Warming sign in the Arctic: Starving female polar bear challenges male for food

[NeoConsSuck]

Source: MSNBC

Wildlife biologist Ian Bullock is a seasoned visitor to the Arctic, but even he was surprised by what he saw last month: a thin female polar bear, shadowed by her cub, trying to challenge a much bigger, stronger male for food.

It wasn't much of a challenge, but it showed just how desperate she was, Bullock told NBC News on returning from his 10th straight summer cruise to the Arctic.

That desperation, he feels, stems from the fact that the Arctic's summer sea ice — which polar bears using as floating stations from which to hunt seals — has been shrinking over the last few decades due to a warming Arctic, forcing polar bears into smaller areas and more intense competition.

"She was the thinnest female with cub I have ever seen," he said. "She had a single cub which implies she has already lost one other cub this year.



Read more: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/13/13830880-warming-sign-in-the-arctic-starving-female-polar-bear-challenges-male-for-food?lite

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So sickening to read this.

[sasha031]

1. yes, it's so heartbreaking, feel so powerless.... :'(

[Liberalynn]

7. So heartbreaking

"and if people don't listen, and if people don't know might the song of the man be the next song to go?" The Partridge Family (I know silly comedy but that was a serious song that always stuck with me.)

[xchrom]

2. Du rec. Nt

[Mnemosyne]

3. Humans suck. So heart-breaking. nt

[tex-wyo-dem]

11. Yep, humans do suck...

We are just parasites on this planet. We add nothing to the global environment...quite the contrary, we exploit and destroy everything in our path. That's what happens when we occupy the very tip top of the food chain.

[AverageJoe90]

17. Do you honestly think this planet would be better off without us on the top, though? nt

[cliffordu]

18. I do. We are like a couple of billion apex predators

with nothing to give back except loads of garbage to dump.

We don't even give bacteria, the bugs and worms our remains to feast on.


Disease used to thin the heard, but since antibiotics........Well....

Shit.

I'll be off the planet in the next twenty years or so.

I am sorry for my part in this abomination, yet I struggle to stay alive like any other organism.

Maybe we are just a failed experiment that hasn't gone silent yet.

I hope humans become more than we have been, but I doubt it.

[Duppers]

21. I agree.

More than likely there will never be an honest discussion of population control in the mainstream, even mainstream DU, before it's absolutely too late...as if that date isn't already here.

[AverageJoe90]

23. We CAN become more than this, but it really depends on when.

I'm far from optimistic about our short-term future, though......on the other hand, if we really were nothing more than just a bunch of predators I doubt we would have even been able to leave the Rift Valley of today's Kenya, let alone build civilizations.

[CreekDog]

40. Well, we are certainly trying to find out aren't we?

note for you: we live on the same planet as that polar bear and just because it becomes more inhospitable for them doesn't mean it hasn't for us as well.

[AverageJoe90]

41. That's not my point.

The point I'm trying to get across is, as bad as things are, we can never forget the good side of humanity.....and, like the old saying goes, evil flourishes (especially) when good people do nothing.

[catbyte]

4. This makes me physically sick

[Esse Quam Videri]

5. Couldn't even bring myself to watch the video

So F'n tragic. Thanks for posting though.

[xxqqqzme]

6. I hate reading reports like this.

It is going to get worse too. That is the horrible thing.

[Hubert Flottz]

8. Very sad indeed.

[Doremus]

9. No words.

[DesertDiamond]

10. Oh, this makes me so sad.

[NickB79]

12. The Arctic will be ice-free by 2020 at the latest

Prepare to see a LOT more species go extinct in our lifetimes. Next up: a few hundred million humans starving to death as the crops start to fail from droughts, floods and heatwaves.

We're "lucky" enough to be alive to see the start of the greatest extinction event to ravage the planet since the dinosaurs were snuffed out. Lucky, lucky, lucky......

[AverageJoe90]

19. There were mass extinctions after the KT event, before we started existing about 7-8 mya, right?

While it is indeed true that the most plausible scenarios do show that about 25-30%, maybe slightly more, could go extinct over the next century or two, which, IMO, is already a real tragedy, I just don't see us plausibly approaching Permian levels at any point over the next 2-3 centuries unless, perhaps, global warming continues absolutely unabated(which isn't all that likely), AND we see a disaster such as Apophis, or Yellowstone blows, or any other truly cataclysmic disaster combined with unabated global warming(which would be a horror in of itself!).

In all honesty, though, I really do hope a mass conservation effort can start taking place someday soon.

[NickB79]

33. There were extinction events, but scientists generally recognize 5 major ones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

The cut-off seems to be that mass extinctions are classified as anything that kills of at least 70-75% of all species on the planet. The Eocene extinction event, while quite visible in the fossil record, doesn't rise to the level of destruction seen in the top 5 mass extinction events.

And many studies have found that we are currently entering the 6th great extinction event, due to human activity. For example: http://www.livescience.com/13038-humans-causing-sixth-mass-extinction.html. This study suggests 75% species loss in the next 300-2000 years.

And another: http://www.pnas.org/content/105/suppl.1/11466.short

And another: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/nature09678.html%3FWT.ec_id%3DNATURE-..

[flamingdem]

13. bump

with sadness

[padruig]

14. losing the arctic

As we lose the arctic we lose a critical component of the engine of our weather. This component influences a cyclic phenomena called the Arctic Oscillation and the jet stream. Together these influence our seasonal weather in the northern hemisphere.

