Polar bear - victim or culprit?

There seems to be a lot of moaning in the press about the plight of the polar bear and how global warming could destroy their habitat and ultimately lead to extinction. Indeed, extinction is certainly a sad fate for any creature. However, what everyone seems to ignore is the role polar bears are playing in their own demise. Here is the case as it was set forth for me by renowned polar explorer Whitey Friezalot, he of the famed Nordic heritage and love of the creamy white snows of the arctic. As much as possible, this is a quote and the equations are his, saved for prosperity on the cocktail napkins of some dusty lost in time bar where we met up.

Aayargghh (Ed note: he was prone to start stories, sentences, and drinks with a low guttural sounds something like an Argg. It wasn't the sound we often associate with pirates, but something purely individual I can't describe.) The bloody polar bear. I have lived with the creature more than any other man and I tell you they are a beautiful creature to behold. Surely the world will be closer to lost without them. However, they are not the defenseless creature people would have you believe. They are savage carnivorous animals that eat a hundred pounds of blubber like you or I might eat a whole chicken. They leave the bones for the foxes like we leave them on the floor for the dogs!"

At this point, he spit on the floor and threw a chicken wing under the table. Of course, being a civilized country, there were no dogs in the bar. He didn't care, he was like that. He continued, "The pictures you see of polar bears in the snow, covering their noses to keep warm, those pictures are crap. Sure the bear is cold, but look where it lives? It adapted itself to that climate over millions of years, it has no one to blame but it's own forefathers." For all his faults, he was always a strict evolutionist. "Now, we see the pictures and we pity them the cold. Yet we pity them the warming too. It doesn't cut both ways, not that knife. Life is cold and cruel, not just for the polar bear." He spit again and drank the last of his beer, then the last of my beer, then ordered us another round. I was in this for the long haul it appeared.

"The problem is this: the polar bear has been living on borrowed time for many generations, and it isn't all man's fault. The polar bear has adapted itself to it's conditions sure, but like man it effects it's conditions, probably not as consciously or obviously as we do with our houses and bars and other abominations, but it's still true. The bears effect nature with their bodies." He paused here, maybe expecting something from me, like a question or a clever comment. I had nothing, so I sat and waited. People who spend time in the arctic are used to silence and so we sat staring at each other for 2 beers before he started up again. I'm not sure he even realized how long it was. When he did finally continue, he spoke as if there had been no delay.

"The polar bear you see is mostly fur and blubber. The males can weigh up to 1,500 pounds..." At this point, he grabbed a freshly polished pure silver pen from his pocket and a napkin to begin writing the formula that became the basis of his treatise. "An average polar bear..." and here he smiled at the very thought of something so simple as an average polar bear, "is broken out by weight as follows: 63.7% blubber and 22.4% fur, with the rest made up of other bones and bloods and intestines. That means, by mass, 86.1% of the polar bear, or 1,291.5 pounds, is fatty or furry."

At this point, the napkin had the following calculation (all misspellings are his):

Polar bare weight: 1500

Makeup: 63.7 blubber, 22.4 fur, 13.9 rest bare

Fatty furry: 86.1% * 1500 = 1291.5!

His ability to calculate in his head was certainly something for me to behold. He showed me the napkin before continuing, "That is a lot of blubber, and the blubber and the fur themselves give off warmth. This maintains the polar bear when it is alive, but what do you think happens when the polar bear dies? Does that heat just pass away?" He asked it in such a way I knew the correct answer and shook my head appropriately. He stared at me and squinted his eyes for a moment before continuing.

Now if you will be so kind as to recall from your thermodynamics studies (he was an acknowledged expert in many forms of math and science), the heat loss ratio of blubber is very slow, and the heat loss ratio of fur is even slower. The half life is something like 13 hours of fur,l and 8.7 for blubber. He added these to the napkin:
1/2 fur: 13 hrs
1/2 blub: 8.7

This means the heat given off by every dead polar bear is more than sufficient to melt more water than the polar bear ever weighed. This creates a net negative effect of ice maintenance to polar bear death!

He almost stood up he was so excited, skipping details in his commentary as I lost the details but was engaged by the passion.

So for every dead polar bear, the ice caps melt a little. This increases the amount of water in the world, pushing global warming, killing more polar bears, pushing global warming, killing more polar bears, pushing global warming...

I believe he said that 4 more times before stopping. I looked a little confused, maybe even frightened. He looked at me with cold eyes then wrote the following equation for me on the napkin:

LN (1/2 life * weight * blubber ratio)squared + (Friction of Arctic Ice * Mean Temp)/(Blubber ration * 1/2 life) = Lots of water

We sat for a bit in a bizarre silence drinking, and finally he added: The fate of the polar has tipped toward extinction. It is largely man's fault, but once the totter teetered, the bears keep pushing it forward. To stop it? He asked that as if in response to an unasked question, so he answered it. Thinner polar bears. Hell if it's so much warmer they shouldn't need so much fat anyway. The fur won't change for a long time, that's evolution my friend, but the blubber they can control. They'll figure it out. Or they won't. Fuck it!

He swigged his beer, stood up, and walked out. He was angry. I was alone with his napkin and his brilliance. I have yet to find anyone smart enough to follow the logic, but it was one of those things that made such an impact it must be true. The bill came. I didn't have enough money, I only came in for 1 drink. I ended up washing dishes and talking global warming with the Mexican dish washers. They didn't support the Humenguin Society, so we continue our slow ominous march towards a world without arctic and antarctic animals.