Is it all it seems?

Photographer Eric Lefranc,

captured the scene while cruising the area in a boat in temperatures of about 5c.

A polar bear cub is comforted by its mother. They drift miles from shore on a rapidly shrinking ice floe. They had gone out hunting seals and climbed onto the floe to cool down. The drifting ice is shrinking, forcing the bears to huddle in the middle.

Polar bears have four-inch-thick blubber to keep them warm, big paws that act as flippers and waterproof fur. It means they are incredibly well suited to the water. For the cub, they will mostly struggle more and face an exhausting swim but they are usually clutching onto the back of their mum, so they are shielded from the current. However, the biggest threat to these two is actually hyperthermia, as their body temperature could rise and that could kill them if they swim too fast.

In addition, there are some data shown that polar bears have already survived a global warming that affected the northern hemisphere from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, when the Greenland ice sheet and the Arctic ice cap were smaller than now. It means that the polar bear has already survived one interglacial period. This fact is telling us that despite the ongoing warming in the Arctic today; however, it is not a necessary need for us to be so worried about the polar bear.

Is it all it seems?

I agree that living through a warm period back does not mean polar bears are resilient to climate change nowadays. Global warming has been a growing threat to biological survival; the polar bear is the most typical victims!

Besides, global warming is destroying the world. Sea ice is breaking up earlier each spring and freezing later each autumn. Even in Malaysia, the weather is super duper hot recently. We should pay more attention and care on this environment issue!

Our earth is sick now......

3.03.2010