Category: Science

The Implications of the Conservation of Polar Bears

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Polar bears are going extinct because their unique icy habitat in the Arctic is melting at a faster rate than before and it’s all thanks to global warming. Sea ice in the Arctic has been melting faster and faster each year as a consequence of global warming. This rapid destruction of their habitat doesn’t just affect the polar bears by taking more and more land from their habitat, it also affects the polar bears because it’s harder for them to hunt their prey: seals. Global climate change is affecting the polar bears in more ways than one, but can we change that?

 

If the sea ice continues to melt, obviously this means that polar bears are going to less land to live in. This leaves them no choice but to move close to humans which will have drastic repercussions and might even endanger humans. If they’re forced to move closer to land, they’ll pose as serious threats to human life and society. So by destroying their habitat, we’re not only putting polar bears in danger, but ourselves as well.

A solution to reduce global warming is obviously to start emitting less carbon dioxide. There are many ways to do that,
Using less AC (the energy used up by air conditioning to keep it working is a big contributor to global warming. The amount of electricity burned by an air-conditioned household has drastically increased a whole 38% since 1990 and we’re projected to increase a 4.3 degrees celsius by 2100. Air conditioners are used as a solution to stay cool, but in reality, it’s making our world hotter. There are only about 10% of people left in United States alone that don’t use air conditioning and most of them believe that air conditioning is not a necessity especially when we look back half a century ago when most homes didn’t have the luxury. There are more ways to cool down, more passive ways that include taller ceilings, cross ventilation, ceiling fans, or roof exhaust fans that will be able to move the hot air out of the house. Proper insulation in a house helps keep the cool air in and it doesn’t waste energy, unlike air conditioning).
Walk/bike/use public transportation
Eat less meat
Educating others
Some states have even begun to take serious action with states like California limiting the amount of CO2 factories are allowed to emit each year.
Spreading ways to personally emit less CO2 through campaigns, social media, or even real life can really make a difference in such a global issue.

However, it would be very hard to do so seeing as global warming is very obviously a global issue and would require everyone to care in order to really make a difference. However, it’s really hard to get everyone in the world to participate in reducing global warming because no one really knows if every single person is putting in effort.

It’s far too difficult to coordinate a worldwide effort because no one can keep track of every single human being. This just brings up the question of whether or not we can actually save the polar bears or if we should just let them die. Is global warming too large of an issue for us to save the species? There’s not much we can do to ensure that global effort will be put in except for the general things like campaigning for polar bears or putting in personal effort, which is just the same as the solution.

Another implication of spreading less CO2 is that it will mean an economic loss for factories and businesses. If the world adopts the policy of limiting the amount of CO2 that factories are allowed to use like how some states are already doing, this will mean a possible collapse in sales for the factories. Having less fossil fuel (fossil fuels contribute to global warming when burned) to use means that factories aren’t able to produce as much as before. Since there are fewer products being produced by these factories, that means the consumers will also have fewer products to buy, which could drive up inflation and create more economic problems for the whole country.

Having economic losses will prompt people to find a way to prevent inflation as a result of a decrease in products. A way to possibly prevent having to limit the amount of fuel/energy that factories can use is by using a more natural source of energy like wind or the sun. These sources of renewable energy are continuously replenished and cannot be exhausted which makes it easier to access. They also usually don’t harm the environment so by using alternative energy and/or renewable energy, it will allow these factories that normally use fossil fuel to use as much energy as they want and prevent economic loss.

Implications for conservation of the polar bears might be high, but we owe it to them to restore their habitat seeing as we’re the ones who destroyed it in the first place. There are ways to deal with these implications obviously from looking at the further implications, and although it might be hard, polar bears are too symbolic of an animal for us to lose to global warming.

