I thought that this blog would be a good opportunity to relate a post to my final project for this course. I am doing some research on the polar bear and how human interaction is directly affecting their lives. As the earth gets warmer every year with the increase in our carbon emissions, their habitat is deteriorating. Their typical climate is dependent on sea ice, which allows them to swim freely and hunt for seals, their main source of food. As the world continues to heat, open seas ice is deteriorating and often stranding polar bears on floating ice sheets often leading to them drowning while in search of solid land.
Polar bears are in serious threat of going extinct due to human interaction. They were the first vertebrate species to be put on the endangered species list directly caused by global warming. Since they can only survive in an area that is cold enough to create sea ice, the warmer temperatures are destroying their natural habitat. The future of polar bears in the wild is looking highly unlikely at this point. Sea ice is beginning to be more and more uncommon and there is not enough to keep the polar bears sustained. Many experts believe that we could see wild polar bears extinct as early as the next 10 years.
It does not stop at polar bears. There are countless animals that are on the brink of extinction due to human interaction and climate change. These animals we often can take for granted because they have been in our world our whole lives. But what about the next generation? How do you think they will feel when polar bears, sea turtles, elephants, tigers, and many other species in the wild are a thing of the past? We should not rob the future generations of the opportunity to have the same interests and experiences that we did because we were too lazy to recycle or ride our bikes instead of driving and wasting fossil fuels. The time to start saving the future is now.
Heres some links to check out:
http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/wildlife-library/mammals/polar-bear.aspx
http://www.wunderground.com/climate/facts.asp
Your post raises some interesting ethical questions. For instance, what is our moral responsibility to future generations? And what is our moral responsibility to non-human others (i.e. animals)? That is, do you think that animals have as much right to exist as do humans, and if so, if our actions (like emitting more greenhouse gases by driving to work instead of walking, or biking, or taking the bus) harm an animal, are we morally culpable; do we have a responsibility to change our actions? My own instinct is to answer yes, especially after reading your post and hearing that polar bears might go extinct in the wild in the next ten years, but I wonder if other people might answer these questions differently.