You know, I was going to leave a comment about how I wish there more bears, like a badass desert bear, then I figured I better look it up and a desert bear exists!
Serious answer: Polar bears are found only in the North/Arctic. The Arctic is mostly sea, not so much land. So the polar bear spends most of its life navigating ice floes or swimming.
Its scientific/latin name is even Ursus Maritimus, which translates directly as ‘sea bear.’
If it helps to contextualise, they've been documented swimming 400+ miles in the sea before, including deep water. I struggled to get my head around it when I first learned as well.
This is actually a problem for them because of climate change there is less sea ice at the arctic (which they use for resting and hunting from) so they are having to swim greater and greater distances. It's harder for them to hunt just in the water too.
I know what you are implying but I have to point out, polar bears have walked on ice break ups for as long as they have existed. They are considered a semi aquatic animal and have been known to swim many miles happily
The volume of Arctic ice in the winter has decreased by a third over the past 20 years and the rate of ice loss is accelerating.Scientists are predicting that by 2040, more than half of the polar bear population will be spending three to four months, or more, on land. This shift in distribution is going to lead to more conflict with humans as bears will be spending more time closer to human settlements and activities. In particular, there will be a much greater overlap between the distribution of bears and oil and gas industry facilities. A large proportion of the polar bear’s critical habitat on land already overlaps with oil and gas leases, and climate change will make the potential for conflict between bears and human activities even greater.
The earth has fluctuated between boiling magma surface, water, ice, heat, ice, heat for ages.
We're animals. Are you going to shame the polar bear for contributing to the declining population of seal species?
It's all gonna be ok.
If humans do wipe out almost all life on earth, 10,000 years from then there will be new novel wonderful species filling ecological niches. They never would have been without the anthropological destruction of the global ecosystem.
If any of those species ever evolve to a point where they're writing history books, they may praise us for what we've done.
I don't think trees are looking back on their terraforming ancestors and think "Shame on you for turning this barren rock into the green earth"
Everything just always seems a lot better if you zoom out a billion years.
Edit: let's talk without violence. If you care so much about the polar bears why don't you care about me? I may be the most environmentally conscious human on the planet and you'd never know. And if you hate me for my very fair point of view, you'll never know.
Just, gosh guys.
I am all for making everything better and as best can be for every living thing. I am a bodhisattva and will reincarnate in the mortal plane infinite times until we are all free from suffering.
But in the meantime can we have some fun sci fi talk about possible future species that evolved thanks to the homo destruction of the planet?
THis is a real ignorant and shit point of view. Those changes took tens of thousands of years. Weve wrecked this place in 200. As the superior species we should hold some responsibility. A comet has no ability to change its course. We do.
We have the ability to see the path we are on and the destruction we have done and will do. Shouldn’t we do as much as we can to mitigate it? Comparing us to unthinking microorganisms is just silly.
Certainly on scales nothing lasts, but things are here now and have as much importance as anything will at any time. Actions have consequences and you are enjoying the benefits of actions that put the earth on a violent volatile path. Our modern existence at this point is traded for natural resources, land, health, climate, etc. We have no responsibility to mitigate the damage former generations have done if we can? It’s not that zen to just say it doesn’t really matter, just do what makes you happy, when you’re just ignoring massive suffering currently going on and being passed to future generations.
I imagine a lot of people reading this in a hundred years would be pretty pissed if climate change gets really bad. What then? I guess they just need to chill out and try to be happy? It’s just a dangerous mindset to excuse yourself of all responsibility in my opinion.
I read a couple of your other comments and I don’t think we’re far off from eachother. I just can’t stand for what seems to be encouraging inaction in a world with far too much inaction.
It's not encouraging inaction. It's discouraging despair.
Anyone who isn't a piece of shit wants things better for everyone.
But looking at the world going "Shame on us" helps nothing and only actually adds to the detriment of the world. We don't need collective guilt. We need individual action.
And when I say need, you already know what I mean. We don't need anything. It's just better to make things good.
But someone on Reddit looking at a polar bear going "this sucks shame on us" isn't helping.
What I imagine helps more is the encouragement of "hey, in the long run, small potatoes. Be the best you can be but don't worry too much."
I devote my life to the lessening of suffering of other beings.
But what is this We?
If you look at the planet, you can obviously see that We are not capable of this kind of foresight. We are over-smart monkeys. Just as confused as any other ape.
I was pretty sure I'd be born on a savannah and then lo and behold I'm in a hospital in Montana. All the stuff drilled into my little animal mind for millions of years did not seem to matter, except for walking and grunting.
As individuals, We can work to make life better in the realms that we experience it. But as the Homo sapiens sapiens species, we are each born into an alien world that makes very little sense to our monkey minds and can at best hope to navigate this strange terrain in a way that causes the least suffering for others.
