Polar bears could vanish by the end of the century, scientists predict
This old chestnut again. Warmists have been desperate to find the bears in trouble but their overall numbers have in fact been increasing
Arctic sea ice has been steadily decreasing since the beginning of satellite records in 1979, but a new study comes with a chilling (or perhaps, warming) prediction: By the end of this century, Arctic sea ice may disappear during the summer, which could drive polar bears and other ice-dependent species to extinction.
The "Last Ice Area" is a region containing the oldest, thickest Arctic ice. It spans an area of more than 380,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) from the western coast of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to Greenland's northern coast. When scientists named the 13-foot-thick (4 meters) ice region, they thought it would last for decades.
But now, under both the most optimistic and pessimistic scenarios for warming linked to climate change, the sea ice will dramatically thin by 2050. The most optimistic scenario, in which carbon emissions are immediately and drastically curbed to prevent the worst warming, could result in a limited portion of the ice surviving in the region. In the most pessimistic scenario, in which emissions continue at their current rate of increase, the summer ice — and the polar bears and seals that live on it — could disappear by 2100, researchers reported in a new study.
"Unfortunately, this is a massive experiment we're doing," study co-author Robert Newton, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said in a statement. "If the year-round ice goes away, entire ice-dependent ecosystems will collapse, and something new will begin."
Worse still, the NSIDC reports that the amount of older, thicker Arctic ice that has survived at least one melt season is at a record low, around a quarter of the total recorded by the first satellite surveys 40 years ago.
A more dramatic decrease in ice coverage could have a crippling effect on the lives of the animals that dwell on, or under, the shifting ice network, including photosynthetic algae, tiny crustaceans, fish, seals, narwhals, bowhead whales and polar bears.
"Ringed seals and polar bears, for example, have relied on their dens in the ridged and corrugated sea-ice surface to stay approximately in one place," the researchers wrote.
Because they are specialized predators, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) would be especially vulnerable to extinction if the ice were to disappear. Adapted to lurk atop sea ice, the Arctic bears hunt by snatching unfortunate seals that come to the surface to breathe. Polar bears have jaws adapted for consuming soft blubber and meat; and though the bears have been seen shifting their diet to seabird eggs and caribou while on land, a 2015 study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment found that the calories they gain from these sources do not balance out those the bears burn from foraging for these animals, Live Science previously reported.
This rapid habitat shift could cause polar bears to become extinct or lead to more extensive interbreeding with grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), whose ranges are expanding northward as the climate warms, Live Science previously reported. This process could eventually replace polar bears with hybrid "pizzly" bears. Nonetheless, in the more pessimistic, increasing-emission scenario, the researchers expect the summer ice and the ice-dependent ecosystem to disappear.
"This is not to say it will be a barren, lifeless environment," Newton said. "New things will emerge, but it may take some time for new creatures to invade." The researchers suggested that fish and photosynthetic algae may make their way northward from the North Atlantic, although they are uncertain if the new habitat would be stable enough to support those organisms year-round, especially during the long, sunless Arctic winter.
Even a partially melted Arctic could also create a positive feedback loop: The water's surface is darker and more efficient at absorbing sunlight, meaning the melt would accelerate the overall rate of warming, in a vicious cycle.
On Aug. 9, a landmark report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a stark warning that Earth is expected to reach a critical threshold: a global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) due to climate change within the next 20 years. A draft third section of the IPCC report leaked to the Spanish publication CTXT warned that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next four years if global heating is to remain within 1.5 C.
The researchers published their findings Sept. 2 in the journal Earth's Future.
https://www.livescience.com/arctic-sea-ice-polar-bear-extinction-warning
*******************************************Environmental Activist Project Threatens Military Readiness
In an apparent effort to rally the base, House Leadership has jammed an environmental activist project, the PFAS Action Act of 2021, into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) -- a move that threatens military readiness and supply chains.
The bill “establishes requirements and incentives to limit the use of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFAS, and remediate PFAS in the environment.”
PFAS can be found in a wide variety of products like non-stick pans, weatherproof clothing, carpets, belts, food packaging and various other usages. Without PFAS chemicals we wouldn’t have smartphones since they help stabilize them and help cool data centers for cloud computing.
Perhaps most importantly for the military, PFAS has been commonly used in Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) since the late 1960s. It’s the best tool to extinguish “Class Bravo” fires of fuel oil, greases, paints, solvents and other flammable substances commonly found aboard ship. The horrific lesson learned from the fire aboard USS Forrestal (CV-59) led to the manufacture of AFFF and its reliable use ever since.
