Polar Bears at Risk as Warming Thaws Icy Home

After seeing the sad, tired (animated) polar bear in An Inconvenient Truth swim to a chunk of ice and have it fall apart under its feet (so sad!), I've been noticing that people are becoming more concerned about the polar bears. Even to the point where people are pushing to get them listed as endangered. And this all makes sense if scientists are right (and I think they are) about the melting ice caps.

Many scientific studies project that warming, widely blamed on emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, could melt the polar ice cap in summer, with estimates of the break-up ranging from decades to sometime beyond 2100.

Bears' favourite hunting ground is the edge of the ice where they use white fur as camouflage to catch seals.

"If there's no ice, there's no way they can catch the seal," said Sarah James of the Gwich'in Council International who lives in Alaska. "Gwich'in" means "people of the caribou", which is the main source of food for about 7,000 indigenous people in Alaska and Canada.

It just gets to me how people are so resistant to changing their lifestyle and don't care that the things we do have major effects on beings that have no control over what we do. We're so self-centered.

Changed Climate, Changed Species

MSNBC has put together a document that shows real life examples of the changes that have occurred and will continue to do so because of global warming. This comes along with the second report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which will come out officially on April 6.

It's an interesting read with a cute map showing the areas and species that it focuses on, such as polar bears in the Arctic. One species that I was surprised to find on the map is ticks in Sweden:

Swedish studies have shown that ticks have multiplied countrywide in recent decades, spreading north from traditional breeding grounds in the Stockholm archipelago. The pinhead-sized arachnids have even turned up near the Arctic Circle.

It makes sense that with an increasingly warmer climate, that these pests wouldn't die off every winter. Having grown up with pets, I know what a pain ticks (and fleas) can be, and what a relief it is come winter when we don't have to worry about them.

Another point that I found interesting and sad is the part about the coral reefs and their bleaching due to rising temperatures and an increase in carbon dioxide absorption.

Scientists turn spotlight on world's poles

After reading junkscience.com and getting utterly frustrated, it's great to find an article about cooperation between countries in an effort to figure out how global warming is affecting the north and south poles.

Scientists formally kicked off the International Polar Year on Thursday, the biggest such project in 50 years. It is unifying researchers from 63 nations in 228 studies to monitor the health of the polar regions, using icebreakers, satellites and submarines. The project ends in March 2009.

It is predicted that ice in the Arctic will melt completely within the century, which will have effects on much of the world. Even if not all the leaders of this project believe that the results of global warming on the polar climate will be this drastic, it is important that so many scientists believe that this is such a pressing issue.

To kick off the event and raise awareness, teachers in schools around the world created ice-related activities for their students to participate in. Even though this fact is barely mentioned in the article, I think it's pretty important because, you know, children are our future.