Investigation finds fake math in polar bear drowning claims.

ednesdays with Audrey Hudson

08.10.11

The environmental community is up in arms over a federal investigation into the science behind the most cherished icon of global warming.

The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General is pursuing the two biologists who wrote the 2006 paper that suggests polar bears are drowning because their ice packs are melting due to climate change.

Investigators are revealing some interesting findings, including flawed math, inaccurate estimates of survival for the bears, that the wife of one scientist actually participated in the peer review process, and that the second scientist conceded mistakes could have been made.

The plight of the polar bears was made famous in Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, and the paper under scrutiny was instrumental in listing the bear as a threatened species.

One of the more interesting questions from investigators though, is how did the four bears on which the study is based actually die?

The scientists can’t really prove anything, as the floating carcasses were observed from 1,500 feet as they flew over the Alaskan Beaufort Sea counting whales. The carcasses were never recovered or examined.

More than likely, one of the scientists concedes, is that the bears didn’t perish for lack of an ice pack, but from a sudden windstorm the previous day that kicked up winds to 30 knots while the bears were swimming.

In layman’s terms, that’s a storm that could produce waves high enough to swamp a crabbing vessel on Deadliest Catch.

Environmentalists say the investigation is a witch hunt, and reports initially claimed that the investigation has nothing to do with the drowned polar bear study.

But, a special report by HUMAN EVENTS shows otherwise, and exposes what is really going on behind the scenes of the investigation.

Look for the findings online Thursday, only in HUMAN EVENTS.

— Audrey Hudson