Paris: Any Hope for Her?

A confused Species in Our Time
from http://www.rockhoundstation1.com/
EARTHWATCH09.html

The Scientific American magazine gave us a grim picture before the advent of summer 2011 (April 29, 2011). The picture itself was older, it was of summer 2008. “This bear swam continuously for 232 hours and 687 km and through waters that were 2-6 degrees C,” reports USGS research zoologist George M. Durner. In two months she had to swim hundreds of miles for food, for some place to rest. “But while the mama bear survived the ordeal, she lost 22 percent of her body fat .... And her cub was not so fortunate.”

Obama opened Arctic for Oil Drill in February 2012. Before that they had to ‘clear’ their way. The scientist who spread the news of danger in front of the polar bears got suspended from his government job for inappropriate conduct in July 2011.

The year 2012 saw the Lowest Arctic Ice sheet ever measured after the advent of satellite imagery. That was September 2012. Friends of that suspended scientist, Charles Monnett, meanwhile got respite as the ‘investigation’ for scientific misconduct could not yield any evidence at all and the government had to reinstate that scientist. [By the way, before that Great Arctic Summer Melting was shocking revealed in September 2012, Bill Mckibben's article "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" appeared in the Rolling Stone Magazine (August 2, 2012).]

Charles Monnett’s paper first highlighted the sad plight of the Polar Bears way back in 2006. And we saw the curious TIME magazine cover in that year showing a confused Polar Bear. Why not! It was going to be the first showcase victim species of Climate Change (or the ‘extreme climate’ conditions that we are passing through now).

In came 2015. While in the end of September environmentalists were relieved seeing Shell leaving Arctic. No, Shell was not leaving yielding to the demands of environmentalists or accepting that Arctic drill will put further pressure on the endangered species Polar Bear. They were leaving just by their cold business calculations. And they are not going for ever either. By the way, the European Union also shoved off the demand of environmentalists to stop oil exploration in the Arctic way back in 2012, even after the hottest or smallest Arctic year was recorded. And while Shell was pulling its anchors, we saw Indian companies busy in fixing deals with their Russian counterpart. Rosneft bought significant stake in Essar Oil. And then ONGC bought a good percentage of Rosneft. They will explore gas at Arctic Shelf and also oil.

This year saw the fourth lowest ice-cover ever in the Arctic.

Arctic Ice Cover from http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png  at 22:30 hrs Sept 30, 2015

In front of such staunch adversaries, can an endangered species hope something?

PS: October 9, 2015: Now, we are served with a chiller news. "NOAA: Coral bleaching has gone global for the third time ever". Interested readers please go through the news item  "NOAA declares third ever global coral bleaching event, Bleaching intensifies in Hawaii, high ocean temperatures threaten Caribbean corals, October 8, 2015" at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/100815-noaa-declares-third-ever-global-coral-bleaching-event.html