They’re not? Surely global warmening must have melted all their ice by now. It hasn’t? And the picture is a fraud as well? Surely the global warmenists wouldn’t lie to further their own agenda. Would they? They would?
Anthony Watts at Watt’s Up With That? has the scoop:
A Canadian blogger, Carole Williams, tells the story behind this picture, which was taken in 2004 just off Alaska by a marine biologist on a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute project, Amanda Byrd. As the marine biologist (Byrd) points out, the bears were in no danger so close to the coast (they can swim 30 miles).
She just wanted a photograph more of the “wind-sculpted ice” than of the bears. Byrd writes:
“[You] have to keep in mind that the bears aren’t in danger at all. It was, if you will, their playground for 15 minutes. You know what I mean? This is a perfect picture for climate change, in a way, because you have the impression they are in the middle of the ocean and they are going to die with a coke in their hands. But they were not that far from the coast, and it was possible for them to swim.”
The image was copied from the ships computer (where Byrd had downloaded the camera flash memory stick to) by another member of the shipboard research crew and passed on to Environment Canada. Then it was eagerly adopted by many as an example of the fate that awaits the polar bears – including Al Gore, who used the picture as huge projected backdrop in one of his highly lucrative lectures.
Gore said:
“Their habitat is melting,” “beautiful animals, literally being forced off the planet.”
Audience: [gasp!]
Here’s the link to the original photographer.
February 7th, 2008 20:35 pm
Ah, I know what follows goes against my mantra of respectful disagreement but I cannot help myself;
Morons. Cam it get any dumber? Why not take a picture of snow melt in March and use it as an example of global warming? Or am I too late?