Global Warming: Melting kingdom of the
Polar Bear
Through the long and dark Arctic winter, the mother Polar Bear sat quietly in her den. She had
given birth to her cubs, and was waiting for them to grow strong enough to follow her out to the
ice pack. The ice pack is her refrigerator, the place where she gets her food. It’s quite literally a
floating, rotating gyre or “cap” of ice that covers the Earth’s northern pole. Along its edges of
cracked and broken ice swims the Polar Bear’s food: ringed seals, bearded seals, harp and
hooded seals and, occasionally, carcasses of beached beluga whales, walruses, narwhals, and
bowhead whales.
After months of waiting in her den with her cubs, the mother Polar Bear comes out weak and
starving. She can almost smell her next meal: fresh seals swimming in the water on the edge of
the ice cap.
Global Warming: Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear [Photographs by Ashok K Vaish and his
co-expeditionists Larry Porter and Darrell Gulin]
When she ambles out, followed by her two cubs, she’s looking much thinner than she did a few
months ago. There is not a moment to lose. She needs to pack in as much energy as she possibly
can. She’ll need to swim with her cubs to edge of the ice cap, and hunt for seal pups and other
animals that are swimming near the edge. She is a good swimmer, but a hungry and weak Polar
Bear can only swim so far.
Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear [Photographs by Ashok K Vaish, Larry Porter and Darrell
Gulin]
She reaches the edge of the land, and jumps right in, and swims several miles to reach the ice
pack. There she noses around near the edge of the broken drift ice, looking into the waters for a
seal to catch. She finally senses a ripple in the water. In a flash, she strikes out with her giant
paws, and the next moment a struggling seal is trapped in her mouth. She drags the seal away
from the edge and quickly devours the much needed fat that her body needs to fight the Arctic
cold.
Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear [Photographs by Ashok K Vaish, Larry Porter and Darrell
Gulin]
This is her life pretty much throughout the year. Polar bears hunt all year. But springtime is the
best for them as the seals have just pupped in large numbers. The bears are nomads, that is to
say, they move around from place to place in search of food. They can stay on the drift ice all
year and hunt all year. They sleep on the drift ice at any time of the day that they wish as they
have no predators (that’s right, no one to hunt them down, except humans who kill them for their
fur.) They only have to come to land to have babies, which the mother does every two or three
years.
The Arctic Polar Bear’s story is a sad sign of global warming. We bring you a first person
account by scientist-engineer turned amateur documentary filmmaker Ashok K Vaish who
sailed through the freezing waters of the Arctic Ocean on a special expedition, and brought back
images and tales of an Earth in danger of meltdown.
Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear [Photographs by Ashok K Vaish, Larry Porter and Darrell
Gulin]
Last year I saw the effects of global warming first hand when I traveled to the arctic region near
the North Pole. We were in an ice-breaker near the island of Spitsbergen in Norway close to the
polar ice cap (about 81 degrees North, latitude). We had gone there to take photographs of wild
life – the polar bears, walruses, seals and birds that make this stark but fragile landscape their
home.
To understand the danger facing the Arctic Polar Bear, we first need to understand the dangers
facing our planet. Our earth is an ideal place for life to flourish. It is covered by a layer of air –
our atmosphere – which is essential for all living things. The atmosphere provides us with the
oxygen that we breathe, acts like a blanket to keep us warm and protects us from deadly radiation
from the Sun and flying meteors from outer space.
The temperature of the earth is regulated by the atmosphere by keeping the Sun’s radiant heat
(absorbed by the dark earth) from escaping back into the cold space at night.
This is called the Greenhouse Effect and you may have experienced it if you have been to a plant
nursery where it can be quite warm even if it is chilly outside.
Every time we breathe or burn something we convert oxygen in the air to carbon dioxide. The
carbon dioxide in turn is used by plants to breathe and is converted back to oxygen creating a
balanced cycle. The total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is quite small. If we
increase our oxygen burning – for example by burning a lot of coal or oil to generate electricity
or run our cars – and cut down trees, we increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. This
makes the air a little heavier and it starts acting like a thicker blanket around our earth, warming
it up. The actual amount of warming is only a few degrees but it is enough to disrupt the delicate
balance of nature – melt the polar ice, raise sea levels, cause violent hurricanes and endanger
species such as the polar bears.
Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear
The polar bears are born in dens or caves on land while their mother sleeps through the
winter. The mother and the babies emerge around March famished from a long seclusion
and must immediately hunt to feed themselves to stay alive. Now, polar bears cannot hunt
on land, the only hunting they know is to catch seals from floating ice in the open ocean.
Melting kingdom of the Polar Bear [Photographs by Ashok K Vaish, Larry Porter and Darrell
Gulin]
The floating ice is located at the edge of the polar ice cap – a floating frozen mass that covers the
North Polar arctic region, which is all ocean. So in March the polar bear mother and cubs swim
from the land in Spitsbergen to the edge of the polar ice cap so that they can hunt.
Normally this is a short swim, since in March the polar ice cap is very close to the land, and the
polar bears, even babies, are good swimmers. However, last year we saw that the polar ice cap
had really shrunk in size due to meltdown from global warming.
This meant that the polar bears had to swim many miles from the land in Spitsbergen –
sometimes hundreds of miles – to find the floating ice where they can hunt.
Swimming hundreds of miles, specially when you are famished and have hungry babies in tow is
really very hard and many bears are dying through drowning and starvation.
The polar bear population in the Spitsbergen area was once threatened by hunters. In the 1970’s
a ban on hunting was imposed and the polar bear population has been steadily increasing from
just a few hundred to about 2000 – 3000. This was a great success story. However, now, owing
to global warming, the population is again endangered. If we do not reverse our emissions of
carbon dioxide we can lose these beautiful animals forever.
The polar bears are just one example of endangered animals because of man’s great appetite for
energy which is obtained by burning fossil fuels. All life on earth could be in the balance unless
we change our ways. What can we do? To reduce the carbon dioxide in the air we must conserve
and make energy without burning coal and oil. For example, we can use the Sun or the wind to
generate electricity. In India already an increasing and impressive amount of electricity is being
produced using wind power and a third of our energy comes from hydroelectric generation which
is also “green”, i. e. produces no burning of oxygen to produce carbon dioxide. We have plenty
of sunshine and must have a solar power generating strategy in our future planning. We must
also cut down on needless driving or leaving lights on. In addition we have to stop cutting down
forests and must start planting more trees.