Thursday, December 21, 2006
BEARS BE DRAGONS
My brothers and sisters in beardoom (uuh!, those final consonants DO sound scary) better then to say that my bear brothers have invited me to a beartastic and fun party to celebrate the end of 2006 (we made it! we made it! we made it!). The question is, how to highlight my concerns about the ice while having fun at the same time? Oh! puppy, puppy no, no no!, what a slippery dilemma! If everything is political, and I mean EVERYTHING, in the sense that every object, every little piece of our modern culture conveys a meaning, a reference, a consideration, a perspective about the world, how to go about dressing up for such a fancy and memorable party? As I was considering this existential concern of mine I saw a bird flying above the clear crisp sky, one of those new species venturing further north. Then the thinking machine clicked on. That feathered flying fratello I was observing was once upon a time a mighty dinosaur! Was I contemplating my own future? I mean my species. Will bears run the same fate as dinosaurs? (a deep growl here) then, better be a bear AND a dinosaur now than never ever ever! So I'm going to the New Year's Eve party wearing a dinosaur outfit. Yeah! there's going to be a dancing bear-dinosaur. Past, present and future in one single act. Evolution, extinction and tragedy in a single act of happiness and désarroi. It will be a Molière's laughter. We the bears, the modern dinosaurs, dancing in their last act. Optimism, where art thou? Yes, bears be dragons.
THE WORLD WILL END BY 2040
1- This place called the Arctic, this beautiful part of the world where we've been living for thousands of years will dissapear by 2040. Therefore, the world will end for us, bears without cars, without a First World lifestyle, without chemical plants, without money, without that human madness to seek always more money and more power in the shortest possible time.
2-As The Globe and Mail reported recently, the gap between Canada's wealthiest families and the poorest has widened. The net worth of the wealthiest families rose 19 per cent between 1999 and 2005 while the poorest strata of families saw their situation unchanged, and this according to a report prepared by Statistics Canada. Another report, by Toronto-Dominion Bank, found that the wealthiest families received almost three-quarters of the total increase in wealth over that time period.
3- Therefore, if humans (including Canadians) loaded with oodles of cash don't feel personally affected by the living conditions other fellow humans endure, if the hyper-rich don't move a pinkie for other humans they can SEE suffering in different parts of the world, what are they going to feel for us, bears that they do not see every day? What are they going to do for the Arctic, other that to worry about little variations at the TSE, NASDAQ, Standard & Poor's or the Dow Jones?
4- If this sound a bit like speechifying, lets read this report about the future of our ice up here. This is a study done in part at McGill University. (Here this bear does a swift cut and paste from CBC news. But before, a little silly anesthesia before the punching paw: Q: What did the polar bear say when it saw the igloo? A: "Oooo! I LOVE these things! Crunchy on the outside - with a nice chewy center!" ) ... and now, the bad news.
5- Arctic ice could disappear in summer by 2040: study / December 11, 2006 / CBC News
Global warming could melt almost all of the ice in the Arctic during the summer months by the year 2040, according to a study to be published Tuesday. If greenhouse gases continue to build at their current rate, the study found, the Arctic's ice cover would go through periods of stability followed by abrupt retreat.
By about 2040 the Arctic may be nearly devoid of sea ice during the late summer unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly curtailed. One simulation projects that by 2040, only a small amount of perennial ice would remain on the north coasts of Greenland and Canada during the summer months.
This would be a more dramatic change in Arctic climate than anything we've seen so far, according to McGill University professor Bruno Tremblay, one of the study's authors. And it would also have a profound impact on global warming around the world, he said.
"Open water absorbs more sunlight than does ice," Tremblay told CBC News Online. "This means that the growing regions of ice-free water will accelerate the warming trend."
The melting of polar ice creates a positive feedback loop, Tremblay said. Higher temperatures means less ice, and that means more sunlight is absorbed by water, which in turn raises temperatures. This will lead to an accelerated change in climate in a very short time, Tremblay said.
