Excellent article.

The problem: Polar bears are threatened by human activity. Maybe.

Solution 1: spend trillions of dollars on trying to mitigate what its proponents concede is an unstoppable trend; pass draconian laws and extort money from taxpayers to support vague, indirect and ineffective policies which will beggar the West and enrich those nations smart enough to hold back and make the most of it.

Solution 2: Spend a few million dollars directly on help for polar bears.

No question really, is there?

This article is at least one step up from the usual activist rantings in that it admits of some scepticism about environmental claims, albeit just to dismiss them. Specifically he mentions J. Scott Armstrong, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who specialises in forecasting methods. Armstrong has been particularly critical of the climate models used to predict temperature increases on various grounds - including that they are completely unproven in any sense understood by forecasters, and that the "justification" used for advancing them is that they can be made to follow some of the known changes in temperatures of the past century or so. This is called "back testing" and, as Armstrong points out, is known to be useless as a means of constructing a complex forecasting model. Those are just two of his objections.
The author resorts to an irrelevent political argument to dismiss him.
As for sea ice there are two theories on recent changes. One relates to global warming which does not fit the facts - why hasn't antarctic sea ice also changed? - but gets all the publicity. The second involves multidecadal changes in artic currents and winds. Never mind the details of any of that, what it comes to is will we take the risk that the artic sea ice will bounce back and what will be the effect on polar bear populations if it does not? Bear in mind that as Wharton points out, the forecasting in this area is completely useless.
As is widely recognised Polar Bear populations have bounced back in recent decades thanks to restrictions on commercial hunting, but there are indications that they have been affected by more recent changes in artic sea ice. If so, the main means of human control in any reasonable time frame would be to further restrict commercial hunting. So then what affect will those restrictions have on Inuit populations? Perhaps activists would be better off looking carefully at those areas

It seems that the Canadian Government is not taking notice of alarmist hysterics like the Australian Government is.

I’m amazed that this author – another in the long line of hysterics – is still using the term ‘global warming sceptics’ when the globe is NOT warming, and hasn’t been since 1998. There is scientific proof that the globe is not warming, but there are still diehards around who keep blabbing on about global warming, even though the instigators of this nonsense switched from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ at least 12 months ago when the climate quite clearly was not co-operating with their ‘scientific’ findings.

The hysterics have been wrong about everything else; why should anyone believe their wild claim that two thirds of polar bears COULD be wiped out in 45 years.

The polar bear story has been pumped up out of all proportion by the media because these animals are ‘nice’ (from a distance) and it’s a good thing to get people going.

Struzik, like all of the others, has a crack at peoples’ ‘expertise’. Being a writer and photographer doesn’t give him any ‘expertise’ on climate science. He just chooses to believe one set of scientists and activists against another group of scientists (with climate qualifications) who would tell him that he is talking rubbish if he ever spoke to them. He only brings up ‘dissenters’ who clearly have no expertise in climate science, and ignores those who do. And, referring to ‘frustrated’ polar bear experts has nothing to do with climate change.

Still, this writer and photographer declares that the ‘The science is straightforward.’; ‘those facts are incontrovertible.’

How does this non-scientist make these judgements? What knowledge does he have to deem his heroes a ‘blue-ribbon study panel’? Are his heroes different from the rent-seekers to date who have never subjected their findings to review by an independent panel of scientists?

Unless he can answer those few questions, he is just another unbelievable political activist

Well Ed I am telling my MP"s both State and Federal that I do not believe in Global warming and I expect no new taxes based on this nonsense.
I further expect that as we now have Google Earth that we can all see the ice.
Every year of my lif I have been facing some "Life threatening" event and yes every time this is "really" going to happen. You must take us for fools go boil your head! Hey no I have a better idea why not get a real job delivering milk or digging holes in the road rather than having a photography holiday at the taxpayers expense!

It was warmer in the Arctic between 1920-1940 than it is now. When the Arctic heats up the Antarctic cools and vice versa. The Antarctic ice is actually growing. Paradoxically, colder temperatures may reduce ice due to decrease in rainfall. For most of the history of the Earth there has been no polar ice at all partly due to the earths volcanic nature.

To think that increased temperature leads to melting ice everywhere is a simplistic child's view of science.