In recent months, I have noticed a spate of ‘positive’ headlines popping up in my news feeds and on social media about the health and well-being of polar bears. Whilst some might call me a cynic, I couldn’t help but temper my optimism: a collapsing ecosystem in the Arctic has long been a disaster for the polar bears that they have become the mascot for anthropogenic climate loss.
Still, my thirst for good news – when every headline has been about the inevitable apocalypse that humans are hurtling into – took control, and I cautiously clicked the link to the BBC news article. Despite the rather general clickbait headline, the article concerned one specific group of bears living in Svalbard, Norway. Ostensibly, it did yield some ‘good news’: between 1992 and 2009, the 770 adult bears studied by scientists had become fatter and healthier. Scientists have attributed this trend of weight gain to the bears’ adaptation, who had turned to land-based prey like walrus carcasses, reindeer, and seabirds during periods of seasonal ice loss.
It was only when I scrolled down to the bottom of the page did I see the comments from researcher Dr. John Whiteman (chief research scientist at Polar Bears International). These comments emphasised that bears in other parts of the Arctic, such as the ‘Polar Bear Capital,’ Hudson Bay, were not faring so well. Whiteman’s comments clearly indicate that if anthropogenic climate change continues at its current rate, polar bears will indeed become extinct. The paper that the articles were based on also clearly states in the discussion section: ‘Our bears showed a high level of resistance to environmental changes induced by a warmer climate and sea ice habitat loss. Still, the evidence is clear that the loss of sea ice has had negative effects on several other polar bear populations across the Arctic.’
In conducting a more general Google search, I found that a few other publications (that I would describe as credible) had been putting out similar headlines. The National Geographic, for example, reported ‘These Polar Bears are Getting Fatter as Sea Ice Melts. What’s Going on?’ This kind of reporting, implying a correlation between sea ice melting and polar bears becoming healthier, clearly does not represent the bigger picture of polar bear populations and, as such, could be considered misleading.
These articles are not useless. A point to be taken when thinking critically about these recent headlines is that species that are currently suffering the consequences of anthropogenic climate change cannot be understood as monolithic groups with a single set of needs or attributes. In fact, it has never been more vital to consider the needs on a local level, and to use our language in a way that reflects those very specific regional happenings. On a species level, focusing on individuals and small groups helps us defy the habit of generalising entire species or devolving into the iconographic sphere where a species is reduced to one image or idea. What is clear, however, is that this way of thinking and writing sits in woeful contradiction to the way news media reports on climate, reaching for headlines that will amass clicks and not those that represent a nuanced account of the scientific facts.
*Cover image: Photograph of a Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) on sea ice, Svalbard, Norway by Peter Prokosch. Source: www.grida.no/resources/1981
[Cover image description: A polar bear walking on a narrow sheet of ice floating on water, with blood-stains around its mouth and on its paws. The water below reflects the bear’s figures.]
