A bit of depressing news concerning polar bears came in on the news feed when I logged in last night. I had heard that there had been a marked rise of polar bear drownings; that nearly every documentary filmmaker visiting the arctic had been witness personally to such. But I don't think I had been expecting such sad news, certainly so soon and to such a scale. I think somewhere in the back of my mind it had always been a possibility, but I never really thought I would see the day of such a prediction.
Polar bears are one of those favored zoo staples growing up, right up there with elephants, alligators, and monkeys. To understand there is now a potential that those zoos might be the only place to find such creatures one day, and because of the effect I, you, all of us, had on our planet, breaks my heart. We're not exactly certain to what extent the changes global warming will manifest one or two generations from now. Opinions run the gamut, from the dismissive to the apocalyptic. But deny it or not, change is coming.
They are now talking about the fabled Northwest Passage above Canada becoming reality, open to shipping; soon the same for the Siberian and European arctic zones. The positive benefits of this warming seem very shortsighted and miss the point. To open up access to even more fossil fuels just to compound the warming problem is the same sort of short-sighted self-aggrandizing thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. To open up access to methane hydrate as a fuel source is very tricky and if done carelessly, could be disastrous. Shifting much of the World's shipping to the far North will have economic repercussions on the service centers that support existing trade routes that will see declining traffic; while at the same time, opening up new jobs and permanent spaces in the North will bring more ecological impact to areas that have been isolated before. Indeed, the potential to access and exploit virgin and heretofore inaccessible areas of Siberia could see new population centers spring up along with deforestation of one of the most important oxygen producers on the planet, and perhaps more significantly, simultaneously, one of the greatest removal systems of carbon dioxide.
And given that the poles are the dynamic engines that power our weather systems, how our planet will fare with one of those engines "turned off" part of the year when the North Pole is totally free of ice in Summer, let's just say, it's going to be a very "interesting" place to live in the upcoming years.
It doesn't take a genius to see the effects of global warming. It seems everywhere in my country, people are talking about how the weather is just "off," and has been getting more "off" with each succeeding year. In one area it's near drought; in others flooding. You are probably able to point to examples you've seen. Where my in-laws live, large animals are coming down from the mountains because of lack of water, so desperate they're willing to come into populated areas in the valleys to drink out of swimming pools. Spring is coming earlier and staying later, bringing more pollen, longer fire seasons, and a lack of sustained cold that kills off parasites. Where I live, we've had record numbers of oak and apple moths. Such usually only breed in two cycles in a good year (for them). Because of the earlier Spring, they've had three. Liking to fish, I used to sometimes check the chum buckets and talk to fisherman to get an idea of the catch, and see if it was worth going out the next day. One day I marveled to see all these strange and exotic fish, brilliant with colours I'd never seen before This phenomena of warm waters appearing off our coast was said to happen once every 30-50 years. It has happened several times since, that I can recall. And it seems that the frequency is increasing so that it's not such a rarity anymore to catch albacore or other fish more appropriate to Southern California and Mexico.
Oh yes, we can and should apply ourselves to living green and make those process and cultural choice changes part of our functional lifestyle. But the current requirements to just freeze the growth in greenhouse gases, not lower that growth, not turn it back, just to keep it at the same pace, are so prodigious that I sense there is not enough will or desire in this current generation that will ever bring this about, let alone to undertake the methods to reverse it. But please, do everything you can to prove me wrong. Otherwise, our generation is destined to have failed to be the shepherds of the planet that we should have been. It will fall to the next and the next after that, who will have no choice but deal with the effects that ours and preceding generations have brought about. I hope that they will be able to succeed where we have not. I don't think it will be a case of finding the will or denying that change is coming. By their day, such arguments will be mute and the necessity to deal with the ramifications ever present.
I just hope that when they have managed to bring their world back to a form of equilibrium, that whatever that world is in future, she still has a place for wild polar bears.
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Polar bears are one of those favored zoo staples growing up, right up there with elephants, alligators, and monkeys. To understand there is now a potential that those zoos might be the only place to find such creatures one day, and because of the effect I, you, all of us, had on our planet, breaks my heart. We're not exactly certain to what extent the changes global warming will manifest one or two generations from now. Opinions run the gamut, from the dismissive to the apocalyptic. But deny it or not, change is coming.
They are now talking about the fabled Northwest Passage above Canada becoming reality, open to shipping; soon the same for the Siberian and European arctic zones. The positive benefits of this warming seem very shortsighted and miss the point. To open up access to even more fossil fuels just to compound the warming problem is the same sort of short-sighted self-aggrandizing thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. To open up access to methane hydrate as a fuel source is very tricky and if done carelessly, could be disastrous. Shifting much of the World's shipping to the far North will have economic repercussions on the service centers that support existing trade routes that will see declining traffic; while at the same time, opening up new jobs and permanent spaces in the North will bring more ecological impact to areas that have been isolated before. Indeed, the potential to access and exploit virgin and heretofore inaccessible areas of Siberia could see new population centers spring up along with deforestation of one of the most important oxygen producers on the planet, and perhaps more significantly, simultaneously, one of the greatest removal systems of carbon dioxide.
And given that the poles are the dynamic engines that power our weather systems, how our planet will fare with one of those engines "turned off" part of the year when the North Pole is totally free of ice in Summer, let's just say, it's going to be a very "interesting" place to live in the upcoming years.
It doesn't take a genius to see the effects of global warming. It seems everywhere in my country, people are talking about how the weather is just "off," and has been getting more "off" with each succeeding year. In one area it's near drought; in others flooding. You are probably able to point to examples you've seen. Where my in-laws live, large animals are coming down from the mountains because of lack of water, so desperate they're willing to come into populated areas in the valleys to drink out of swimming pools. Spring is coming earlier and staying later, bringing more pollen, longer fire seasons, and a lack of sustained cold that kills off parasites. Where I live, we've had record numbers of oak and apple moths. Such usually only breed in two cycles in a good year (for them). Because of the earlier Spring, they've had three. Liking to fish, I used to sometimes check the chum buckets and talk to fisherman to get an idea of the catch, and see if it was worth going out the next day. One day I marveled to see all these strange and exotic fish, brilliant with colours I'd never seen before This phenomena of warm waters appearing off our coast was said to happen once every 30-50 years. It has happened several times since, that I can recall. And it seems that the frequency is increasing so that it's not such a rarity anymore to catch albacore or other fish more appropriate to Southern California and Mexico.
Oh yes, we can and should apply ourselves to living green and make those process and cultural choice changes part of our functional lifestyle. But the current requirements to just freeze the growth in greenhouse gases, not lower that growth, not turn it back, just to keep it at the same pace, are so prodigious that I sense there is not enough will or desire in this current generation that will ever bring this about, let alone to undertake the methods to reverse it. But please, do everything you can to prove me wrong. Otherwise, our generation is destined to have failed to be the shepherds of the planet that we should have been. It will fall to the next and the next after that, who will have no choice but deal with the effects that ours and preceding generations have brought about. I hope that they will be able to succeed where we have not. I don't think it will be a case of finding the will or denying that change is coming. By their day, such arguments will be mute and the necessity to deal with the ramifications ever present.
I just hope that when they have managed to bring their world back to a form of equilibrium, that whatever that world is in future, she still has a place for wild polar bears.
Take Action!
Top 50 Things. . .
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