600s-1800s. Before that was the Medieval Warm Period, which was warmer than today. During this time, the Vikings were able to explore and settle further away. In all, the last 12,000 years had 9 coolings and 9 warmings. CO2 is not the largest contributor of greenhouse gases, water vapor is, which is about 98% of gases. And the sun is what drives the climate, it has the greatest influence on the climate. Reptilian fossils have been found on Ellesmere Island, Canada and trees as far north as 80 degrees. I'm not convinced that humans are to blame for the warming.

Only conifers grow far north, none are in polar regions and you do get reptiles far north however remember that Ellesmere Island was not always so far north. I know we are in an interglacial period, that does not alter the fact tha current temoperature rises have been higher than ever before and that climatologists still stay the Earth should be cooling. I know sun and water has the greatest influence on the planet, however CO2 is still a major greenhouse gas and its far higher in concentration than in an extremely long time and it combined with a decrease in carbon sinks (a huge on at that) can make a large atmospheric difference in temperature. A natural shift would also have a more eeven distribution rather than the north bias current climate change has (something which also relates to emmisons and the large decrease in carbon sinks there is)

The trees were ancient trees. The reptiles were there around 55 million years ago, so Ellesmere Island would still have been up north somewhere, maybe 15 or so degrees south I suppose.
From 1940 to 1970, the Earth was actually cooling off. The media was talking of an ice age coming. But the past 3,000 years have had 5 periods that were warmer than today and the last 4 interglacials were warmer that today.
Particulates from industries such as sulfur dioxide produces the opposite effect to warming. But many pollutants, like arosols, fall out or are washed out in weeks.
The oceans, which has much more surface area than land, does not have any temperature sensors. The southern hemisphere does not have many stations either, would this account for the uneven distribution?

No there are weather stations placed internationally and they show the same effects, satellite temperature mapping also covers everywhere.
55mya the atmosphere of Ellesmere Island would have been considerable different to it is know, for a start continental drift would have meant the currents would have been vastly different, the lack of ice caps at that time (as it was pre ice age cycling) did not exist and the overall temperature of the planet was very different to how it is now. Take into account that the poles would not be anyway near where they are now and it shows that the climate 55mya is not comparable to the current climate. It is also not just about the cyclical warming and cooling, it is to do with the speed of transition, which is currently way above normal and is still different to what climatologists at universities and metrological stations around the world are saying should be happening.

Yes, there HAVE been extinctions for billions of years and it is all part of evolution, but now it is happening faster and there is no possible way for an arctic species to all of a sudden adapt to a warmer climate.

And a reserve is all fine and good, but there are many problems that come with it. One of them is that animals need to roam and migrate over vast distances, and usually reserves don't cover vast distances. Another is when a large group of animals are keep in a small reserve, disease spreads quickly among them. An example is at my hometown, in the 1930s-1940s there was a large buffalo reserve. But then a disease spread (I don't remeber what kind) and all the buffalo died, and then it was turned into an army base/POW camp.

Interesting, good post.

I understand that satellite temperature readings of the troposphere haven't been agreeing. Satellites are reading different temps. from different layers of the troposphere.
As for weather stations, there are fewer and fewer of them since they can cover a larger area, but "far more of them exist in developed countries than in developing countries. Thus, in determining gloabal average surface temperature, data from a weather station in the U.S. might be used to represent the temperature of a few hundred square miles, while data from a weather station in Africa might be used to represent the temperature of thousands of square miles."

quoted from "Lessons and Limits of Climate History: Was the 20th Century Climate Unusual?" by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas.

Satellite temperatures also record sea level temperatures which are of vital importance, the weather stations in some parts of Africa are not upto the same standard as European and American ones, however South Africa and countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile and the the antartic survey stations of various nations as well as the Malay, and Australian stations are very good. In fact the British Antarctic Survey base on South Georgia is one of the best weather outlets in the world.

I have no idea how much room polar bears need on a reserve. But I'm not from Canada, so to me there looks like there is a lot of space up there. I'm sorry the buffalo died, the Tallgrass Prairie Reserve here in Oklahoma has had buffalo for I don't know how many years; I'd say at least 20 years and they're doing great and look awsome.