The loss of arctic ice also puts pressure on the ecology. We are seeing warming oceans, a decrease in multiyear ice as well as a decrease in total ice coverage.

In the North Cascade Range when we have a long late winter, the result is a shorter alpine growing season and our bear population has to work harder to put on needed calories for the winter period.

There is no 'good' outcome for these events and while humanity may consider a broader range of choices in adapting to a hot-house earth, the natural world that we depend on does not have such choices before it.

[AverageJoe90]

20. "Hot-house" is a bit of an exaggeration, dont'cha think?

On the other hand, though, I don't doubt that the Arctic ice melting away certainly would have significant long-term consequences.

[NickB79]

34. If you lived in the central US this summer, no it's not

And if you look at the projections beyond 2100, hothouse climate is the perfect description of what's coming: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/half-of-earth-will-be-uninhabitable-by-2300-study-says.html

In fact, new research projects that in three hundred years, half of our planet will "simply become too hot" for humans, if that's the legacy we choose to leave behind.According to The Telegraph, researchers from the Universities of New South Wales and Purdue based their study on a number of worst-case scenarios produced from climate models--and what they've concluded it quite troubling: If mankind fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures could rise from 10 to 12 percent by the year 2300, making much of the world uninhabitable.

And no, this isn't the same as people who've claimed we'll turn into Venus or anything like that. It's just a recognition of the fact that high humidity + high temps creates conditions in which the human body cannot cool itself through perspiration.

[AverageJoe90]

36. That study's scenario does sound really bad, but TBH......

I doubt Big Energy will last that long. People are still waking up, even if only thanks to the extreme weather we've been having these past few years in some cases, and the deniers are getting their flanks exposed left, right, and center. Let's keep pushing, eh? Maybe they'll collapse in on themselves sooner than we may have initially thought......

[Gregorian]

15. They'll mostly be dead soon.

We aren't going to stop driving, flying, breeding, heating water, heating buildings.

I damaged my physical well being from years of anxiety over this general topic. I'm not trying to just observe and remain as healthy and calm as possible. I couldn't wake people up.

[AverageJoe90]

24. What exactly were you doing, by the way?

No offense, but if you happened to be one of those apocalypse-monger types back in the day, at some point, that'd definitely help explain why. (I can speak from personal experience, btw).

[Gregorian]

26. Nothing. Just watching what feels like my own mother being raped.

And not being silent about it. But mostly just not being able to relax about it. I'm actually in good company. Out of almost everyone I know there are only about three children. That's a lot of childless people. But I grew up in a very progressive town with very educated neighbors. The same town where all of the Steve Jobs and Facebook starters want to live. Had I grown up not aware of the problem, I'd probably be like most people. Oblivious, happy, and traveling like a motherfucker.

[AverageJoe90]

28. Okay. No offense intended with that last reply of mine, btw. nt

[Trillo]

31. Learn to have faith in evolution as nature practices it.

Now the polar bears are dying off. It IS very sad or depressing. I take some consolation in the organisms recently found growing on nuclear power rods as a sign that no matter how hard we try to kill the planet of so-called higher life forms, nature is simply more powerful and awesome.

Perhaps, someday, in the far off future, perhaps on another planet, a less selfish breed of human will evolve, one that can respect and love other lifeforms as much as we love ourselves.

[Gregorian]

32. How interesting. I also felt some comfort in the nuclear rod organisms.

Well, there must be some kind of saneness to our despair.

What keeps me from having that faith in evolution is something that I discuss with a like minded friend. What we've done is use petroleum to leverage evolution out of our way. It's temporary. But so is Fox news. I still cringe when I think of the damage they're doing.

Thanks. It's nice to see other people on this forum who care.

[AverageJoe90]

37. True.

TBH, I've always been a bit of a casual Star Trek fan, and always wondered if we'd ever come across any humanoid lifeforms someday.....

[Lunabelle]

16. Oh God that is so sad.

I'm tearing up. so sad.

[Selatius]

22. I fear that it is already too late to stop polar bears from going extinct.

As a race, we will not stop the burning of fossil fuels overnight.

[JRLeft]

25. I believe it is too late for everyone, capitalsim continues to move on despite repeated warnings

Last edited Thu Sep 13, 2012, 09:42 PM - Edit history (2)

from scientist. There will be no life on earth in the not so distant future.

[AverageJoe90]

38. Not true....at least, not literally so.

You do realize that there have been disasters even worse than global warming, right? Even the K/T event wasn't enough to totally wipe out all life on Earth. Toba, the worst eruption in the past 100,000 years or so, while it did kill off most of humanity at the time, didn't come close to the K/T event....and it was far worse than global warming has been so far, or is to ever be for the most part(even under the most plausible worst-case scenarios.....with a possible exception being if we keep accelerating the burning of fossil fuels and do nothing to correct the problem by 2300; there is a possibility of as much as 50% of all species dying in that scenario. As bad as Toba was, I don't think it quite got to that level.).

On the other hand, life as we know it, is indeed in danger, and there is indeed the possibility of a major shrinkage in global civilization by 2100......not to mention resource wars, terrorism, etc. Still not a pretty sight, sad to say.

[Omaha Steve]

27. A few years ago we gave an adopt a polar bear Christmas gift to our daughter in law

K&R!

[limpyhobbler]

29. We need a government that takes global warming seriously. Not just in words, but also in actions..

[Blue_Tires]

35. +1000

[harutmasikyan]

30. Warming sign in the Arctic: Starving female polar bear challenges male for food

interesting news

[Uncle Joe]

39. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, NeoConsSuck.