It's not polar bears, but humans most at risk from global warming, mega-report says

[NickB79]

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It's not polar bears, but humans most at risk from global warming, mega-report says

Article by: SETH BORENSTEIN , Associated Press
Updated: March 24, 2014 - 12:12 AM

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From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to just north of Boston, sea levels are rising much faster than they are around the globe, putting one of the world's most costly coasts in danger of flooding, according to a study published Sunday, June 24, 2012, in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Photo: Peter Morgan, ASSOCIATED PRESS - AP

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If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming.

In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

"The polar bear is us," says Patricia Romero Lankao of the federally financed National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., referring to the first species to be listed as threatened by global warming due to melting sea ice.

She will be among the more than 60 scientists in Japan to finish writing a massive and authoritative report on the impacts of global warming. With representatives from about 100 governments at this week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they'll wrap up a summary that tells world leaders how bad the problem is.

[Jim Lane]

1. The paper gave it a misleading headline

The substance of the article shows humans to be at risk of suffering significant disruptions. The polar bears are still at risk of extinction.

[LouisvilleDem]

2. I thought polar bear populations were pretty stable (nt)

[Jim Lane]

3. They benefited from the curtailment of hunting but climate change is beginning to affect them.

Climate change causes loss of sea ice (depicted in an animation in An Inconvenient Truth) and also declines in prey populations.

The most recent educated guesses put the population as stable, declining, or increasing, depending on the area. I think it's clear that the threat of extinction to the 30,000 or so polar bears is greater than the threat to the seven billion or so humans.

[Champion Jack]

4. The earth will recover…

She just has a bad case of the humans…