Looming extinction

Current pandemic crisis has highlighted environmental benefits of halting industrial, economic activities

The desolating videos of scrawny polar bears wandering onto iceless human settlements in search of food have been vociferously circulating online. Being one of the animals most susceptible to environmental changes, these polar bears are currently listed on the Red List of Threatened Species due to high risk of endangerment. There can be no starker image of the adverse effects of climate change and global warming.

Once considered as the apex predator of the Arctic, polar bears are now starving, barely clinging on for dear life. The shrinking sea ice in the Artic has significantly decreased their hunting time, and their dwindling body weight has made it harder for them to survive entire winters without food. If the effect of global warming continues unabated, researchers fear that these exotic creatures will be wiped out by the year 2100. The event will surely be the first out of the many dominos to fall since many other animals may be next on the list. It is just a matter of time before the frequency of such extinction events significantly exacerbate and we witness multiple species going extinct at the same time. What is most striking however is the rate at which such degradation is unfolding. In the past, it would normally take thousands of years for a species to go extinct. Current trends indicate that 12 of the 13 analysed sub-population of polar bears will be eradicated within 80 years, considering that our planet is now warming twice as fast. The inevitable extinction of these polar bears is a harsh reality that we all need to acknowledge; however, it is important to remain optimistic.

The current pandemic crisis has highlighted the environmental benefits of halting industrial and economic activities. We need to reconfigure world systems around the idea of global warming by making them more resilient to future changes. An extinction event unraveling in front of our very eyes should surely be enough to coerce the world into taking radical action.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2020.

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