Journalism 025

The U.S. Geological Society reported last week that within the next 50 years, 2/3 of all polar bears could die if ice continues to melt in the Artic region.

Also earlier in the week, Roll Call reporter Tory Newmyer wrote an interesting article about the role the polar bear could play in the global warming debate. The piece suggests that if the polar bear was placed on an endangered list, with global warming as their number one enemy, it would give advocates of laws curbing global warming, more leverage.

The part of this that I find fascinating is, if it takes polar bears to get us to care about our future, what does that say about us? In other words: Global warming could make us extinct: fine. Global warming could make polar bears extinct: oh shit!