The image of polar bears setting out in the open ocean towards ice floes too far for them to reach has become the most emotionally powerful image of global warming and the horror of the massive extinction of species that global warming will accelerate.

Given the power of the drowned polar bear metaphor, Lomborg had to disarm this image first to protect the rest of his arguments.

Lomborg cites studies showing that the number of polar bears has increased from 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today, a gain he attributes to “stricter hunting regulation.” As sea ice disappears, polar bears “may eventually decline, though dramatic declines seem unlikely.” He quotes a single Canadian government polar-bear biologist, who tells Lomborg that polar bears “are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at the present.” And as for the photos of floating dead bears, “Actually, there was a single sighting of four dead bears the day after ‘an abrupt windstorm’ in an area housing one of the increasing bear populations.”