Polar bears are large mammals that live in the icy cold climate of the Arctic. They are considered to be the “planet’s biggest land-based carnivores”, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature. Climate change is playing a major role in their lives by taking away their food, homes, and offspring. As the earth heats up, the ice is slowly melting and thinning, which is easily breakable and can’t support a polar bear’s body weight. Polar bears are great swimmers, but just like humans, they need to take a rest. Without having any ice or land nearby, they have no choice but to continue swimming; this poses a threat to their livelihood. Climate change is also affecting their diet. As polar bears only eat meat and are surrounded by water, they rely heavily on fish and seals as staples of their diets. Due to the higher temperatures, the Arctic seas are heating up, causing the fish to change migration paths and are even depleting the fish population. Polar bears are hunters that need to attack seals from a platform of ice. Without having an ice platform, the polar bear population is decreasing drastically because seals are getting away. Another major problem is that the polar bear offspring population isn’t increasing due to a lack of resources. Their offspring tend to have no food to eat, no stable home, and sometimes, no parents. These polar bear offspring are left to grow up alone, and that is dangerous when there may be other hungry polar bears nearby. It’s sad, but it’s true. Seeing my first polar bear when I was young, I was amazed by the massive size of these marine mammals. It’s always sad to know that animals that you grew up admiring may not be around for much longer. As of 2019, there may only be less than twenty thousand polar bears left.
As a student, I feel there must be ways we can help slow down the climate change process and help save our polar bears. As students, we can commute to school by bike to cut down on the emission gases. Also, as students we can help our neighborhoods recycle more to cut down on waste. By recycling, we can give life to unusable products which will eliminate the use of a factory to produce more. As students of the younger generation, we are the future and will have to leave the planet in a better condition for our kids than the one in which we found it.
It would be unsafe to leave them with high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) gases that may be uncontrollable; that’s why we need to start now. If all students make a little change, it would overall result in a major change that would help us in the long run. By carpooling, walking, and biking to school, we can start making major contributions to slow down the climate change process to help save our polar bears.
