Polar Bears

Reading about the plight of polar bears makes me sad. Very sad indeed. Today, in the spirit of trying to read and then recycle some of the mounds of newspapers that I hoard until I have read them, I read a two page article from Good Weekend, printed back on March 31 2007. I'd picked up this article numerous times and always put it back down unread. Today I read it. And what a depressing read it is. Adult polar bears are losing weight. They used to weigh 295 kg on average in 1980, but were a mere 230 kg in 2004. There has been a 40% loss in the thickness of the Arctic ice in the past 25 years. The bears rely on the ice. They only feed whilst on ice, if it's too far between areas of ice they can drown trying to get to the next one.

And what is our government doing about this? Not much. Still not signing Kyoto. It's got a website. But what is it actually doing?

While they're still around, we can all enjoy things like this.