The Bears Are Smarter (As Usual)

Some Republicans may not believe in global heating, but the bears do. So does the rest of the natural world, which cannot afford to deny reality.

Spain is having the hottest year in its history, and the bears in the mountains have stopped hibernating, because there is no winter. It's been going on for three years at least, but this year has been confirmed by scientists.

It is only one of many changes being observed in western Europe and England--ospreys no longer migrating to Africa, for instance. No one knows the impact of these changes, but they do indicate that the rest of nature is recognizing and responding to reality that humans are not:

Mark Wright, the science adviser to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the UK, said that bears giving up hibernation was "what we would expect" with climate change. "It does not in itself prove global warming, but it is certainly consistent with predictions of it," he said. "What is particularly interesting about this is that hitherto the warming has seemed to be happening fastest at the poles and at high latitudes, and now we're getting examples of it happening further south, and heading towards the equator.

"I think it's an indication of what's to come. It shows climate change is not a natural phenomenon but something that is affecting not only on the weather, but impacting on the natural world in ways we're only now beginning to understand."

Meanwhile the penguins behind the animated hit holiday movie Happy Feet are in reality in deep danger of dying off. The rockhopper is one of the world's 17 penguin species. Listed as "vulnerable" by the World Conservation Union, it is one of 10 species facing global extinction.