This is Scott Amyx with today’s Climate Change Flash Briefing.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Who doesn’t love polar bears, right? But what happens when dozens of hungry polar bears come to your town looking for food? About 50 Arctic polar bears have invaded the little town of Belushya Guba, located on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago stretching in the Arctic Ocean. The Russian officials in the region have declared a state of emergency. One local official commented, “I have been in Novaya Zemlya since 1983, but there have never been so many polar bears in this area.”
Polar bears have entered homes and businesses. Some have chased local residents, taken over playgrounds and feasted on garbage. The local residents are scared to leave their homes or let their children go to school.
So why are the polar bears invading this remote Arctic town when they should be hunting seals on sea ice? According to the World Wildlife Fund, it’s because of ongoing loss of their sea ice habitat resulting from climate change. According to a study in the journal Nature, the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Arctic sea ice is declining at a rate of nearly 13 percent per decade. The U.S. Geological Survey warned that two-thirds of the global population of polar bears could be wiped out by 2050 because of thinning sea ice. Polar bears are literally dying from starvation.
Keep listening to this Climate Change series to find out how you can make a difference.
Stay tuned next time to find out why we shouldn’t rejoice about bugs going extinct.
