Polar bears are eating dolphins in sort of wormholes of ice
created by climate change.
Global warming is reducing the diversity of the things we
eat as creatures die or move away from their traditional habitats.
Perhaps, like marijuana, not everything will be clear cut.
Truffles are moving north in Europe.
Both poles, like mountains, sometimes make it easier to see
where the world is headed.
Polar bears have been seen eating dolphins, according to the
Norwegian Polar Institute.
“White-beaked dolphins are frequent
visitors to Svalbard waters in summer, but have not previously been reported
this far north in early spring. We suggest they were trapped in the ice after
strong northerly winds the days before, and possibly killed when forced to
surface for air at a small opening in the ice. The bear had consumed most parts
of one dolphin. When observed he was in the process of covering the mostly
intact second dolphin with snow,” said a report by the institute.
While it is widely known that bears catch
salmon, and even store them for later, it might not work if the ice is melting
as temperatures climb.
There is much more at stake than whether
fresh halibut will be available.
“From a human perspective, the
rapid climate change and accelerating biodiversity loss risks human security
(e.g. a major change in the food chain upon which we depend, water sources may
change, recede or disappear, medicines and other resources we rely on may be
harder to obtain as the plants and forna they are derived from may reduce or
disappear, etc.),” reports globalissues.org.
Marijuana supporters have claimed, rightly or wrongly, that
global warming could increase crops.
There is some hope, National Geographic reports, that science
can find ways to increase crops and perhaps even preserve diversity.
“Most of us in the well-fed
world give little thought to where our food comes from or how it’s grown. We
steer our shopping carts down supermarket aisles without realizing that the
apparent bounty is a shiny stage set held up by increasingly shaky scaffolding.
We’ve been hearing for some time about the loss of flora and fauna in our rain
forests. Very little, by contrast, is being said or done about the parallel
erosion in the genetic diversity of the foods we eat,” the magazine said.
A group operates what is called
the Ghost Food Truck, going from place to place trying to show what the
socalled “Gaia Theory” could mean. One simply definition is that the
Earth will get even, saving
itself before the humans or the whales.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/food-ark/siebert-text/1
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/18/4851966/ghost-food-shows-how-we-might-eat-after-global-warming
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