2019 Marked the 2nd Hottest Year & Polar Bears Suffer From Climate Change

By Tatiana Johnson

January 9, 2020

Remember it being 75 degrees in November? Or how it's going to be 70 degrees in January?

It's no secret there's a major climate change. Not only are we experiencing warmer temperatures in the winter months, but animals, especially polar bears are suffering from it.

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In fact, 2019 was the 2nd hottest year ever recorded. Melting ice means lack of food.

A new study shows that polar bears need to eat 60% more than anyone knew. So without food you may not even see these large carnivores at your favorite zoo.

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Photo by @CristinaMittermeier // This is what a starving polar bear looks like. Weak muscles, atrophied by extended starvation could barely hold him up. Our @Sea_Legacy team watched as he painfully staggered towards the abandoned fishing camp from which we were observing and found some trash to eat—a piece of foam from the seat of a snowmobile, as we later found out. People have asked why we couldn’t help it, why we didn’t feed it. In addition to being illegal to feed wildlife, polar bears like this one need several hundred pounds of meat to survive. They primarily eat seals and they struggle when they are stranded for long periods of time on land, without a sea ice platform from which to hunt. We didn’t have a weapon and we didn’t have any food. There literally was nothing we could do for him as we were hundreds of miles from the nearest Inuit community. What could we have done? What we did do was push through our tears knowing that this footage was going to help connect a global audience to the biggest issue facing us as a species today. It is true that we don’t know what caused this animal to starve but we are certain that unless we curb carbon emissions, sea ice will continue to disappear and many more bears will starve. With these images, we want to wake the world up to the imminence of climate change and to how it will affect wildlife and people for decades to come. For solutions on how each and everyone can make a positive impact on this planet #follow me at @CristinaMittermeier or go to @Sea_Legacy. #nature #naturelovers #bethechange #FaceofClimateChange #StopFossilFuels #NoArcticDrilling #TurningtheTide with @SeaLegacy. With @PaulNicklen and our entire team. Thank you @natgeo for helping us try and reach the world.

A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Dec 9, 2017 at 4:14am PST

Learn how you can help with the effects of climate change and the polar bears here via National Geographic