Citation: (2017). Alternate energy sources. Retrieved June 1, 2017 from http://www.theplanetgreeners.com/alternate-energy-sources/

Polar Bear: Issues and Solutions Infographic

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Polar bears populations are declining at a rate that’s sure to put them extinct or at least close to extinction in the next few decades. Scientists are even predicting that the polar bear populations will drop by 30% by the year 2050. The main culprit? Global warming. Global warming is warming up temperatures in the Arctic faster than before and with that warming, the sea ice extent has been melting at a rate of 14% every decade since the 1980s.

Reducing the amount of time polar bears have with the sea ice allows them less time to hunt and store up fat for the summer months. With the melting sea ice, it’s causing longer periods of time without sea ice and that creates problems for polar bears like reproductive failure or starvation. These are all problems caused by manmade pollution.

To combat this problem, people are obviously going to need to start producing less carbon dioxide (to reduce global warming). There are some ways you can do this like using more public transportation, (or just walking/biking more) remembering to recycle items, using more energy efficient products, not using as much air conditioning and countless more solutions. However, this will require a global effort which means governments and country leaders will need to take more action in regards to this issue. Everyone needs to participate and put in effort if they want to truly make a difference in global warming and to do that, countries need to make laws and rules to encourage their people to save the planet. Putting more effort into reducing global warming will not prove to be beneficial towards to countries however. Their factories will go through economic loss if they can’t use as much CO2 as before to produce their products. Consumers of these products will also not be satisfied because there are fewer products to buy and more demand for this product, possibly driving up inflation. The countries will not really benefit that much from reducing the amount of CO2 factories can use unless they can come up with some alternative source of energy that will 1, be able to be found easily and 2, not contribute to global warming.

Global warming is such an important and seemingly impossible to fix issue that people start to wonder if it’s already too late for us to save what’s left. Is putting in global effort really too big of a problem for us to save the polar bears?

Exploring Twitter: Hashtags And Organisations

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For this assignment, we’re exploring twitter to find out different ways and organizations to help out our organism.

Here are some hashtags that are connected to Polar Bears on twitter:

KAS Hashtags:

– #KASendangered
This hashtag is fairly broad and is used by all the 7th graders to share their information on their endangered species. We’re able to reach the whole 7th grade through this hashtag.
– #KASeaPolar
This hashtag is for everyone who has polar animals to connect with each other and mutually share ideas and with each other. Using this hashtag, we’re able to communicate information and connect to other 7th graders who are also researching about polar animals/polar habitats.

Twitter hashtags:

– #endangeredspecies
This hashtag is important and useful because it’s not only used by people in KAS, but official organizations and scientists who like the spread word of the latest news/findings through this hashtag.

– #polarbear
Using #polarbear on twitter, you will see that in addition to lots of graphs and data on climate change, cute little pictures of polar bears also show up in the hashtag. The hashtag is frequently used by a wide variety of different people, including scientists who talk about global climate change or declining sea ice extents, but also regular people who are interested in preserving the species. Through this hashtag, you will be able to reach out towards a lot of different users who want to help conserve the species.

– #globalwarming
This hashtag is useful for a lot of species, especially the polar bear because it is such a big problem that’s affecting the world. It mainly affects species that have their habitats set in ice or oceans, (like the polar bear) but it indirectly affects many other species as well. In this hashtag, you can find out more about how global warming is damaging their habitats.

– #conservation
The conservation hashtag provides a lot of helpful tips and information on what you can do to help a species.

 

Organizations on Twitter:
National Geographic: National Geographic has a lot of new, up to date information on the latest news in science. Including news stories on conservation efforts and declining species.

WWF: The World Wide Fund for Nature, is a dedicated organization that focuses on protecting habitats and different species. They communicate their information out to the public in a fun way that attracts the average readers’ attention and provokes them to help.

Animal Protection: The Animal Protection twitter page tweets and retweets “highlights” or the most intriging animal stories from all different articles.

