Tag: polar bears

2020-21: Fires, Heat and Rains

2020 started with forest fires in Canada, Brazil and bush fires across Australian coast, causing the death of at least two billion animals.

Tourism Australia Bites Back On 'Viral Bushfire Misinformation'
The Australian Bush fires

Come 2021, Greek, Turkish and Italian people experienced one of the hottest summers in history in 2021. In the Hellenic Republic of Greece, the temperatures reached 45 degree Celsius on 4th August. While this might be a pretty regularly recorded temperature in the tropic, the Balkans and the Anatolian peninsula recording such temperatures is worrisome. The temperatures led to a spontaneous spread of forest fires in and across Europe, Canada and Turkey – and people across the globe shared the plight of Turkey on social media since Turkey is not habitual with these fires and hence lacks the number of helicopters and jets to control these fires.

Sicily wildfires, August 2021
Turkey battles wildfires for 6th day, EU to send planes
Turkish Wildfires have been unprecedented for the country

China recorded floods it had never seen in the last 50 years of its history in 2021. A very worst form of excessive rainfalls was recorded in central and western Europe in July 2021 with countries like Germany completely overwhelmed by floods. This is in addition to the already burning Amazons and even Asian countries recording instances of Forest fires in a time not traditionally identified with the same. Russia and Finland and US are also heading towards a quite imminent diplomatic crisis given that the Arctic has already lost more than 50% of its ice opening up the once frozen Tundra and permafrost to petroleum and uranium explorations with the obvious geopolitical control over the area being a chief topic of contention.

Arctic cold war: climate change has ignited a new polar power struggle
Climate change has ignited a new proxy struggle for the domination of the ocean.
Climate change: Polar bears could be lost by 2100 - BBC News
These might be one of the last generation of the polar bears.

China and India claim to have planted at least a billion trees in the last 5 years with China keen on developing technologies that are associated with building forest towns – a human enclosure built within an artificial forest as the future of dwelling. France announced a closing of all its coal plants 2 years ahead of schedule. But is that all? Global statistics show a massive increase in demand for coal in 2020 and ’21.

Liuzhou Forest City | Stefano Boeri Architetti
The Liuzhou city might be the first forest city on the planet.

The images of environment recovering due to COVID might be fairly short lived.

Why Polar Bears are on The Verge of Extinction

The loss sea ice habitat from climate change is the biggest threat to the survival pf polar bears. Other reasons include human-polar bear conflict, toxic pollution, oil spills and potential hunting of some subpopulations.

Polar Bear-Human Conflicts

As the sea ice of the Arctic thins and disperses, increasing number of polar bears spend longer periods in along the Arctic coastlines. Here their powerful sense of smell attracts them to human communities. Scent leading to garbage, stored food, dog teams, and animal carcasses bring them into greater conflict with people residing in the Arctic.

As apex predators, polar bears pose a significant threat to human life and property. In recent years the attacks on humans, who come within the polar bear’s range, continue to rise.

Effects of Climate Change

Due to climate change the Arctic is heating up twice as fast as anywhere in the world, melting the sea ice cover by 14% per decade. Comparing the data recorded between 1981-2010, we have lost about 770,000 square miles.

Polar bears rely on sea ice as their hunting ground and to rest, breed, and store energy for the summer and sutumn, when food can be scarce. The bears health decline as they go longer periods without food. Bears that come ashore, after the ice breaks up, are roughly 22 pounds lighter and in poorer condition. They also must travel long distances to stay with the rapidly receding ice.

Polar bears suffering from malnutrition can face extreme starvation -especially females with cubs. Scientists have found the main cause of death for cubs to be either lack of food or lack of fat on nursing mothers.

Industrial Impacts

As summer ice retreats, a new ocean is emerging, which allows more opportunities for industrial development at sea, and on large parcels of land. Offshore petroleum installations and operations in the Arctic are expected to increase in number. This results in destruction of habitat, poisoning of the bears when they ingest oil and contaminated prey which causes disturbance in the food web. As traffic by oil tankers and cargo ships in Arctic waters increases, so do the oil spills and human disturbance to their habitat.