Do not be sorry for the buffalo, because now instead of buffalo we have tanks! Contrairy to popular belief, not all of Canada is polar bear habitat. Only the very topmost is populated by polar bears. But since there are very few people up there, if the government really wanted to could make a very large reserve. But this highly unlikely because it would not benifit the economy because it would have very few visiters and it would interfere with the mining of very valuable minerals.

There are polar bears at the Tulsa Zoo, so I thought if there are polar bears in Oklahoma, maybe there could be a way of creating a reserve for them in Canada somewhere, not neccessarily in a remote region. But they would need to hunt, and I don't know where seals inhabit. A lake in the reserve stocked with fish may suffice, but they may lose their taste for seals, if there are none. But then again, I am not a vet, zookeeper, or biologist, so I'm just throwing ideas around.

No they eat high fat meat and do not survive well on fish. They couldn't be moved, it is pretty much logistically impossible. They are also semi aquatic and have a body designed for the arctic summer and would have difficulty in adapting to a much warmer climate. Seals inhabit most coastal regions in the world with a few exceptions. But it is not just the bears that would be under threat, the whole arctic ecosystem could collapse, both aquatically and terrestially.

I highly doubt that a polar bear could change its regular of seals to freshwater fish just like that. Polar bears are more evolved to prey on seals than fish anyway. And to survive in a lake, you would have to move the food sorce, ie seals, to the lake also, which a seal surviving in a lake is next to impossible. And there are very few deep enough lakes up north on the tundra anyways, most of the freshwater as all I know is rivers and sloughs.

Lakes occur landlocked. Polar bears inhabit the coastline areas where their major food source is. So geography definetly isn't working in your lake idea. As I said before, I can not think of a large enough lake on the tundra to support a polar bear reserve. And a lake also wouldn't support enough fish or the right species of fish to satisfy a polar bear. But it still good that people are thinking of some suggestions to try and help the polar bears.

Two weeks ago PRIOR to the recent Polar Bear news, this news came out and I posted the news report here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsgs1_arc...-ice-caps-12120

Dec 12th, 2006

BBC reports on how the all-year-round Polar Ice could disappear by the year 2040. And as a result, the Polar Bears could become extinct sooner than anticipated. (like within our lifetime) The new study shows things are happening much faster than originally expected.
Read / watch report on this here called:
Arctic sea ice 'faces rapid melt'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6171053.stm


And speaking of Canada in recent news of the past few days...

Last Updated: Friday, 29 December 2006, 22:52 GMT

Huge Arctic ice break discovered
Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming.

It is said to be the largest break in 25 years, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 sq km (25 square miles).

It occurred in August 2005 but was only recently detected on satellite images.

The chunk of ice bigger than Manhattan could wreak havoc if it moves into oil drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, scientists warned.

The Arctic is all frozen up for the winter and it's stuck in the sea ice about 50km (30 miles) off the coast," said Luke Copland, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa.

"The risk is that next summer, as that sea ice melts, this large ice island can then move itself around off the coast and one potential path for it is to make its way westward toward the Beaufort Sea where there is lots of oil and gas exploration, oil rigs and shipping."

'Quite amazing'

The ice break was initially undetected due to the remoteness of the northern coast of Ellesmere island, which is about 800km (500 miles) from the North Pole.

Satellite images showed the 15km (9mile) crack, then the ice floating about 1km (0.6 miles) from the coast within about an hour, said Mr Copland, a specialist in glaciers and ice masses.

"You could stand at one edge and not see the other side, and for something that large to move that quickly is quite amazing," he said.

Mr Copland said a combination of low accumulations of sea ice around the edges of the ice mass, as well as the Arctic's warmest temperatures on record, contributed to the break.

The region was 3C (5.4F) above average in the summer of 2005, he said.

Ice shelves in Canada's far north have shrunk by as much as 90% since 1906.

"It's hard to tie one event to climate change, but when you look at the longer-term trend, the bigger picture, we've lost a lot of ice shelves on northern Ellesmere in the past century.

"This is that continuing and this is the biggest one in the last 25 years," he said.

