Will Melting Polar Ice Bears Stay Afloat In Our Consciousness?

One of the most iconic images of global warming can be seen above as a few polar bears hang on for dear life to what looks like precarious ice perches in the middle of nowhere. The world is heating up and ice shelves are breaking off at an alarming rate, and yet according to several sources, these polar bear poster children were photographed just ten feet from land and during the height of the summer season. Whether or not the picture was dramatized to tug at our heart strings, polar bears are among the many endangered species around our world whose lives hang in the balance thanks to climate change. If you keep abreast of environmental news, then more than likely you've heard accounts of increasingly large numbers of polar bears drowning since they are not accustomed to swimming farther distances to locate food sources. Sea ice has always been their safe zone -- the platform from which they hunt for food -- but as it continues melting away into the ocean, the bears have less surface area to conduct business as usual and are forced to log in more laps. They are reportedly strong swimmers, capable of crossing the ocean for hours on end, and yet back in 2004 when researchers observed 4 polar bear carcasses floating in the Alaskan ocean, a global warming cautionary tale was born.

The World Climate Report acknowledges that "an elevated number of bears were observed swimming in open water in 2004" but that doesn't suggest a notable absence of sea ice since conditions were perfectly regular during that period of time. They add that it is highly unusual for the creatures to drown except under extreme cases such as a strong storm combined with vast expanses of ice-free waters, or in 2007, when 2 bears were shot with tranquilizer darts (while being inventoried by Pangnirtung researchers), causing them to drop into the ocean. We do know, however, that they are especially vulnerable to the changes in their environment and that they flourish in a world where freezing temperatures and ice exist. Without those conditions, senior scientist Hal Caswell from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says that population growth is negatively impacted when there are periods of decreasing sea ice. With approximately 20,000 - 25,000 polar bears remaining worldwide, they can certainly use an ally right about now.

Artist Mark Coreth is hoping to draw attention to their plight with his mammoth polar bear ice scuptures -- presently on display in Copenhagen and London's Trafalgar Square, he envisons bringing future polar bear likenesses to the town centers of Oslo, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, New York, Toronto, Tokyo, Beijing and Sydney. Intended to create a visual reminder of what is happening to the bears as our planet heats up, over a 10 day period as the shimmery structures succumb to the rays of the sun, a huge pool of water and a metal skeleton is left behind. Much like the World Wildlife Fund-commissioned ice figures that were placed along the steps of Berlin's central Gendarmenmarkt square this past September, creating a physical metaphor for the negative impact that human activity has on our environment is a more aggressive way of making us sit up and take notice. Whether we do more than that once the last puddle of liquified ice finally dries up remains to be seen.