If all global warming does is makes polar bears extinct is that really so terrible?

Question

Polar Bears are one of only 2 creatures on the planet that actively preys on humans

warning this link contains graphic pics don't look if squemish

http://www.snopes.com/photos/gruesome/polarbear.asp

Answer 1

Not really.  But...

It's an advance warning of a change that, if we do nothing, will cost you a WHOLE LOT of money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096...

"Global warming is the most challenging problem our society has ever had to face up to. Ice is the canary in the coal mine of global warming."

Britain's chief scientist David King

Answer 2

Ok dude, let's put on our thinking caps here.  You have a place atop the world that is mostly ice.  As the planet continues to get warm, the ice is going to melt.  When ice melts, it turns into water.  That is alot of ice up there so if all that ice melts, what do you think is going to happen.  It's about more than the polar bears.  Think flood.

Answer 3

lol to the people who beleive the ice caps are melting watch the top gear polar challenge, a race that took place in july 2007, between a toyota hilux and a dog sled team, from resolute canada to the north magnetic pole over frozen sea ice.  And rember this is the middle of summer.  Video in source box.

Answer 4

Basically, once one species starts dying out, it has a BIG knock on affect to evrything else in the food web (look it up). Also, as others have said, it's basically an early warning sign for us. You hear more and more now about freak weather situations (e.g tornados out of season, abnormal flooding, temperature records being broken every year etc.) basically what im saying is that global warming does A LOT MORE that just making Polar bears extinct.

Answer 5

I don't know, they're good eatin'

Answer 6

Jason, your comment is well meant, but sea ice melting won't raise sea levels, as far as I know.  Ice on land, as in glaciers will raise sea levels when it melts.

It's a little more than polar bears.  Not including global warming, many many species are already endangered from all the other ways we effect the environment.

from wikipedia

"According to a 1998 survey of 400 biologists conducted by New York's American Museum of Natural History, nearly 70 percent believed that they were currently in the early stages of a human-caused mass extinction,[20] known as the Holocene extinction event. In that survey, the same proportion of respondents agreed with the prediction that up to 20 percent of all living populations could become extinct within 30 years (by 2028). Biologist E. O. Wilson estimated [5] in 2002 that if current rates of human destruction of the biosphere continue, one-half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in 100 years.[21] More significantly the rate of species extinctions at present is estimated at 100 to 1000 times "background" or average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth;[22] moreover, this current rate of extinction is thus 10 to 100 times greater than any of the prior mass extinction events in the history of the Earth."

Endangered species U.S. and territories

373 vertabrates mammals birds reptiles amphibian fish

238 invertabrates clams, snails, insects,

713 flowering plants

31 non-flowering plants conifers and cyads, ferns and

While this dire prediction is hopefully just an extreme one, it gives an idea of the scope of the problem. I don't think they were predicting this because of global warming, or at least not exclusively. The estimates had to be at least partly based on the level of extinction already happening as a result of habitat loss, pollution, deforestation etc.

Answer 7

Not in my opinion. Many species have already gone extinct. Passenger pigeons, mastodons, dinosaurs.

Answer 8

they may attack humans but how many animals do humans attack? maybe we deserve to be extict!

if i were a polar bear and humans were killing my species so much i would be a little ticked off!

x*x

Answer 9

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. No reasonable person will assert that all global warming will do is cause extinction of polar bears.

If that were the only consequence, then we could live with it.

The simple fact that we are not seeing a surplus of seals in the arctic as polar bears starve has to prompt the thought that part of the reason for starvation is want of seals, and want of seals likely points to slow fish weights.

Answer 10

oomg those pics are horrible!!!!!!!!!!!

i agree that does not bother me now that i saw those pictures!!!

Answer 11

Since the number of polar bears keeps increasing year by year, does that prove that global warming doesn't exist ?

In Gore's fake movie on global warming he tried to imply that polar bears were drowning or some other nonsense to get children upset so that they would blame global warming and thus blame humans.

It must've worked because a lot of uninformed people actually believe that polar bears are decreasing in number when the opposite is really true.

Just shows how this propaganda stuff works.  

In the near future we'll all look back and laugh at the "global warming" stuff, just as we look back at the "global cooling" junk today and think those people sure were dumb back in the 70's thinking we were going into another ice age.

The truth may take a while, but always reveals itself eventually.

Answer 12

As arctic sea ice disappears, the bears will migrate more into populated areas, thus increasing the likelihood of bear - human encounters.

However, if losing 1 species was the only effect of global warming, that wouldn't be so bad.  But it's not the only potentially adverse effect.  The bigger concerns are in these areas:

1) Loss of glacier mass, which is used as a source of water for many people

2) Rising sea-levels which could threaten low-lying areas, especially during storm surges

3) Insect and associated disease migration as areas previously too cold (for such things as malaria) war up

Answer 13

no because polar bears are predators, carnivorous and viscious. you would not want to go near one. Al gore uses it as a symbol because he thinks people in america are stupid enough to fall for such a organism becoming extinct and are so cozy.

Answer 14

If you walk right to edge of a cliff and don't jump, is that really so terrible?

It is all about "what if" and the consequences on either possibility. Of course, if the issue has no real choices, then it is truly "academic", it makes no difference what we think.

But, assuming there is a choice,

Do consider this short TV clip, makes a good argumeny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwia...

Answer 15

If [false statement] is it really so terrible?

No, but your premise (that there are no other consequences of global warming) is false, and not even remotely close to being true.

Answer 16

(Polar Bear)thinking... looks like food,smells like food,must taste like food.Mmm good...

(Human)thinking...OMG,that thing going to eat me,HHHHEEEELLLLLP.I've gotta kill that SOB ear.

Conclusion...don't hang out with polar bears.

Answer 17

Well, if polar bears are a species that is dumb enough to try to prey on the most dangerous predator on the planet, they must also be oe of the 2 dumbest species on the planet! :)

Seriously--even polar bears won't attack humans unless either they're provoked or there's no other food source.  But there s quite a few species that do that--the big cats,sharks, wolves, etc.

However-to your question. That's NOT all we hae to worry about--in fact, its a minor matter (unless you're a polar bear).  But its a "early warning sign."  Here's some examples based on what we KNOW--there's a lot more that's likely, but not entirely certain yet:

>global warming, by heating oceans, is already causing coral reefs to start dying. Lose those, and you lose the ecology of the area--including the fish tha tare a major foood source for humans.

>reduced snopack (e.g. in th eWstern US) is already on the verge of creating a permanant drought.  That's going to curtail growth and economic progress--and possibly force millions in the region to abandon their homes and businesses for lack of water.

>coastal flooing within a few decades is going to require we either  a) abandon coastal cities all over the world, or b) spend hundreds of billions, if not trillions, on levees, etc.  And that still wouldn't protect low-lying agricultural areas that produce the food for hundreds of millions of people world-wide.

Those are some of the MILDER long term consequences if we don't do something to stop carbon emissions and thus slow andthen stop global warming.

Answer 18

Not really. Personally I do not believe in global warming so it does not matter any ways!

Answer 19

The Medieval Warming Period was warmer than it is today and the polar bears obviously made it through that OK.

The whole AGW thing is a silly myth.

Answer 20

I wouldn't notice where I live...couldn't care less about polar bears.

Answer 21

Every life form and animal is important to the earth.