Source BBC

And another mention of it on BBC News yesterday briefly...
About the ICE SHELF on BBC news via PBS. It is believed the huge ice shelf broke off last past summer, but has just been discovered by scientists using sattelite imagery- which looks to be submitted in by NASA

Here are some shots from the very brief mention BBC had on yesterday's news which was also mentioned in last weeks BBC news:

Before it broke off:


AFTER it broke off:



Within an hour after breaking free, it formed as a new ice island leaving a trail of icey boulders:


I made a short .swf of the images from the BBC report here to watch as well:
http://img471.imageshack.us/my.php?image=i...f&width=800

Another video if you have the time to watch - it's about 40 minutes. I also posted recent related article links as well in the video information.
This video came out June 2006 about a Global Warming Coverup going on in America
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtaz7_glo...arming-cover-up

"TIP of the iceberg" article

Don't wait to save the polar bear
We have to act quickly to stop the species from becoming a casualty of global warming.
By Kassie Siegel, KASSIE SIEGEL is a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which is dedicated to the conservation of imperiled plants and animals.
January 8, 2007

ON DEC. 27, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced a proposal to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act because of the loss of its sea ice habitat from global warming. This proposal marks the first legally binding admission by the Bush administration of the reality of global warming. The significance of the polar bear decision has not been missed by those who stand to benefit from a continuation of the administration's head-in-the-sand approach to global warming. Once protection for the polar bear is finalized, federal agencies and other large greenhouse gas emitters will be required by law to ensure that their emissions do not jeopardize the species. And the only way to avoid jeopardizing the polar bear is to reduce emissions.

Predictably, opponents of emissions cuts are doing what they have always done: claim a scientific dispute where none exists and urge that no action be taken until the science is "conclusive." Singing this tired tune, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal last week called the proposal to protect polar bears a "triumph of politics over science," arguing that polar bears are "overly abundant" and that the species cannot be considered threatened until its population has further declined.

The Journal got it wrong in every respect. What is remarkable about the polar bear decision is that it is a rare case of science actually triumphing over politics, not the other way around. From burying the National Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on the United States to trying to gag top NASA climate scientist James Hansen, the Bush administration has systematically attempted to suppress science on global warming.

However, the "best available science" standard required by the Endangered Species Act forbids political and economic considerations. That was the basis for the strategy of my organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, when, on Feb. 16, 2005 (the same day the Kyoto Protocol entered into force without the participation of the U.S.), we filed a petition requesting protection of the polar bear. The Bush administration could refuse only by denying the science of global warming. So protecting the polar bear was the only decision it could legally make.

Unfortunately for the polar bear, the "best available science" — in fact, the only available science — paints a grim picture. The bear is entirely dependent on sea ice, using it as a platform on which to travel, hunt and give birth. Yet each year, as the Arctic warms, the sea ice shrinks. Polar bear populations are already suffering from drowning, starvation and lower cub survival. Absent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the summer sea ice, and the polar bear, may disappear entirely in less than 40 years. All this has been documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Notwithstanding the scientific consensus that polar bears are threatened with extinction because of global warming, there will always be fossil fuel-addicted naysayers misrepresenting reality. Just as the tobacco industry could always find a "scientist" to claim that there was no link between smoking and lung cancer, climate-change deniers such as Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) will always find polar bear population numbers and trends that purport to prove that the species is doing fine.

More polar bears are being seen near human settlements in Canada, they say, therefore polar bear populations must be increasing. Wrong. A study by NASA and Canadian Wildlife Service scientists published in September 2006 in the journal Arctic demonstrated that more polar bears were indeed being seen on land — not because the species was "overly abundant" but because the bears had nowhere else to go. They should be out on the ice hunting seals, but earlier breakup of sea ice means the bears are stuck on land, where they are more likely to be spotted.

Inhofe and the Wall Street Journal would take no action to protect polar bears until their population has declined significantly. But five of the 19 distinct polar bear populations are already known to be declining. And given the undisputed trajectory of sea ice retreat, the species must still be considered threatened even if there were not yet any evidence of population decline. If a ship starts taking on water, you don't wait until the first passenger drowns before issuing a mayday; the passengers are clearly "threatened" as soon as the water starts pouring in.

But polar bears are not the first species (nor will they likely be the last) for which we have sought the protections of the Endangered Species Act because of global warming. The first, in 2001, was the Kittlitz's murrelet, a small seabird that feeds at the mouth of tidewater glaciers and whose decline corresponds to the global-warming-induced retreat of those glaciers.