A Solution for the Conservation of Polar Bears

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Conservation of polar bears is something that needs to be done; not only for their survival, but for the survival of our planet. The global warming that is melting their habitat has been mostly caused by the carelessness of humans, and we aren’t doing anything to help. Strangely enough, going vegetarian might help out polar bears a lot more than we might think. Worldwide meat production actually emits more greenhouse gasses than global transportation does. Maybe it’s time to go vegetarian…remember, you are the problem, but you are also the solution.

Citation: S.A. (2009, March). How meat contributes to global warming. Retrieved May 23, 2013 from http://www.all-creatures.org/articles/env-howmeat.html

Change in Polar Bear Populations

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The polar bear is being endangered by the actions of humans and global warming. Polar bears were actually the first vertebrate species to be put on the list by the U.S. Endangered Species Act as threatened by extinction, mostly due to global warming. The listing occurred in 2008 because of ongoing habitat loss for polar bears. The same arctic sea ice in which they live and depend on to hunt their prey, which is almost exclusively seals.

The rising temperatures in the world and the world’s oceans are resulting in the sea ice to disappear for longer and longer periods of time during the summer, which leaves polar bears with fewer amounts of time to hunt. This is a big problem worldwide and has caused the Endangered Species Act to list polar bears as threatened everywhere in the world. Polar bears can only survive in areas where the oceans are able to freeze, which allows them to hunt seals who are living under and on the frozen polar ice caps.<br>

Orbiting satellites around the Earth have been able to capture the seasonal extent of sea ice since 1979, and the results are very bad in terms of the future of the polar bears. The minimum extent that the sea ice occurs in is around mid-September and during these months, new records lows being set for this minimum is now a regular event. The trend over the last couple of years has been for the last summer sea ice in the Arctic occur farther and farther from shore, requiring polar bears to swim increasingly long distances in order to reach the ice. Even worse, the remaining sea ice is over deep and unproductive waters that have less prey for the polar bears.

In the Hudson Bay, polar bears are now forced to spend their summer months on shore when the ice has melted and there is no ice platform for them to hunt seals. Resulting in the polar bears having to fast for longer and longer months. Fortunately, Hudson Bay polar bears have somehow been able to catch enough seals during the winter months to satisfy them during the period that they’re on-shore. However, this situation is changing fast because of climate change. Now, the ice is melting earlier than usual and forming up later, which leaves an ever-shorter period for polar bears to hunt. The Hudson Bay polar bears are now skinnier, have fewer cubs, the cubs they do have don’t normally even survive to adulthood, and the interval of time between each successful litters is increasing. Male bears are even starting to eat cubs.

What is seen in Hudson Bay is beginning to occur now in northern populations. This pattern is especially occurring on the North Coast of Alaska but appears to be the problem worldwide. The increasing gap between open water and the shore is creating longer swims for polar bears. During this long swim, both cubs and adult bears have suffered and died. Also, development in ocean floor exploration and oil extraction in open waters that were previously sealed by frozen ice is growing. This brings people, disturbance, and potentially disastrous oil spills to the arctic polar bear habitat.

However, polar bear populations aren’t anything to be worried about right now. Instead, we should be worried about polar bear populations in the future, because at the rate that we are warming our globe, polar bears are surely soon to be extinct. We know that polar bear populations are declining, it’s just a matter of what rate they disappear at that’s up to us.

Polar bears need our help and protection to ensure a future for their species. The best way you can help polar bears is by reducing your carbon emissions to help control global warming.
Here is a graph that shows the change in polar bear populations throughout time as they were endangered from declining sea ice before some conservation efforts were shown. Polar bear populations still continue to drop due to the ignorance of humans even though we already know this to be a worldwide problem. Poor tracking of the Polar Bears in the Arctic has also lead to somewhat inaccurate assumptions of the population levels, however, polar bears are projected to decrease 30% by 2050.

Citation: (February, 14, 2014). Polar bear population now officially 13,071-24,238 says IUCN polar bear specialist group. Retrieved May 22, 2017 from https://polarbearscience.com/2014/02/14/polar-bear-population-now-officially-13071-24238-says-iucn-polar-bear-specialist-group/