Kacper Lesniak
ENGL11000
Professor Gee
November 4, 2019
Research Paper
Over the years global warming has becoming the biggest problem in human society. This is in fact true as we are truly starting to see its devastating effects on society as well as the environment. One of the biggest and worse effected places by global warming has been the arctic poles. The major problem that is occurring there is the melting of the ice bergs which is causing the sea levels to rise. The melting of the ice is having a serious effect on the wildlife that lives and depends on the ice caps, some of the most affected animals are the polar bears and the penguins. These polar bears are starting to go extinct because of the loss of landmass for them to travel and hunt on, as well as the penguins populations are starting to decline because of the loss of landmass and the supply of food.
Polar bears are super susceptible to extinction and it is time that we do something about it. According to the article “Loss of Arctic Ice Makes Polar Bears Vulnerable to Extinction” by Daniel Karp “A recent study by Regehr et al. (2016) found that by the year 2050, the world’s entire population of polar bears could be reduced by anywhere from 30% up to 80% due to extensive habitat destruction and loss of food opportunities caused by the melting ice in the Arctic Circle.”. This article provides the evidence that polar bears are going to become extinct sooner rather than later, unless we can put an end or start to reverse the effects of global warming. One main reason for the polar bears extinction is how hard it is getting for them to obtain food. Although they are capable of swimming for long distances and long periods of time, the loss of ice is causing them to use more energy than normal to travel from ice block to ice block in order to obtain food. As well as the loss of the ice is making it harder for the seals to have their kids and to be able to raise them on the ice because there isn’t enough of it.
The food situation is only getting worse and worse. Not being able to find food is causing the polar bears to start dropping dead as they are walking. A Twitter post by National Geographic showcases a starved, super skinny polar bear dropping to his front legs as he is dying mid walk. This should show to the people how bad the situation is.
Polar bears being the biggest the biggest land-based carnivore in the world, need to eat at least 4.4 pounds of fat on average in order to have enough energy to survive day to day. National geographic posting that photograph and reporting it to the world is sad but also a really good thing at the same time because people need to see that global warming is real and is a real threat. There are some people like President Trump who don’t believe in its existence and it is a huge problem as he is the most powerful man in the nation, and some would say the world.
Not many people know how truly important polar bears are to the world and the environment. According to the article called Why should we care about polar bears? by Cristina Galvan “There are many species that depend on the polar bears and depend on them in order to eat and to survive. Polar bears are what are known as an umbrella species; many organisms are
connected to polar bears via a food web. For example, the Arctic Fox depends on the polar bear for food – they eat the left-over seal carcass after the polar bear is done. Polar bears feed on seals, without the predator then the seal population might increase also affecting the fish
that seals feed on – and so on.” The importance of polar bears to the biodiversity of the environment in the Antarctic and other polar regions of the world that the bears live in is super important. The foxes depend on the polar bears to be able to hunt and kill seals so that they could eat their leftovers. But the most important role that they play is that they keep the seal population at a good number. If the seal population gets too big then they will start overeating the fish population that they themselves depend on. This overeating of fish is going to cause is going to cause problems to us humans as well because fisherman and societies that depend on fish to survive and to be able to trade will be affected. The bears survival is crucial to other animals’ survival and most importantly to our own survival.
Penguins, one of the most beautiful and funny animals on the planet is starting to see a significant decline in their population. Their diets strictly rely on fish and krill, and as the landmass starts to decrease more colonies are forced to be closer together and therefore cause them to hunt from the same source of food. But there food sources aren’t as big of a problem as the loss of sea ice, the ice melting is affecting where they can lay their eggs. “For penguins who lay their eggs on the ground … rain and puddles are bad because eggs can’t survive when they’re lying in a pool of water. Chicks that don’t have waterproof feathers can become wet and die from hypothermia.” This quote from the article “Antarctica Could Lose Most of Its Penguins to Climate Change” by Aaron Sidder, goes to show how important the ice is to the penguins that live there. Their ability to repopulate is slowly declining because they are losing dry land to be able to lay and raise their eggs in. Like the quote states if the eggs are laid in a puddle they will not survive because the eggs cannot be in water. And for certain penguin babies ,called chicks, if they do not have waterproof feathers they will die from hypothermia do to the water on them from the puddles combined with the freezing temperatures of Antarctica.
