I don't like commercials. Sure, there's an occasional hilarious commercial on TV or (more rarely) on the radio, but they get old quickly and the rest are forgettable to annoying. But there are two commercials - public service announcements, rather - that really make me angry, because they tell outright lies and are a blatant scam. The Worldwide Fund for Nature (the ones with the scary fish head ad I mentioned in at the end of an earlier post) wants you to pay them $16 dollars per month to solve an imaginary problem: the extinction of the polar bears. "Polar bears are on their way to extinction," they say, and if we don't donate $16/month that will go who knows where, the majority of polar bears "will die in our children's lifetime." Well, that's true, most if not all of the polar bears alive to day will die in the next 50 years, and polar bears rarely live longer than 25 years. Of course, they're talking about the overall population decreasing.
These commercials feature either Sharon Lawrence, an actress in no movies I've seen, or Noah Wyle from E.R., reading from a teleprompter about the threat to the polar bears with over exaggerated concern and carefully calculated pauses. At first commercials like these get me swearing and yelling at the TV, but that gets tiring so now they just make me want to vomit. If you have a strong stomach, go ahead and watch the commercials:
Sickening, huh? Algore is on the polar bear bandwagon, too, claiming that more and more polar bears are drowning due to melting ice in his movie. He even has a sad animated polar bear to prove it. He doesn't have footage of a real polar bear lost in the water, because it doesn't happen. Polar bears can swim six miles per hour, and can swim over 100 miles without a problem. In 2004 four polar bears were found drowned after a major storm. These are the only known drownings in recent decades other than a few documented cases in 2007 of polar bears found drowned that had first been shot with tranquilizer darts. The idea that polar bears have to swim farther than they are able due to global warming and drowning is completely false.
People eat it up, though, because those polar bears are just too furry and cuddly, who wouldn't feel sorry for them? There is only one time in my life that I have deliberately watched Oprah, and that was because Algore was there to promote his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. By the end I was honestly surprised Oprah and Algore didn't start making out, and my stomach could barely hold what I'd put in it. Several clips from the movie were shown, including the one of the fake, animated drowning polar bear (sorry for the subtitles):
Notice that he never names the scientists involved in the study, just says "a new scientific study." He is probably referring to studies of polar bears that have found them as far as 60 miles from shore and is assigning a non-scientific conclusion that they must be looking for the ice! No, they're just good swimmers; they don't have to swim that far to find ice.
Oh, yeah, I was talking about Algore on Oprah. The whole thing was nauseating, but it ended with a frightening moment when Oprah asked her audience if what they'd heard had influenced their opinion. One woman said she was skeptical before the show, but was now convinced of global warming. Oprah asked the woman what in particular changed her mind, and she said it was the clip with the sad polar bear. The fake, animated polar bear*. To quote Limbaugh, the woman was a "glittering jewel of colossal ignorance."
So what of the polar bear population in general? They are not decreasing. The best estimates from the 1960s say that there were about 5,000 total polar bears, while today, due mostly to stricter regulations on hunting, the polar bear population is estimated around 25,000, according to the World Conservation Union. Break down the numbers even further and we find that according to Dr. Mitchell Taylor, polar bear biologist for Canadia's Department of the Environment, "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present." In fact, the decreasing populations are in places that are getting colder, which makes sense when you consider that though polar bears are adapted to extreme cold, warmer weather still means more food. Speaking of polar bear food, polar bears eat cute baby seals:
Which would you rather save? They eat people, too, if they're hungry and provoked. They are the most carnivorous of all bears. They are very smart and very stealthy, their prey usually unaware of the polar bear until it strikes. The Inuit Eskimos consider them a genuine threat, as well as a source of food; and who are we to argue with native Americans?
You see what I did there? I used the same sort of emotional tactic used by scaremongers including Algore and the WWF that allows them to perpetuate a lie and get you to donate money, but my argument had facts to back it up. Want more? Here's Discovery Channel footage of a hunting polar bear:
And here's a Russian polar bear brutally, mercilessly murdering a walrus:
This is what we want to save? The WWF commercials depict polar bears at ease in their natural environment during the summer melt and break up of the ice that happens every year, but with sad music that makes the bears look helpless and pathetic.
Okay, I actually am a huge fan of the polar bear, and if I thought there was a legitimate threat by global warming, I'd be up in arms and taking all the action I could to save them. It's just not true! Even if we accept the premise of global warming, remains of polar bears have been found from as much as 100,000 years ago, since which there have been periods of time a bit warmer than today. Polar bears are very adaptable, and have adjusted to conditions both warmer and colder than today, and will continue to thrive.
Do you really want to put your trust in second-rate, washed-up Hollywood actors and waste $16 dollars per month? I'd rather rather you used it to buy me a new DVD every month. At least then you know where your money is going. If you don't know which ones to buy me, I'll email you a list of DVDs I want. My birthday is Tuesday, so hurry to the store.
*It has recently been discovered that footage in Algore's movie of calving ice sheets was taken straight from a CGI shot made for the movie The Day After Tomorrow.
