Copenhagen Climate Summit

Leaders and passersby of the Copenhagen Climate Summit would be hard pressed not to notice the growing crowd around a large, bronze, ice-covered polar bear skeleton melting under the elements. The Summit brought together more than 115 world leaders to discuss our earths changing climate, and the animals like polar bears who are already paying the price. While hundreds of topics were brought up and hashed out, the list was reduced to a few hard-to-ignore topics which leaders could then discuss in greater detail. The list includes the Kyoto Protocol, the possibility of a climate treaty, climate finance sources, emissions reduction, and deforestation. For the full list and details check out this great story from the UK Guardian.



Now, back to the polar bear sculpture itself. As soon as the sculpture was erected I was watching the live stream and getting teary-eyed at its awe inspiring symbolism. Yes, there was a live stream set up 24/7 so that interested patrons from all over the world could literally watch the polar melt little by little. The sculptures creator, Mark Coreth was first inspired to create the bear skeleton and its icy fur after an eye opening trip to a Northern Canadian island where he witnessed and learned about melting arctic climates. Several prominent figures publicized the sculpture, most notably British actor Stephen Fry who was eloquently quoted saying "Polar bears and their habitat should be meltingly beautiful, not melting away,"

Read more about the Ice Bear and Copenhagen Climate Summit here, and here.

Old News!?

Yes, the polar bear blog has been on hiatus for just a few days, but I assure you now that my vacation period is over, the hiatus will be too! SO I have some "old news" that I grabbed up a couple of weeks ago, but luckily has not lost its meaning whatsoever.

First off:

The more we know about polar bears, the more hard evidence we have to protect them. There have been many ways to track wild animals over the years, and for many species easy and painless solutions have been found. But polar bears, being fairly dangerous to tag in person, have generally been tracked by plane and taken down with tranquilizers from the air. While this method does not harm the bears in the long run, I can't help but think that it is a less than pleasant experience, and have always wished there were some less invasive, more humane way. Well- looks like all my wishing paid off!

Canadian scientists have found a new harmless and painless way to both track and research polar bears and their habits. The device, although ultimately more complicated, traps hair from the polar bear and the hair samples are then used to determine DNA, sex, etc...

You can read the entire article on the Science Daily News, here

Another happy piece of polar news is Russia's decision to protect a key arctic habitat, home to polar bears, reindeer, and walrus alike! As you can see from the map below, one of the worst areas of arctic ice melt is within Russian borders. In a Panda.org article, it is made clear that the decision did not come out of nowhere, and many prominent groups such as the WWF have been lobbying to have the area protected for quite some time. My favorite quote from the piece is from Neil Hamilton, director of the WWF International’s Arctic Programme- “This is exactly the sort of thing we need to see from Arctic governments,” he said. I agree. If all arctic governments made similar decisions, imagine what large steps we could take towards conserving these precious habitats!

Well that is it for today, but I will be discussing everyones favorite polar bear cub, Knut, and his custody battle soon, as well as some other great polar bears news!