The scientific consensus is strong and clear: heat-trapping gases emitted by humans since the industrial revolution are warming the planet. Here’s a good report on the state of climate science, produced by more than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries.

Here’s a striking global temperature graph from NASA.

Here’s a study (available for free download) on the credibility of climate scientists on both sides of the “debate” over man-made global warming. It found that 97–98% of the most active and respected researchers in the field agree that human activities are warming our planet; it also found that “the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC [anthropogenic climate change] are substantially below that of the convinced researchers.”

– Eliza, DISCOVER online news editor

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future.

Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,

“In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse Canada’s Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen

Between 1940 and 1942 St. Roch navigated the Northwest Passage, arriving in Halifax harbor on October 11, 1942.
http://www.hnsa.org/ships/stroch.htm

For a history of the “first times” that the northwest passage has been open try here.
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/bad-reporting-about-northwest-passage.html

Note that it has been a headline story for the BBC several times.

Time magazine reprises a 1937 report of another example.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,770864-1,00.html

1950’S ARCTIC SUBMARINE PICTURES
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/ice-at-the-north-pole-in-1958-not-so-thick/

In the last 130 years there have warming and cooling phases lasting about 30 years with attendant scare mongering in the popular press.
http://www.chinatownconnection.com/global-warming-cooling.htm

The earth has been much warmer 1, 2, 3 5 and 7 thousand years ago.
http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/cliffharris-randymann-chart-gtemps-2500bc-2040ad-longrangeweather-com.jpg

According to official Government of Canada surveys polar bear numbers are falling. As a result hunting restrictions have been put in place.

According the the local Inuit people, polar bear numbers are rising. They are unhappy about the hunting quotas. A fair number of Inuit still hunt and make a living from the land this way so it’s a big issue.

Although lifestyles in the North are changing the elders tend to think their lifestyle is under attack. In my opinion though, they are making a linkage between new lifestyles that are less healthy (mostly true) with the idea that the old lifestyles are their salvation (mostly not true).

One thing has occurred to me. Perhaps the large numbers of bears the Inuit are seeing are a result of sea ice coverage problems. Shorter ice seasons, poor quality ice, and less multi-year ice can result in the bears loitering on shore for a lot longer. The bears want to get out on the ice so they can hunt seals. However they depend upon the ice to provide a solid surface to walk upon the oceans. Polar bears are really good swimmers but they are not whales. They cannot hunt or sleep in the water.

Therefore shortened ice seasons, which we know are happening, can concentrate the bears at the water’s edge for a lot longer. This might cause there to seem to be more bears than average when in fact there are less.

Just a pet theory.

The writer refuses to admit the following scientific facts.
Polar bear population has increased 5 fold in 50 years.
Polar bears have been around for at least 100,000 years including millenniums when the earth was much warmer than today.
The earth was much warmer than today 1,000, 2,000, 4,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The Northwest Passage has opened up several times in the last 100 years.
The earth has been cooling for 12 years and will cool for another 20 years before warming.