6 comments:
Personally, I could give a fig about polar bears, their lives seem to be nothing but a kill or be killed brutal existence that I wouldn't wish on anybody. I don't know that they are really important in any way that matters except for the premise that biodiversity is a good thing. I am glad that you included the bloody seal. I remember watching a polar bear take out a beluga whale on the Discovery channel and being, quite frankly, repelled. Screw polar bears!
“He doesn't have footage of a real polar bear lost in the water, because it doesn't happen. Polar bears can swim six miles per hour, and can swim over 100 miles without a problem. In 2004 four polar bears were found drowned after a major storm. These are the only known drownings in recent decades other than a few documented cases in 2007 of polar bears found drowned that had first been shot with tranquilizer darts. The idea that polar bears have to swim farther than they are able due to global warming and drowning is completely false.”
This is an apparent straw man attack, here is what I gathered from Wikipedia (under polar bear):
The key danger posed by global warming is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. Polar bears hunt seals from a platform of sea ice. Rising temperatures cause the sea ice to melt earlier in the year, driving the bears to shore before they have built sufficient fat reserves to survive the period of scarce food in the late summer and early fall.[64] Reduction in sea-ice cover also forces bears to swim longer distances, which further depletes their energy stores and occasionally leads to drowning.[100] Thinner sea ice tends to deform more easily, which appears to make it more difficult for polar bears to access seals.[44] Insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates in adult females and lower survival rates in cubs and juvenile bears, in addition to poorer body condition in bears of all ages.[19]
In addition to creating nutritional stress, a warming climate is expected to affect various other aspects of polar bear life: Changes in sea ice affect the ability of pregnant females to build suitable maternity dens. As the distance increases between the pack ice and the coast, females must swim longer distances to reach favored denning areas on land.[19] Thawing of permafrost would affect the bears who traditionally den underground, and warm winters could result in den roofs collapsing or having reduced insulative value.[19] For the polar bears that currently den on multi-year ice, increased ice mobility may result in longer distances for mothers and young cubs to walk when they return to seal-hunting areas in the spring.[19] Disease-causing bacteria and parasites would flourish more readily in a warmer climate.[44]
I'll Agree with you on the Opera issue, Indeed Opera is Vomit-o-vision. I think that everybody who was nauseated by Opera should send her bags of the actual vomit she produced.
“So what of the polar bear population in general? They are not decreasing. The best estimates from the 1960s say that there were about 5,000 total polar bears, while today, due mostly to stricter regulations on hunting, the polar bear population is estimated around 25,000, according to the World Conservation Union. Break down the numbers even further and we find that according to Dr. Mitchell Taylor, polar bear biologist for Canadia's Department of the Environment, "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number.”
I agree, in general, (from the gut), polar bears suck, my only disagreement with you on this particular crux is that I think pesky biodiversity is a good thing. Also, my sources say this on polar bear populations: (Again, Wikipedia):
The polar bear is classified as a vulnerable species. Of the 19 recognized polar bear subpopulations, 5 are declining, 5 are stable, 2 are increasing, and 7 have insufficient data.
“They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present." In fact, the decreasing populations are in places that are getting colder, which makes sense when you consider that though polar bears are adapted to extreme cold, warmer weather still means more food. “
The U.S. Geological Survey predicts two-thirds of the world's polar bears will disappear by 2050, based on moderate projections for the shrinking of summer sea ice caused by global warming.[44] The bears would disappear from Europe, Asia, and Alaska, and be depleted from the Arctic archipelago of Canada and areas off the northern Greenland coast. By 2080, they would disappear from Greenland entirely and from the northern Canadian coast, leaving only dwindling numbers in the interior Arctic archipelago. (Wikipedia again).
Moron, all lions, tigers are carnivores as well and only feast , and ar a 'threat' to man, should we leave them as well? Noo, ceranly not a polar bear, the largest strongest carnivore on land today-_-
And bears, oh my!
This is fascism. A polar bear is living being and has a right to live like others. You show bloody attacks, so what? This bear lives with it. What about humans who kill others for nothing? Do they live on it? No.
I suggest you show seals tearing fishes. Fishes eating plankton. Humans killing a veal. veal eating grass. ... and conclude every creature is vicious and should be left to die.
Global warming right or wrong we should save bears and every endangered species. Fuck your 16$. You go get a pitcher of bear and drink it, and piss it.
Wow. You are in your 20s and you sound like some boring old git three times your age. You are a lab assistant, so presumable have had a scientific training and yet you're a climate change ostrich. So you must have a pretty good opinion of your own intellect if you think you know more about the world's climate that the hundreds of scientists across the globe who have spent their entire careers studying it.
What exactly do you as a 'lab technician' mend plugs? Change fuses maybe?
That was well thought of but pointless. If people wish to be nice and donate then that is your choice & you have an opinion which is rather harsh. In there world they HAVE to kill for food. It's the harsh reality of life. Also it's slightly sad to post all that.
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