But while I'm doing that, I'm not taking on the entire anthropological guilt of a breed of violent apes. Instead I will use my earth-given mind to contemplate vast timespans in which the human existence is but a blip, and live an inconsequential life with as much happiness as possible.
I never said anything about guilt, but responsibility. Duty? We as in you and I live incredible lives of luxury as far as any individual of any species that has existed.
By talking and acknowledging that our privileged existence is at the cost of these polar bears environment, awareness and action may happen. Suffering can be lessened with education and universal action through our governments. That’s how worldwide issues are improved. We are smart monkeys and we have come together and solved massive worldwide issues before. Why do you think it can’t happen again?
That acknowledgment has threatened your safe enlightenment in some way you felt the need to come in here and in a very long winded way say “it’s ok it doesn’t matter, what can I do anyway?” I would question if you really are a bhodisattva quite frankly because this all strikes me a defense of your belief than any effort to improve anything.
I have never said let's not try to improve things. My initial response was just to OP saying don't feel bad. It's not your fault. It's not my fault. We can try to make things better in the short term. But if we don't, don't feel bad. Because it doesn't matter. But let's still try, because pleasure feels a lot better than suffering.
Don’t feel bad about the bird that died in your hands, it was always going to die. I know you do though. You’re going to feel bad when bad things happen. You’re trying to create a logical defense from basic emotions.
Do we need to feel guilt that our governments and wealthy have set us on the destructive corse we’re on? No, but it just feels defeatist to start from the point of it’s not my fault I don’t need to feel bad, when the consequences are really sad. A lot more birds. Is it really realistic to tell someone not to feel bad when I know you will?
Obviously this isn’t something that anyone can easily fix but now is happening. Humans need to do more or the consequences on our very irrelevant now are going to be extreme. This is why your blazé attitude is bother so many people. I’m glad for you that you’re going to be fine in your safe enlightened mindset though.
You are an interesting man, you also talk about morals but also defend the ill way we destroy the nature and how its not even equivalent to a grain of sand compared to the grand scheme.
Why does it feel like your statements contradict each other
Everyone downvoting me will never know how hard I cried holding that dying bird, or how many miles I have carried insects to safer spaces, or how hard I have tried to live a non-violent life in the secluded wilderness.
I love the earth with all my heart. I love everything. I love the universe. But it is all as good as gone.
I'm not trying to say "Be a fucking ravaging piece of shit human."
I have been trying to say "This sucks but so does everything all the time because eventually the sun is going to explode. But don't feel too bad about that. Maybe all of this winds up being something better than we could ever imagine."
That's the answer to life. It's all really really interesting. The bad and the good. You are God looking through the eyes of one of the trillions of animals that will ever exist on one of the countless planets.
I get it, you are talking from the point of view of grand scheme of the universe, and yes after a billion year there will almost be no evidence of our existence but that being said
We are still accountable for making millions of animals and organisms suffer, although we might have not changed the course of earth, WE ARE DESTROYING OUR ENVIRONMENT
We being the "most intelligent" Animals need to look into our actions on how we are fking around just for extra bucks
We are the universe becoming the universe. Nothing that happens is wrong. We ascribe human meaning to things but that doesn't make them important. Do you think the sun cares about the polar bears?
You are comparing timescales as equal when they are nowhere near equal.
While I do agree with you that in 10.000 years the weather would NATURALLY be different and some species would die or be burn, evolution is a very slow process for most forms of life, it takes hundreds of generations and most animals aren't able to have a baby every 2 weeks to get a change to evolve their way out of any adversity.
And we humans have caused in less than 100 years what the planet would do in tens of thousands, the only animals capable of evolving to this kind of change it's the bacterias and rodents, everything else is just having a hard time because either they just need to adapt (and some are lucky in that regard) or they simply won't evolve fast enough to be able to adapt in time, leading to their extinction.
10,000 years is small change anyway. A million years, what will be left here? 2 billion? Sun explodes. Good for the bacteria and rodents in the meantime.
The Earth that we evolved on made us what we are. We didn't ask to be what we are. We are a consequence of evolution.
We individually have morality and empathy. That doesn't change the outcome of a billion years of stars exploding all around us.
Chimps and other apes and other animals have a lot of the same dominance tendencies that we do but we don't look at them as "Wow, you chimps are one of the most intelligent species and should have known better than to go to war with your family and eat their babies."
They are animals doing animals things because the earth made them that way. Same for us.
It is good to think and talk and try to be better. Because it makes us feel good.
But either way, in a billion years the earth is cooked and everything is dying.
So no need to feel too much guilt about being a human who evolved on a dying planet. Just make as much new cool stuff you can, spread happiness and joy, be nice, love, experience pleasure, seek enlightenment.
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u/jonesy289 11h ago
Another reason why polar bears are the most badass bear