Of Global Warming and Polar Bears

Susan Kane-Ronning, Ph.D., is a resident of the Silver Beach neighborhood, and a licensed psychologist in private practice in Bellingham.

I have become preoccupied with polar bears. Obsessed, actually. It began when my brother sent me an article from Tidepool News (http://www.tidepool.org) by Donella Meadows. Meadows, a scientist who died last spring, details the decline of the polar bear due to global warming. Titled “Polar Bears and Three-Year-Olds on Thin Ice,” the article deftly describes the effects of industrial pollution and global warming in the Arctic.

According to Meadows, the Arctic is more sensitive to the effects of global warming—one degree warmer for the planet equals three degrees at the poles. Ice now covers 15 percent less of the Arctic Ocean than twenty years ago. Ten feet thick back in the 1950s, it is now less than six feet thick. At that rate, the Arctic may be ice-free all summer long within 50 years.

Two hundred species of tiny organisms, algae and zooplankton, which hang around ice floes and sink to the bottom when they die, nourish clams, which are eaten by walruses. Arctic cod eat the algae scraped off the ice, which are then eaten by seabirds, whales, and seals. The great white bear, the polar bear, is the head of the Arctic food chain, and hunts primarily seals.

By 1998, most of the plankton species were gone, and the ice was nearly gone. Plankton-dependent creatures were gone, as well as the ice-dependent seals, and the seal-dependent bears. Many had traveled farther north following the ice. Some creatures like the black guilllemot, a bird dependent on land for shelter and ice for food, can’t even bridge the gap between land and water, and the others remain precariously far from land.

So, for several months, I tried to force my mental picture of the polar bears out of my mind. Create a protective layer of denial while I drive my car and perpetuate my American lifestyle. Then several things happened. George Bush bowed out of the Kyoto Agreement on global warming, refusing to participate in reducing greenhouse emissions in the United States, the leading contributor.

While smaller countries diligently try to reduce their contributions, Ari Fleischer, Bush’s press secretary was quoted as saying that the Bush administration was not going to request American citizens to reduce their fuel consumption over the summer months—it was our American “right” to drive our automobiles.

Next, the Bush administration ardently strove to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling, even though scientists vehemently stated there would not be enough oil to warrant the drilling. Proponents used the California energy crisis and even the Afghanistan conflict after September 11 to justify the drilling.

My denial, although fairly ineffective in suppressing my anger and frustration, lost its grip one Sunday morning after the holidays. Waking before the rest of my household, I stumbled to the television and thought I would check out the weather. I found myself watching a show about polar bears in the Arctic.

Scientists were researching the declining fat layers on mother polar bears and their cubs, tranquilizing them and measuring their fat. The mothers are losing considerable fat, due to their lack of food source, and one-third of their cubs are dying. The cubs that live are undernourished, and may not make it either. I imagine what it would be like not to nourish one’s babies.

The pictures of these beautiful great white bears haunts me. I’ve never realized how much they are a part of my life. A postcard of a mother bear lounging on the ice while her cub sleeps on her sits on my refrigerator.

My three-year-old’s favorite outfit has a polar bear on the shirt, with polar bears sporting hats and scarves all over his sweatpants. We have beanie baby polar bears, polar bear Christmas ornaments, and I wear bear paw earrings. It was never planned, the polar bear just happens to be a regular part of our mental landscape, even while its physical landscape is deteriorating.

The industrial pollution from our country and others floats toward the Arctic and is stored in the polar bears. According to Meadows, these same chemicals and metals are in our children. We don’t seem to realize that we, like the polar bear, are at the top of the food chain. Our ignorant and lavish behavior is endangering ourselves, and especially our children.

Baby boomers and the following Generation X-ers have been raised to believe we can have it all, without paying a price. Countless people state it is okay for them to have more children, because they can afford them. This belies the fact that children born to Americans impact the planet more than 20 times over children born in third world countries, due to our overuse of the world’s natural resources.

In his book, “The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising Culture” (Simon and Schuster, 1982) Fritjof Capra describes the decline of other civilizations, including the Roman and Byzantine. He states our civilization will reach its own turning point, where devastation will reach its pinnacle, and the civilization will fall. His point is compelling, if not frightening, and it would behoove us to take heed.

Two years ago, I went with my two sons and husband to watch the Orcas in Bellingham Bay. Others watched with us as whales rose into the air and their spray arched across the horizon. At some point, our awe was broken by concern that it might be unhealthy for them feeding in Bellingham Bay, so close to Georgia-Pacific and a known Superfund site.

An adult turned to my then eight-year-old and said, “Well, hopefully your generation can fix it.” As my son looked wide-eyed, I challenged as to why we should allow our children to fix our mistakes. There was once a time when we blamed the previous generations for the state of our planet. But now the mistakes are our own.

According to Meadows, if we continue spewing greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere, we will see three to ten times more warming over the 21st century than we saw over the 20th. And the polar bear will be gone. While we drive our cars, continue our lifestyle, and overpopulate the planet, they will be gone.

What will I tell my three year-old when we place the ornaments on the tree and I diligently stick the fallen postcard back on the refrigerator, after the polar bear is gone? How will I explain that each one of us, with our denial, helped to eradicate this beautiful species? And that we, as adults, are blindly impacting each of our children’s futures too?

Perhaps it is time to accept responsibility for our lifestyles, our freedoms, and our privileges. Not just for the polar bears, but for our three-year-olds. Many of us haven’t truly learned to sacrifice. Out of sacrifice comes resolve, commitment, and strength. It might actually be good for us.