Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Anti Polar Bear Ad



I have always thought that Stephen Colbert's hatred and fear of BEARS was some sort of humorous quirk. He was clever to to have a case of Ursaphobia which fits with his persona of a right-wing nut bar pundit. Who knew that bears were such a "bugbear" for the American right.

This ad is mildly funny but is serious in its intent to discredit "global warming" This video is from a ant-science political group with the bland name of National Center for Public Policy Research. In reality it is akin to alchemists, flat earthers and creationists. There is a difference with those "science belief systems" and the anti-global warming crowd. Nobody is spending time and money to promote alchemy or maps of the flat earth. This group and other cold earthers are in some ways the opposite of the creationists. The Creationist spend money to push their "science belief system", ie religion. The National Center for Public Policy Research is pushing their "science belief system", junk science, to save money.

3 comments:

Timbo said...

James Horner, or whatever his name is, on the Current last week, said that the parties who are speaking against anthropogenic global warming are not scientists, because if they were they would be speaking in scientific journals.

After all, if you are published in a scientific journal, you *must* be accurate. Because you're being published in a scientific journal.

Right?

That's the way science works. If it's not recognized now, it can't be science.

Tim G. said...

Here's some science (note the above article uses no scientific sources, only insults):

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr. Mitchell bio: http://www.fcpp.org/publication.php/2571

Baron von Feldspar said...

Thank you your comments.

There have been interesting science debates over global warming/climate change and over the relative health of wild populations and ecosystems. There is nothing wrong with scientific debate, that is how science works. When how ever political interests agitate in scientific debates I begin wonder when the politics ends and science begins. There are some groups that will argue against the existence of global warming/climate change if it would mean even slightly higher energy costs. Other groups will argue against hunting even when suburban areas, like Salt Spring Island, BC can be overwhelmed by deer. Some groups will agitate for protection for the Polar bear even if populations are thriving for political reasons.

Science and politics are often mixed in the way that many issues can become "political" issues.