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Fossil Fuel Ecocide Forces Starving Polar Bear to Hold Breath For Three Minutes in Seal Hunt
7
August, 2015
(A
starving polar bear is forced
to hold breath for a record three minutes in
a failed hunt for seals.)
Like
so many other innocent creatures on this planet, polar
bears are facing ever-worsening life-threatening conditions due
to the fossil fuel industry’s insistence to keep burning, and to
keep us dependent on their horrific energy sources. The bears’
Arctic home has been transformed in ways that are profound and
terrible. The sea ice they used for hunting grounds is greatly
depleted. The seals they hunted for prey have ever-more-numerous
avenues of escape into dark and warming waters.
It’s
a merciless and terrible burning. One that encompasses many genocides
together. Ecocide, ecological shock, growth
shock, the
sixth great extinction.
All words to describe what we now watch. What fossil fuel industry
influence is preventing us from stopping. But to the bears
themselves, it’s a wrenching torture.
A forced orphaning and
starvation combined as the bears grow increasingly emaciated, weak,
and desperate. Transformed into walking skeletal beings, they’re
ghosting off toward the obliteration fossil fuel interests are
sentencing them to.
(Plunging
Arctic sea ice driven by Northern Hemisphere polar amplification is
the chief agent of habitat loss and extinction pressure for polar
bears. As you can see in the
superbly rendered video above by Andy Robinson,
the fall has been merciless and precipitous.)
To
a climate change denier, the plight of these poor creatures is a
subject of ridicule and derision. ‘Who cares about stupid bears’
is the rallying cry of heartless ignoramuses everywhere. They’d
rather us be worried about our own petty day-to-day existences. The
back and forth, stuck in traffic, want more money, pay less taxes,
fear of far off ISIS daily grind of the right wing soundtrack. Or
when the tinny siren song of that ever-more-stuffed-with-straw appeal
fails it’s back to the old — pretend it’s not happening —
trick. Starving polar bears so
desperate that they’re now forced to hibernate in summer to
conserve energy must
be photo-shopped by some imaginary government agency after all,
right?
Deny
as deniers do, for the bears it’s all too real. For one bear in
particular, recently filmed in the above video, it was a life and
death struggle. Not
some narcissist’s thrill like the needless poaching of innocent
wild lions for blood-sport in Africa.
No, for this bear, success in the hunt meant a continuation of
blessed life. A second chance to keep going, to keep living in the
great world. Failure meant weakness, fading, pain and death.
The
bear, in dire need of food, was forced to hunt in a way it was not
adapted to — by stalking in the water. It was forced, in
desperation to swim toward near-water seals. And it was forced to
hold its breath underwater. Hold it for longer than any polar bear
ever witnessed. Hold it for a full 3 minutes where a mere 72 seconds
was the previous record. It was as if the starved bear had been
forced to perform impossible feats — or die. That’s the situation
the callous greed and disregard of some have put them in. Do the
impossible, or just die.
(The
gaunt, emaciated and obviously starving polar bear that broke the
recent diving record in a photo by Rinie van Meurs. Image
source: Meurs
Study and The Weather Network.)
This
bear’s struggle is not one occurring in isolation. It’s not just
the struggle of a single individual. But the struggle of an entire
race that is now being torn from the fabric of existence.
The
cliche phrase to say at this time is that we are all responsible.
That we all share the guilt. But it’s not true. In fact to say such
a thing is a terrible lie providing an out for the real perpetrators
of this egregious harm. There are some of us who want to change the
bear’s situation. Some of us who want to improve its chances. Some
of us who want to cut the destructive fossil fuel threads that bind
the bear and us all to a terrible and ever worsening ecocide. The
ones who want to help are not the problem. The ones attempting again
and again to stop the ongoing damage are not the guilty party.
But
the deniers and the fossil fuel industry the deniers wittingly or
unwittingly serve are entirely different. They don’t care one whit
about bears suffering an all-too-real existential crisis. And it
seems they don’t care about their own children’s rising
existential crisis either. They are the ones who deserve blame. For
they are the authors of this great harm.
Links/Credits:
This
one’s for Colorado Bob
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