Scenarios simulated on supercomputers suggest sea ice could diminish enough within 20 years to speed the retreat of Arctic ice four-times faster than at any other time in the observed record.
"Right now there is a steady decline. But we're going to reach a tipping point where the decline will happen very quickly and [from which] we can't recover," he said.
Tremblay worked on the study — to be published in the Dec. 12 issue of Geophysical Research Letters — with lead researcher Marika Holland at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and Cecilia Bitz of the University of Washington.
The only way to prevent the rapid loss of polar ice is to implement aggressive measures to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels, Tremblay said.
Previous studies looking at the Canadian Arctic have envisaged similar timetables for the disappearance of permanent ice floes.
In June 2006, University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers said the Northwest Passage would be clear of ice during the summer months in 25 years.
A 2004 study by André Rochon, chief scientist on Canada's Amundsen research icebreaker, predicted the waterways would be clear of ice in 50 years.
2-As The Globe and Mail reported recently, the gap between Canada's wealthiest families and the poorest has widened. The net worth of the wealthiest families rose 19 per cent between 1999 and 2005 while the poorest strata of families saw their situation unchanged, and this according to a report prepared by Statistics Canada. Another report, by Toronto-Dominion Bank, found that the wealthiest families received almost three-quarters of the total increase in wealth over that time period.
3- Therefore, if humans (including Canadians) loaded with oodles of cash don't feel personally affected by the living conditions other fellow humans endure, if the hyper-rich don't move a pinkie for other humans they can SEE suffering in different parts of the world, what are they going to feel for us, bears that they do not see every day? What are they going to do for the Arctic, other that to worry about little variations at the TSE, NASDAQ, Standard & Poor's or the Dow Jones?
4- If this sound a bit like speechifying, lets read this report about the future of our ice up here. This is a study done in part at McGill University. (Here this bear does a swift cut and paste from CBC news. But before, a little silly anesthesia before the punching paw: Q: What did the polar bear say when it saw the igloo? A: "Oooo! I LOVE these things! Crunchy on the outside - with a nice chewy center!" ) ... and now, the bad news.
5- Arctic ice could disappear in summer by 2040: study / December 11, 2006 / CBC News
Global warming could melt almost all of the ice in the Arctic during the summer months by the year 2040, according to a study to be published Tuesday. If greenhouse gases continue to build at their current rate, the study found, the Arctic's ice cover would go through periods of stability followed by abrupt retreat.
By about 2040 the Arctic may be nearly devoid of sea ice during the late summer unless greenhouse gas emissions are significantly curtailed. One simulation projects that by 2040, only a small amount of perennial ice would remain on the north coasts of Greenland and Canada during the summer months.
This would be a more dramatic change in Arctic climate than anything we've seen so far, according to McGill University professor Bruno Tremblay, one of the study's authors. And it would also have a profound impact on global warming around the world, he said.
"Open water absorbs more sunlight than does ice," Tremblay told CBC News Online. "This means that the growing regions of ice-free water will accelerate the warming trend."
The melting of polar ice creates a positive feedback loop, Tremblay said. Higher temperatures means less ice, and that means more sunlight is absorbed by water, which in turn raises temperatures. This will lead to an accelerated change in climate in a very short time, Tremblay said.
Scenarios simulated on supercomputers suggest sea ice could diminish enough within 20 years to speed the retreat of Arctic ice four-times faster than at any other time in the observed record.
"Right now there is a steady decline. But we're going to reach a tipping point where the decline will happen very quickly and [from which] we can't recover," he said.
Tremblay worked on the study — to be published in the Dec. 12 issue of Geophysical Research Letters — with lead researcher Marika Holland at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and Cecilia Bitz of the University of Washington.
The only way to prevent the rapid loss of polar ice is to implement aggressive measures to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels, Tremblay said.
Previous studies looking at the Canadian Arctic have envisaged similar timetables for the disappearance of permanent ice floes.
In June 2006, University of British Columbia professor Michael Byers said the Northwest Passage would be clear of ice during the summer months in 25 years.
