Global Warming refugees on DC streets

(8 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Every day, it seems, brings fresh news and fresh images of Global Warming‘s mounting impact on humanity (and human activities), local ecosystems, and the global ecosystem. Just coming across my desk are images of Global Warming refugees appearing in the nation’s capital.

These refugees provide dramatic images underlinign “how global warming is making polar bears homeless by causing the sea ice they rely on to melt, threatening many polar bear populations with extinction.”

These refugees are a Greenpeace effort to highlighting what is going on in Arctic and globally.

The Arctic sea ice has fallen to a low of 1.74 million square miles in September, roughly 860,000 square miles below the long-term average.

“That’s an area of polar bear habitat three times the size of Texas lost this summer as a direct result of global warming,” said Carroll Muffett, Deputy Campaigns Director for Greenpeace.   “Our intent with this project was both to communicate in human terms how that global warming is affecting the polar bear and to highlight the very real connection between the polar bear’s fate and our own.”

Of course, the impacts are global … not just locally in the Arctic.

Rising tides and severe storms intensified by global warming have already displaced millions of people around the world, from Galveston to Gambia. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that millions more will be displaced by global warming in the next few decades as a result of rising sea levels, extended droughts, and more extreme weather events that force migrations and make returning difficult or even impossible.

“My intention with this project was to raise awareness of global warming and the plight of the polar bear,” said Jenkins.  “Our destinies are bound closely together.”

Now, the artwork is starting to gain some notice, even some unwanted attention as one sparked a bomb squad response.  And, we can wonder the political preferences behind this comment.

Maybe if these polar bears would get off crack and get jobs they wouldn’t be in this plight.

For many more images of this artwork, jump here.

And for other sightings of Polar Bears in DC.

4 comments

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  1. This is a wonderful and clever effort — what better way to call attention to the plight of the polar bear?  Or to the plight of the wildlife, generally, in the Arctic for that matter?

    A like statement should be made for the indigenous Indians (Inuits).  (I read somewhere Palin refers to those people as “Artic Arabs” or other wonderful names. Native American …)

  2. you know, probably anything she considered in her way!  

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