How Much Time Do Polar Bears Have Left?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070910-polar-bears.html

                Polar Bears are going extinct and it is because of human activity. John Roach describes this in an article he wrote for National Geographic titled "Most Polar Bears Gone By 2050, studies say" published September 10, 2007. In the article John address the fact that Polar Bears are disappearing and by 2050 most will have disappeared. Studies have shown that as the ice at the North Pole melts the Polar Bears loose more hunting ground and they have to swim farther for food.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear        

 

 

 

 

 

 

                The main cause of the sea ice melting is global warming. Global warming is something that humans have started. When we burn coal or drive in a car we release CO2 and other harmful gasses. These gasses build up in our atmosphere and heat up the Earth. This is what is melting the sea ice. The Polar Bears need the sea ice, “as the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear," said by Steven Amstrup who is a wildlife research biologist. What he said is true, the Polar Bears use the ice to hunt and live on. As the ice melts the Polar Bears need to go father to get food. Due to this a lot of Polar Bears are dying.

            I could really connect to this article because it was so well written along with the fact that I can relate it to what I learned in class. In class I learned about how if you take away one organism from the ecosystem it could be disastrous and affect every organism in the habitat. I connected this to the article because if you were to take Polar Bears out of the ecosystem it could be disastrous. If Polar Bears go extinct then the seal population might increase which would affect the fish population.

            I was also able to connect to this article because the whole reason Polar Bears are going extinct is because of global warming. In 8^th grade we did a research project and I did mine on global warming. That is why I was able to connect so well to the article. The whole reason I even chose this topic is because it was related to global warming and what we learned in class. I already had knowledge on global warming so when I was reading I understood how the ice was melting which made it easy for me to understand overall what the article was talking about.

            I, all together, loved this article because it addresses such a serious problem in such an easy to understand way. It didn’t use any long hard to understand words. It gives data and numbers to help the author explain his point. For example, it mentions, “Scientists estimate that 20,000 to 25,000 Polar Bears live throughout the Northern Hemisphere in areas that are covered by sea ice for extensive periods.” I like when the author gives data like this because it gives me an idea on how many Polar Bears could be left out of the 20 to 25 thousand Polar Bears that are around at this time.  I really liked this article, however, it left me with a question. When it mentioned that if we stop polluting the atmosphere right now we can stop but if we wait it will be too late it made me think, “what could you or I do to help stop the emission of CO2 and other gasses and save the Polar Bears?”