Move Over Polar Bears, “Baby Penguins Are Dying”

Cap Allon

Doing the rounds this week is the story that Emperor penguins are facing “an unprecedented breeding failure due to ice loss in 2022, a study says”. The research goes on to claim that 90% of them will be “quasi-extinct” by the end of the century.

‘Quasi-extinction’ arises when the density of reproductive individuals in a given population becomes so small that it’s unable to sustain a growing or even stable population.

Move over polar bears, “baby penguins are dying”, so reports bloomberg.com.

The new study, published Thursday by researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, backs predictions that Emperor penguins “will be quasi-extinct” by the end of the century under the current global warming trajectory.

With the planet already 1.2C warmer since pre-industrial times, continues Bloomberg, scientists have become increasingly alarmed by how the Antarctic ice has struggled to grow back after hitting a record low in February, what they claim is a “six sigma event,” or once-in-a-7.5-million-year phenomenon.

This is an absurd claim, and the data clearly state otherwise, but forwarding The Narrative is held above the science of reasoning.

There has been a concerted effort to push the ‘global boiling’ rhetoric harder than ever this year.

Cherry-picked exaggerations of wildfires, ‘heat domes’ and ice loss have, for now, resigned COVID-scares to the back seat; our thoughts and fears have been returned to the mother of all scares: The End Of The World.

Now, this is a low year for Antarctic sea ice, nobody is denying that, but the multidecadal trend of growth will not be altered (see chart below). Legacy media outlets usually steer clear of Antarctica due to this trend, as the data don’t support their narrative. To watch them collectively pounce on events this year without even a nod to the ‘inconvenient’ growth of decades past says it all:

NOAA chart, based on data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center.


I want only adults in the room now, adults that can recall the decades of comparable polar bear scare stories:


And re. Emperor penguins, The Guardian was fear-mongering long-before it was fashionable, back in 2014 (ironically during what turned out to be a record-high year for Antarctic sea ice extent):


Since 2014 though, the penguin population has increased.

The Pointe Géologie chart below, which uses the extreme RCP 8.5 climate scenario of a high-emissions future to tell its fairy-tale, foretells of a stark decline in the number of penguins–which was supposed to commence in 2018.

Note: charts on penguin populations are hard to come by, which itself is probably telling.

Jenouvrier et al., 2020.


I hope even the alarmists have learnt their lesson.

‘The Science Says’ is a browbeating tool not an accurate predictor of future events.

Mainstream focus has turned to those cute, fluffy, vulnerable little baby penguins at the bottom of the world because biodiversity at the top of the world, across Greenland and the Arctic, is now thriving.

Fanciful AGW Party tellings of polar bear decline have been shown to be nothing but agenda-driving drivel.

Numbers of polar bears have increased since the 1960s, the data don’t lie, and the thousands of proclamations calling for their extinction, which remember were all backed by ‘peer-reviewed science’ and ‘expert testimony’, have been proven dead wrong.

However, discussing past AGW failures is considered heresy, it isn’t permitted. But without an accurate critique of history we are doomed to repeat it — and here we go again, different pole, same story:


Amusingly, many of the very same ‘experts’ calling for the extinction of the polar bears have now switched their racket to decrying the baby penguin population. These ‘pundits’ feel protected by the establishment, is all I can assume; warmed by the encouragement offered by the AGW community; by the sense of safety in numbers: “the polar bears population is increasing,” they must privately concede, “perhaps there’s a variable we didn’t consider–BUT HOLY SHIT, LOOK AT THE BABY PENGUINS!!!”

And here’s the crux, the dangled carrot:

“Meeting the Paris goal could save the penguins,” states The Conversation. “The results of the new study showed that if the world meets the Paris climate agreement targets [we] could protect sufficient habitat to halt the emperor penguins’ decline.”

The Guardian end on a similarly instructional note–with the help of Dr Peter Fretwell, lead author of the study.

“It’s only by changing our behavior and the amounts of fossil fuels we use will we reverse the trajectory for these emperor penguins, and many other species,” said Fretwell. “How bad it gets is still up to us,” he concluded, dutifully hitting all of the correct AGW Party notes: ‘The end of the world can still be avoided so long as you give up cheap and reliable energy, accept lower living standards, have fewer children, stop eating meat, and pay us an exorbitant carbon tax — all will be great if YOU stop prospering’.


To Conclude

I think it’s a safe bet that said sea dwelling birds are resilient enough to deal with one season of anomalously-low sea ice extent. The first discovered fossils of emperor penguins date back 60 million years. They’ve dealt with much worse. They’ll be fine.

Antarctica Breaks *Multiple* All-Time Low Temperature Records; + The BBC Attempts To Rewrite The History Books
Antarctica Plunges To -83.2C (-117.8F) — Earth’s Lowest Temperature Since 2017; Record-Challenging Cold Sweeps Europe; + South America And South Africa Cool
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