Recognizing the impracticality of including this in the NDAA, the Biden administration has quietly pushed back on House Leadership. Buried back on page four, paragraph four of the Sept. 2021 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Statement of Administration Policy in response to the House version of the NDAA, the Biden Administration offered House Leadership:
“(the NDAA as written) would prohibit DoD from procuring a wide range of items that may contain PFAS. If implemented in its current form, it would not be feasible for DoD to test all of these items to determine if they contain PFAS. In addition, some of these products may not have PFAS-free alternatives available.”
The NDAA was selected as a vehicle for this bill because it’s a “must-pass” piece of legislation, consuming over 50 percent of the discretionary portion of the annual budget. Must-pass bills become magnets for everything House Leadership can add to them. This is because these “Christmas Trees” form the basis of the only legislation which House Leadership is certain to take up.
Nationally, PFAS has been phased out of production for years and replaced with substitute compounds. But since the Defense Department operates globally with nearly 3 million service members and civilians working and living in over 160 countries, Congressional passage of such broad PFAS regulations and restrictions would practically paralyze the military supply system.
And the PFAS issue is much larger than DoD.
Over the years, Congress has supported multiple studies by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies aimed at prohibition and also clean-up of contamination sites (largely local water supplies). The danger of compounds containing PFAS is still not completely understood but the potential for long-term harm was high enough that universal agreement for eliminating PFAS compounds in both the private and public sector was enthusiastically reached.
Yet instead of allowing the EPA to finish its work and promulgate regulations concerning continued clean-up of affected watersheds and further remediation, Congress is ignoring the science and seeking to require expensive and unmanageable timelines for work already in progress.
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Idiots: WH Begs for Cheaper Fuel only Days After Biden Brags About Suspending Drilling
The White House has confirmed that they are trying to work with oil and gas producers in order to lower gas prices....ironically, this comes just days after President Joe bragged about suspending the drilling in Alaska.
Are we living in the Twilight zone??
“Alaska is pretty big. There’s an awful lot we need to protect,” Biden declared on Friday. “That’s why I’m refusing to sell out the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil and gas drilling.”
Breitbart reports:
In June, Biden suspended oil leases in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge after President Donald Trump opened the area up to drilling in 2017.
Biden also halted new oil and gas leasing and drilling permits on federal lands in January.
The price of U.S. crude oil hit $80 a barrel this month, a seven-year high. This year oil production remains about two million barrels a day lower than the nearly 13 million barrels per day produced by the United States in 2019, prior to the pandemic.
The United States government announced Wednesday that households could see heating bills jump as much as 54 percent.
A 54% increase?? Are you kidding me?? Many people prefer gas heat and appliances because it is generally less expensive than electric. Those people will be seriously screwed over this winter if the prices jump. With inflation of groceries prices and everything else right now too, it could cause some people to struggle with making ends meet.
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How Australians could become mega-rich by investing in these companies
This is a classic mistake often made by amateur investors. Because something is popular or in big demand, the assumption is that shares in it with be a good buy. They rarely are.
The big peril is over-entry. Suppliers see a goldmine and rush in to supply the assumed demand. But the increased supply cuts the price and most of the new suppliers will go bust.
And there are other perils. China is already an efficient producer of lithium and could increase their supply to the market any time -- thus undercutting and bankrupting other suppliers.
Mining shares of any kind are risky and lithium is one of the riskiest. A cautious investor buys nothing unless it has a solid track record
Australian share market investors are perfectly positioned to benefit from the transition to net zero carbon emissions despite the nation being a major coal exporter to China.
The International Monetary Fund said the surging demand for renewable energy in the coming decades would be good for Australia because the nation has plentiful supplies of lithium, cobalt and nickel.
The minerals are particularly important for battery storage power that will underpin the success of solar and wind energy eventually replacing coal-fired power stations.
In a new report on the World Economic Outlook, the IMF singled out Australia for special mention along with Chile, and to a lesser extent Peru, Russia, Indonesia, and South Africa.
'Countries that stand out in production and reserves include Australia for lithium, cobalt, and nickel,' it said.
Bell Direct senior market analyst Jessica Amir said now was the time to consider investing in lithium miners before more governments around the world, including Australia, introduced more substantial electric vehicle subsidies.
'This is a huge investment opportunity and this will be the hot investment opportunity for the next decade,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 'Thirty per cent of an EV car is the battery and there's a huge lack of supply of lithium and then you've got the world pivoting and pushing to being carbon neutral.
'Clean energy must have a place in investors' portfolios because we're going to see a huge amount of government stimulus going to it, we're going to see a huge uptick in consumer demand.
'You have to remember the basics of investing: a company is based on its future earnings potential, this means that companies that are in this area, they're going to see future earnings growth and share price growth.'
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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