The imperiled fate of the polar bear, the world’s largest land carnivore, is easy to ignore because this majestic species lives in some of the most remote territory and enjoys natural camouflage, until now. The wintry splendor which used to surround the polar bear during every month of the year is melting at unheard of rates and killing off nearly all but the strongest specimens in the process.
Despite all of this needless, and often dismissed, devastation, no one with the political power to do anything about it seems to be acting. For this and several other reasons, a fine organization which I greatly admire, Environmental Defense, recently published a 6-part blog post which focuses a reader’s attention with laser-like precision on the plight of the polar bear and how this majestic species is suffering right now, today, because of global warming.
I exhort you to read it immediately at
edf.org/polarbearweek
Why should anyone but Eskimos care about this modern tragedy? Beyond the moral rectitude of not knowingly or deliberately causing the extinction of another species, the plight of the polar bear is an omen of the fate of billions of people. Yes, that’s right, billions.
We in the industrialized world have lost sight of the fact that billions of people still derive sustenance from subsistence farming (and/or participate in basic agrarian economies). As the effects of global warming propagate from the Arctic toward the Equator, the natural systems which make farming possible will shift and millions of acres of agrarian lands no longer will be arable.
In short, the suffering of the polar bear as admirably described in the 6-part blog post from Environmental Defense can be proved scientifically as a description of the food poverty and starvation which await billions of people in the coming years and decades. So, if you haven’t checked out that URL quite yet, why not visit it now?
edf.org/polarbearweek
credit: nwf.org
Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line
Corbett Kroehler
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