Alas, the eyes of the world did not turn to the plight of the Kittlitz's murrelet, as we had hoped, and the administration quietly refused to protect it, a decision we are challenging in court. In 2004, we filed a petition seeking protection for the staghorn and elkhorn corals, species that have declined by more than 90% because of a host of threats, including global warming. The corals were listed as threatened species in May, but with far less fanfare than the polar bear and without an explicit recognition of global warming as a cause of their decline. In November, we petitioned to protect 12 penguin species, including the ice-dependent emperor penguin.

These species are, unfortunately, just the tip of the extinction iceberg. One study estimates that a third of the Earth's creatures will be condemned to extinction by 2050. Polar bears may not be extinct until 2040, but that doesn't mean we have 30 years to do nothing.

Hansen, the NASA climate scientist, has repeatedly warned that merely keeping up the current pace of emissions for 10 more years will irreversibly alter the Earth's climate. If sea levels rise 18 feet or more, a large proportion of the world's human population will be displaced — or worse. Polar bears are not the only species threatened by global warming. Absent political action from the United States and the world, the rest of us may be as well.

Source: LATimes Opinion article

A picture of Dr James Hansen, of NASA Goddard Institute below.
He is also in that video "Global Warming Coverup" mentioned in my earlier post with a link to the video

IN addition to the above^^ article I posted, how it's more than just the Polar bears, I wanted to mention this bit as well--

Emperors of the Ice documentary. (it is going to be on tonight on PBS, at 8 pm)

This video originally was broadcast on PBS in Dec 2006 and will be playing again several times this month.
See here for dates and times:
http://www.opb.org/programs/program.php?id=17967


More info about this film:
Scripps Scientists Investigate Climate Change from Penguins' Point of View
National Geographic's 'Emperors of the Ice' Premieres on December 27 on PBS
http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/article_detail...article_num=766

And a review (below) regarding this film:

"March of the Penguins" alludes to penguin issues and how far they have to travel to get food and bring it back, regurgitate it to their penguin chicks. Morgan Freeman narrates - a powerful voice indeed. But they don’t talk too much about the environmental impacts causing penguins to go further and further to get their food. And, will they die in their return trek to get to their chicks?

As a result of watching the PBS special, on WOSU, Emperors of the Ice, and further Web research, I’ve learned about B-15 and other significant ice shelves in the Antarctica and North Pole that have broken off, and crashed into other parts of Antarctica causing hundreds of thousands of penguins to die. They don’t tell you that in March of the Penguins, that’s for sure. You see a couple die. If lots of penguins died in that movie, in the mainstream, it probably wouldn’t have been such a sensation.

In the first half hour of the PBS special, you learn about the scientists who have tracked penguin activity in the Antarctica for 20 years or more. In the second half hour, you see some very disturbing sites, hardly one I bet is mentioned in Happy Feet. These are hardly Happy Feet (reference to the most recent penguin craze). In fact, hundreds of thousands of penguins were killed when B-15, which was an arctic mass the size of Jamaica, crashed into their path, keeping the parents from returning with food to their chicks. Now, if you have any compassion at all in your heart, and you liked March of the Penguins and for that matter, Happy Feet, saving the chicks seems important, right?

What was more disturbing is that when I went online to research this issue, I learned that B-15 broke off the Antarctica shelf in 2000, and has been creating problems since then. It was covered by mass media, although I never saw it, in 2001, 2003. "

Source and her research links here

I uploaded a small preview of the "March of the Penguins"here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpg2x_mar...enguins-preview

I also uploaded "The Inside Story of March of the Penguins" here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqspp_the...h-of-the-pengui

I really love that movie and all the more reason why I want to see "Emperors of the Ice" documentary.

OH! and check this site out.. CLICK ON CLIMATE CHANGE from this link here:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/poles/index.html

"Over the past few decades, scientists say, the earth's poles have experienced twice the rate of warming as the rest of the earth. One important focus of International Polar Year efforts will be to understand how and why the poles are affected so dramatically by global climate change.

These programs will look at the work being done to understand climate change, the impact of global warming on people and the environment, and ways individuals can get involved."

Several videos and other information found there.. very interesting.

Not sure if anyone is interested...

But I uploaded a preview of the PBS/ National Geographic documentary
"Emperors of the Ice" that was on last night.
See this here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzryp_emp...the-ice-preview
Note! For best performance, click on the video window to pause it for a bit so it can load, then hit play.

