[If CO2 is causing polar bears to starve, why is this one so heavy, and why are there so many cubs?]

The captures have been going well. We caught the largest bear I have seen, an adult male who weighed 1,147 lbs (I am not sure what the largest bear caught in the southern Beaufort has weighed). His neck was several times the size of my waist, and I could not fit both hands around his snout. It took several people to position him for measurements. We have caught several bears which were sampled in 2009, giving us excellent data on changes over time in the same individual.

We have also caught a lot of cubs-of-the-year, or COYs, including this litter of three. Cubs are born around January 1st. Litters of three are fairly uncommon for polar bears in Alaska

Fresh Bilge » Patterns of Tremor

We have just seen the most protracted solar minimum since the Little Ice Age. The new sunspot cycle is looking feeble; the sun’s activity continues to resemble that of the early Nineteenth Century rather than the active Twentieth. Also the Pacific Ocean, the greatest heat dump on the planet’s surface, has recently shifted into the cold phase of its multi-decadal oscillation. (I’m not making this up; negative PDO is NASA affirmed.) One medium-large volcanic eruption would tip the world into a destructive chill-down that would harm economies and agriculture. I don’t want to hype you, but as the aide reported to the imperial general near the end of Star Wars, “There is a risk.”

[Pew: Republican climate realists don't fit the "Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel" stereotype]

Pew was looking at the partisan divide over climate change and found - shockingly - that better-educated Republicans were MUCH more likely to be confused about climate change. The only explanation for that confusion is that well-educated people also tend to be well-read. And in a fractured media marketplace, the well-read can choose their information sources with the biases already pre-loaded. Want to be doubtful about climate change? Read the Wall Street Journal.

World Climate Report » Amazing Amazon Analysis

If you really want to hit a home run with a global warming story, manage to link climate change to the beloved rainforest of the Amazon. The rainforest there is considered by many to be the “lungs of the planet,” the rainforest surely contains a cure for any ailment imaginable, all species in the place are critical to the existence of life on the Earth, and the people of the Amazon are surely the most knowledgeable group on the planet regarding how to care for Mother Earth.