WWF: Polars Bears Facing Extinction

If you watch American television, you may often see the advertisements sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) where the actor Noah Wyle tells us that Polar Bears are on the edge of extinction.

Funny that, when I go to the WWF site about Polar Bears, one finds the following curious statement:

With 20-25,000 polar bears living in the wild, the species is not currently endangered, but its future is far from certain.

Hmm, so on one hand WWF tells us they're on the verge of extinction, then tells us that they're not even endangered, yet. Of course they go on to say that "global warming" will most likely cause Polar Bears to go extinct within 100 years. They provide no evidence for this, just gratuitous assertions.

We know that Polar Bears have been around as a distinct species (though there are some who argue they are a sub-species of Brown Bear) for about 200,000 years. Which means they've lived through at least one other interglacial period. Our knowledge of previous interglacials shows that, according to Ice Core analysis, most were warmer than the current Holocene interglacial. So, if Polar Bears have survived previous warmer interglacial times, and warmer periods within the current interglacial, why is it that this less warm time is going to wipe them out?

WWF also seems to ignore the fact that Polar Bears live perfectly well on land as well as ice.

I won't go into the fact there there has been no established direct or even indirect link between human industrial CO2 emissions and melting of Arctic sea ice (or retreating glaciers, melting ice sheets, etc). But apparently for WWF and many other political organizations, it's a foregone conclusion. They don't need to wait for actual evidence, apparently.

It's obvious that the biggest threat to Polar Bears is humans, but as hunters and sportsmen, not as CO2 emitters.

So, before you write that check to the WWF, require them to provide evidence, not just emotional rhetoric. And write to Noah Wyle and ask him if he always just does what other people tell him to, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.