The King Penguins are experiencing the same problems as the polar bears are with the distance that they are having to travel in order to hunt and bring back the food that is necessary for them to survive. These penguins normally travel 300 to 500 kilometers in order to hunt for food, this normally takes up to seven days for them to go hunt and to come back to their young. But as the sea ice is melting it is making it more difficult and stretching the distances that they have to travel. “ Based on their research, the scientists determined that 700km was the maximum distance that penguins could travel to hunt fish.” This article “Climate change: 70% of king penguins could ‘abruptly relocate or disappear’ by 2100” by Daisy Dunn tells us the penguins limits and how they are being pushed to those limits. If ice keeps on melting we will see a significant change in the amount of penguins that we have in the world and the amount of fish populations that will start to grow. Penguins dying and fish populations growing could mean that there would be too many fish in the ocean which would most likely have severe environmental impacts.
There are some people that do not believe in climate change, and they instead believe that it is a hoax. Most of these people say this due to the fact that they are being monetarily compensated by big oil companies and other fossil fuel companies in order for them to continue to survive and thrive. One of the most powerful, if not the most powerful men in the world, President Trump, he himself is a strong believer that climate change is a hoax. He often times gives statements about global warming not being real and that it is a made-up opinion.
In this tweet President Trump says “…What the hell is going on with Global Warming? Please come back fast, we need you!”, this is a mockery of all the people and facts that say global warming is a bad thing. President Trump needs to be convinced that global warming is a terrible thing and not something to be made fun of. In this tweet he is essentially telling all the scientists and everyone who sees this tweet that he thinks global warming is good and that it is also a joke. This has to come to an end, there is so much factual evidence of global warming being real. Take the ice melting in the polar regions of the world that’s happening because of global warming and because of the fossil fuels that the big companies produce. Some people just need to be shown photos like the ones that have been presented before your eyes in order to finally start to see that climate change is an awful thing.
These polar bears are starting to go extinct because of the loss of landmass for them to travel and hunt on, as well as the penguins populations are starting to decline because of the loss of landmass and the supply of food. The effects that climate change is having on Antarctica and the wildlife that lives there is severe. Humans have to step up and we have to put an end to wasteful production and use of fossil fuels in order to try and stop global warming from getting worse and at one point reverse it. Polar bears are dying, penguins are dying, before we know it climate change is going to begin to wipe us too, but not if we begin the change now. We have to convince the non-believers and get them to help us in the fight against climate change before it is too late.
Citations
Aaron Sidder, June 29, 2016, “Antarctica Could Lose Most of Its Penguins to Climate Change” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/06/adelie-penguins-antarctica-climate-change-population-decline-refugia/
Cristina Galvan, September 30,2009, “Why should we care about polar bears?”
Daisy Dunne, February 2, 2018, “Climate change: 70% of king penguins could ‘abruptly relocate or disappear’ by 2100”
Climate change: 70% of king penguins could ‘abruptly relocate or disappear’ by 2100
Daniel Karp, July 23 2018, “Loss of Arctic Ice Makes Polar Bears Vulnerable to Extinction”, https://medium.com/student-conservation-corner/loss-of-arctic-ice-makes-polar-bears-vulnerable-to-extinction-ed93e6352d48
National Geographic, Twitter Post, December 8,2017, Posted on Social Panic, https://socialpanic.org/2018/07/28/update-polar-bears-social-media-and-how-our-emotional-response-may-have-helped-a-pr-stunt/
Sea World ,“Diet And Eating Habits”, 2019, https://seaworld.org/animals/all-about/polar-bear/diet/
President Donald Trump, Twitter post, January 28, 2019, Posted on the weather channel, https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/donald-trump-twitter-global-warming-polar-vortex-presidential-record-difference-between-climate-and-weather-climate-change/123454
