No matter how you look at it, wiping out polar bears so we can extract oil from the ground is an obscenity, an abomination, blasphemy, a sin! It makes no sense at all! Who exactly hates polar bears so much? And why?

I can live in Camden, New Jersey.   My genome has the right expressive power to build the bodily structures that make it possible...yet, I would rather not.  

So, too, the polar bear.  

From Wikipedia (trust, but verify):

"Its thick blubber and fur insulate it against the cold. The bear has a short tail and small ears that help reduce heat loss, as well as a relatively small head and long, tapered body to streamline it for swimming.

A semi-aquatic marine mammal, the polar bear has adapted for life on a combination of land, sea, and ice, and is the apex predator within its range."

and

"A polar bear's fur provides camouflage and insulation. Although the fur appears white, in fact the individual hairs are translucent, like the water droplets that make up a cloud; the coat may yellow with age. Stiff hairs on the pads of a bear's paws provide insulation and traction on the ice."

and

"The thick undercoat does, however, insulate the bears: they overheat at temperatures above 10 °C (50 °F) ... When kept in captivity in warm, humid conditions, it is not unknown for the fur to turn a pale shade of green. This is due to algae growing inside the guard hairs -- in unusually warm conditions, the hollow tubes provide an excellent home for algae."

Odds are, the polar bears, given a choice, would prefer their natural habitat. In warmer areas they would likely overheat, be clearly visible to potential prey, find the stiff hairs on their feet accumulating muck, and become roving greenhouses for not only algae, but potentially harmful fungi and bacteria. I'm pretty sure zoos spray water on them or ensure their pools are cool during the summer to keep them from expiring.

You might be adapted to living in New Jersey, jabailo, but try moving to Florida without shedding your parka and insulated boots. You'd probably not be comfortable for long. Have you ever considered cracking open a general biology, animal behavior, or ecology textbook?

I hope you were just trying to be funny.

Peace.

"They are the largest land meat-eater in the world and the largest of the bear family. "

http://library.thinkquest.org/3500/polarbear.htm

Ok, so you hate humans that like meat, but you love polar bears, that eat lots of meat.

(2)

"Polar bears live in the arctic because they have adapted to it; it's not that they want to or don't want to, they just DO."

Well, thanks...that sounds a lot like something my sister would have said to me...when she was about 9 years old.

First of all -- and this goes for the "read a textbook guy", I would say, read some Darwin.   Animals do not "adapt" to an environment -- they exploit whatever parts of it are usable.   An animal finds the minimum it needs to survive and then over time it may (if its genome permits) through natural selection develop along a path where it finds other things in its niche to exploit.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean that it loses its variability, or that it's environment is optimal.  It just means that it's sufficient for it to reproduce.   For example, in a warmer environment, maybe the "runt" of the liter (with less body fat) will prosper whereas before it would die from hypothermia.

I believe the vegetarians are suggesting we should avoid meat for several reasons: consumption of meat is optional; consumption of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, et cetera provides more nutrition for a given amount of energy and land; it would reduce suffering not because we would no longer kill the animals, but because we would no longer confine the animals. Polar bears really don't have a choice; not a whole lot of veggie matter where they live; they do not kill and consume more than necessary (obesity is probably not an issue for polar bears). I'm not aware of any vegetarians who want to eliminate all of the carnivores on the planet; they generally seem to want the carnivores to have more space to live, which might be possible if humans stop eating so much meat.

Darwin:

I did not say the  polar bears "adapted" to the environment. I said they are genetically adapted. This assumes there was a process of natural variation and selection that shaped the polar bear population so it is now fit for an Arctic environment.

Variation:

Yes, there is still genetic variabliity and a bunch of polar bears forced into a warmer environment MIGHT undergo natural selection such that the population can survive under the new conditions. But keep in mind (1) their population might no long be large enough for this to occur and (2) organisms do actually lose genes.

There is a fish living in the cold waters around Antarctica that no longer has a gene coding for hemoglobin. The water is cold enough and, therefore, the concentration of oxygen circulating through the fish is high enough, that there is no need for a protein to carry oxygen. THE GENE IS GONE. And if you place a million of those fish in warmer water, it is virtually impossible for the population to acquire a new gene coding for a protein remotely similar to hemoglobin before the population completely collapses to zero... there would have to be multiple useful mutations in a suitable and duplicated gene in several independent fish within a single generation and those fish would have to mate and produce viable offspring.

In a nutshell, move a population of polar bears to a warmer climate and they will most likely go through a severe bottleneck, if any manage to produce viable offspring at all. You need material to work with for a population to adapt. Any unique genetic adaptations in the polar bear population would be gone forever.

In your scenario, not only would there have to be selection for less body fat, but also selection for better camouflage so the bears can hunt, selection for behavior to help them track new prey species, and selection for a bunch of other items, all dependent on multiple genes.

Why do I bother....?

It would be beautiful if the polar bears of the Chukchi Sea region come to be seen as iconic leaders against the destructive schemes of the oil and gas drillers -- not on account of their warlike nature, but of their vulnerability.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

1. It's not that Republicans don't like polar bears, it's that they like their money and power, much of which they get from oil, more than they care about the planet, other forms of life, or even other people.  Like most Americans and many other humans, they prioritize money and business over the environment by their actions, even when their words say otherwise.

2. The vast majority of people who identify themselves as active Christians do not think that we should care for god's creation; they think that humans are some type of special species that has dominion over everything else and can do whatever they please with it.  Many, if not most, also think that what happens to people after death is the only thing that's important; i.e., what we do to the Earth and other species is not important.

3. I wouldn't waste time or effort arguing with anti-environmentalists like Jabailo.  It's unfortunate that that person found its way onto this blog.  Personally, if I wanted to argue with people like that, I'm sure there are many right wing, anti-environmental blogs I could use.  I was a long distance trucker for almost five years, had to hear that kind of garbage all the time, and I'm quite sick of it.  These people are completely aspiritual (i.e., they feel no compassion toward other beings or the Earth) and couldn't care less about the environment.  It would be nice if Grist would block them, but it's either too much work or Grist thinks that we should have all opinions expressed, even those that advocate that the Earth is flat (the latter is what I consider to be taking the First Amendment too far).

A few moments ago, on CNN, Mitt Romney's position on health care reform was summarized: it has got to come from the private sector; government involvement and new taxes are out of the question.  That is exactly what you are talking about: money and business ALWAYS come first; doing what is right ALWAYS has to be studied and assessed by the bookkeepers first.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

No matter how much the Republican Party insists upon returning our nation to the time of 'Robber barons' and the '1929 Stock Market Crash', America is looking toward the 21st century and our global needs to live in security, harmony and hope with 5 1/2 billion people who do not experience the advantages that Americans have known.  The GLOBAL ECONOMY requires that our planet comes first-
 the ONLY 'lifeboat' of water, air, food, climate, natural resources and energy that we all MUST SHARE to engender HOPE, HEALTH and HEALING for our world!  If anyone of us contribute to the
harm, destruction and decline of our 'lifeboat' our
CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN WILL REAP THE WHIRLWIND OF OUR NEGLIGENCE AND GREED!