(In the video information, I also posted other related articles and video links as well.)

It's really terrible what's happening there. (no hint of this was shown in "March of the Penguins")
I noticed in this video it is "careful" to say certain words when in regards to global warming or climate change such as global warming "may" or "it could" or "it might" ...

In the BBC "Global Warming Coverup" film that I uploaded on dailymotion, it gives you an idea why they do that..

*sigh*

Bush set for climate change U-turn

Gaby Hinsliff, Juliette Jowit and Paul Harris
01/15/2007
Move could lead to agreement on curbing emissions



London/New York: George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior officials at the office of the British Prime Minister in London.

Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United States will lead to a breakthrough in international talks on climate change and that the outlines of a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement, the deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases which expires in 2012, could now be thrashed out at the G8 summit in June.

The timetable may explain why Mr. Blair is so keen to remain in office until after the summit, with a deal on protecting the planet offering an appealing legacy with which to bow out of Number 10 Downing Street.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair held private talks on climate change before Christmas, and there is a feeling that the former will now agree a cap on emissions in the U.S., meaning that, for the first time, American industry and consumers would be expected to start conserving energy and curbing pollution.

"We could now be seeing the beginning of a consensus on a post-Kyoto framework," said a source close to Mr. Blair. "President Bush is beginning to talk about more radical measures."

The move will be seen as part of a wider repositioning of the Bush government after its comprehensive defeat in last autumn's mid-term elections.

** A change of heart on the environment was signalled earlier this month when the U.S. administration unexpectedly announced that polar bears were now an endangered species because their habitat in the U.S. state of Alaska had suffered from melting ice sheets caused by global warming. The Government is now required to act on threats to the bears' survival.The E.U. has its own so-called cap and trade scheme, under which industries are given a quota of carbon dioxide emissions: if they exceed the limits, they must pay for extra credits that can be bought from cleaner industries — an incentive to firms to go green.

Downing Street is increasingly confident that the arguments pushed by Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the recent Treasury report on the cost of global warming, that doing nothing will eventually prove more costly than trying to avert catastrophe are now gaining in momentum.

However, Mr. Stern warned: "The U.S. will work it out for itself. Nobody will be telling them what to do, and nobody should."

But a source close to the negotiations warned that Mr. Bush had previously appeared to give ground on climate change, only to fail to make real concessions.

The best hope could lie with a post-Kyoto deal for 2009, the source said — by which time Mr. Bush will be out of office. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

Source

----------------------------------------

**Change of heart my bo zo zo!!
A petition was sent to the Bush admin in 2005. The Bush Administration failed to respond to the petition and it expired, ensuing in a Lawsuit. And because of the "settlement " from the LAWSUIT, -- only THEN did Bush give the Polar Bears Attention!

The news about this came out Dec 28 2006.
As discussed on the CNN portion of this video I merged
(originally posted on first page of this thread):

Protecting Polar Bears 12-28-2006

See the related BBC article to above video here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6213179.stm

See CNN see "Protecting Polar Bears"- read email responses, see video and related interactive link here:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/28...bears.reaction/

I hope a polar bear eats George, that'd be fantastic tv.

@ Mattshark... ME TOO!

Hey people.. If March of the Penguins or Emperors of the Ice did not warm your hearts to think about the possible fate these animals could face in the future due to climate change, maybe this one can..

This music video is SOOO cute and I love the song!
(my 3 year old twin boys go crazy for this too! lol)

Le Ragga Des Pingouins ~ by Pigloo
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5tsa_pig...a-des-pingouins
(NOTE: click on Video window to PAUSE it for a bit so it can load, then hit play)

Lyrics to this song in French as well as English found here:
http://www.onlylyrics.com/song.php?id=31749

I worry that "videos and pictures" is all that we will have left to show our children in the future when these animals are gone...

Hey ya' all....