A 2004 study by André Rochon, chief scientist on Canada's Amundsen research icebreaker, predicted the waterways would be clear of ice in 50 years.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
LOST IN CYBERIA
This bear lost his bearings. Is mercury in the fish affecting our brains? I don't know. The truth may be that bears are also forgetful beings. The fact is that I forgot the password to access this blog for quite a few days. For many nights I was burning my neurones trying to remember that funguticus, slippery, fishy, sneaky, sly and furtive password. The most relevant news these days is... the weather. Christmas is next week and there is almost no snow at all. Supposedly Santa lives here in the Arctic, or North Pole as he likes to call this landscape. I never saw him. Rest assured that if a bear notices a fat man, dressed in red as a good chunk of seal meat, wandering about in the company of some tasty reindeers, that jolly Santa would make a very good hors d'oeuvre, beard and all. Such portly morcel in red trousers and black boots would really make any bear quite happy at mealtime. I'll keep my eyes open. I say, let bears feast on Santa.
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
THE CHRISTMAS BEAR$$
In these early days of December, you go to any store, even the dollar store, and there you find them. Fluffy, white, cute little polar bears for sale. Yet I haven't meet a single bear here in the Arctic that got by mail a cheque as royalty payment for the use of our image. If polar bears were a trademark, someone would be making oodles of cash. But, since no bear gets a single penny, or a salmon as payment for the use of our image, everybody else makes money on our furry backs: the store that sells the bears, the bear manufacturer, the factory workers (who probably get paid in sardines), the importers, the exporters, everybody, but us! We bears should go on some kind of strike, take some form of action so we could get a bit of that cash that everybody else is doing using our image. This is a form of cultural appropiation, the appropiation of our nature. With that money we could set up feeding stations when the ice is too thin to go out hunting seal. We could buy decoys so hunters will get confused ("I shot that bear six times, why does it keep looking at my with that funny smile?") I wonder if the Queen of England gets royalties for the use of her image in every stamp, coin and bill used in this country.
Sunday, December 3, 2006
BETTER DAYS AHEAD FOR US?
This bear has been glued to the TV, radio and newspapers following the recent Convention of the Federal Liberal Party of Canada in Montreal. More than 5,000 candidates met to choose a new leader. Unfortunately no candidate said "I will represent every bearess and bear of this land". No candidate said "I will bring to Parliament every bear's concern about ice conditions". No candidate said "No bear will go to sleep hungry because of over-fishing or seal depletion". The sad fact is that there was no one speaking for the common bear or the Arctic or the environmental fate of our Inuit friends who like to carve and sculpt beautiful bears in soap stone and yet they chase us with their high-powered rifles.
Yet, three delegates spoke eloquently about the Environment. Kennedy, Brison and Dion. They may no be the best candidates to defeat that funguticus Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foggy Weather Minister Rona Ambrose, but there is hope. And on thin ice, you cling to everything that can help you. The final tally showed Stephane Dion as the victor, thanks to the support of Gerard Kennedy. Bear hair Bob Rae lost. Martha Hall Findlay lost. Yet both deserve a space to participate in the next Liberal Government. Nevertheless, this bear is not a red liberal, it is white, has white fangs, black claws and a big, green heart. As green as the colour of hope in the defeat of the horrendous Conservatives and the coming of a new government that will take into account our fate in this beautiful Arctic land.
Yet, three delegates spoke eloquently about the Environment. Kennedy, Brison and Dion. They may no be the best candidates to defeat that funguticus Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foggy Weather Minister Rona Ambrose, but there is hope. And on thin ice, you cling to everything that can help you. The final tally showed Stephane Dion as the victor, thanks to the support of Gerard Kennedy. Bear hair Bob Rae lost. Martha Hall Findlay lost. Yet both deserve a space to participate in the next Liberal Government. Nevertheless, this bear is not a red liberal, it is white, has white fangs, black claws and a big, green heart. As green as the colour of hope in the defeat of the horrendous Conservatives and the coming of a new government that will take into account our fate in this beautiful Arctic land.
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