If you can't watch the Pigloo Le Raggae Penguins video (as posted in previous link ^^ ) on Dailymotion because you are on Dial up,

I've uploaded this in two formats so you can download it:
This one is 10 megs and in .flv format:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bky7gp
Don't have a FLV player??
THIS one is excellent and FREE - I highly recommend it- it is far better than others I've used:
http://freewarelist.net/FLV-Player.html

And here is the video in AVI format
23 megs
http://www.sendspace.com/file/817ezd

Here is a cute screen shot of this video:


See more screen shot pics from the video here:
http://img45.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cutepenguins2fo.swf

If you love this, I KNOW your kids will love it too!
My 3 yr old twin boys keep coming up and asking me to play this video.. and they already know how to sing a bit of this in FRENCH! LOL

If you wish this in another format.. let me know and I will see what I can do. :-)

Global warming sees polar bears stranded on melting ice

By BILL MOULAND -
Last updated at 22:00pm on 1st February 2007

They cling precariously to the top of what is left of the ice floe, their fragile grip the perfect symbol of the tragedy of global warming.

Captured on film by Canadian environmentalists, the pair of polar bears look stranded on chunks of broken ice. (see image below)

Although the magnificent creatures are well adapted to the water, and can swim scores of miles to solid land, the distance is getting ever greater as the Arctic ice diminishes.

"Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one," said Dr Ian Stirling of the Canadian Wildlife Service.

"They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore because of warming, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy and makes them more vulnerable."

More here...(click on article link below to see the PICS ON THE GALLERY THERE)
• GALLERY: See more dramatic pictures of the Polar Bears here



The plight of the bears was highlighted as the prospect of a gloomy future emerged from leaks of the most comprehensive report into global warming yet undertaken, which is to be published on Friday.

Concluding that it is "highly likely" that mankind is to blame for climate change, it talks of more droughts, torrential rains, shrinking Arctic ice and glaciers, and rising sea levels for the next century.

And it warns that the effects of a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will last far longer.

Studies of polar bears have revealed that not only have their numbers declined – by nearly one quarter in just 20 years to around 25,000 – but so has their physique.

The bears can be 10ft tall and 1700lbs in weight, using their body fat to keep them alive when the temperatures plummet in the harshest part of their winter to minus 45C.

But the scientists have observed that in the struggle for survival, the bears - and females especially - are now much thinner.

Scientists believe that four bears which recently drowned off the coast of Alaska had simply been unable to cope with a violent storm.

Dr Stirling says that the phenomenon of a female giving birth to triplets is now part of history with usually only single cubs recorded. Soon, he says, the species may be extinct.

Usually at this time of year, polar bears would be sheltering with their young in the dens they carve for themselves in mountain slopes near the shoreline or in snowdrifts on the sea ice.

But global warming, which has raised the temperature in the Canadian Arctic by 4C in the last 50 years, means their habitat is inexorably disappearing.

In Hudson Bay where the ice melts completely in summer, scientists have noted that it is now happening three weeks earlier than normal.

This is having a catastrophic effect on the bears which hunt seals over the winter and spring before coming ashore where they rely on their build-up of body fat to survive – and feed their cubs.

Reports are now being received of polar bears, perfectly equipped for Arctic survival with two coats of insulating fur and a four inch layer of blubber, scavenging for scraps in rubbish tips and camp sites.

Scientists say the survival of polar bears may rely on special conservation areas, but even that seems a forlorn hope with a United Nations report expected to say that sea levels will carry on rising for over 1,000 years even if greenhouse gases can be curbed.

The report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draws on the work of 2,500 researchers from more than 130 nations and is the most comprehensive overview of climate change for guiding policy-makers.

It will say that global warming was "very likely" caused by human activity, delegates to a climate change conference said.

Dozens of scientists and bureaucrats have been editing the new report in closed-door meetings in Paris. Their report, which must be unanimously approved, is to be released today.

Two participants, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meetings are confidential, said the group approved the term "very likely" in yesterday's sessions. That means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans.

The last report, in 2001, said global warming was "likely" caused by human activity. There had been speculation that the participants might try to change the wording this time to "virtually certain," which means a 99 percent chance.

The report is considered an authoritative document that could influence government and industrial policy worldwide.

• Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has been nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world's attention to the dangers of global warming, it emerged when nominations closed.

During eight years as Bill Clinton's vice president, Gore pushed for climate measures, including for the Kyoto Treaty, and after leaving office in 2001 has campaigned worldwide, especially with his Oscar-nominated documentary on climate change called "An Inconvenient Truth."

The Nobel Prize winner will be announced in October.

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