International Polar Bear Day 글로벌 브랜드 광고의 마스코트인 북극곰 (사진출처_ ©The Drum) Every year, February 27th is "International Polar Bear Day."The Polar Bear International (PBI), a California-based polar bear conservation organization, designated it in 2006 to preserve endangered polar bears, but it's not a UN-designated international holiday, but it's a day we should think about it together.To celebrate International Polar Bear Day, we would like to have a time to talk about climate change that goes beyond polar bears and has a profound impact on our daily lives. 국제 북극곰의 날 포스터 (사진출처_ ©Science kids) Contrary to our familiar and friendly image, polar bears are giant carnivores that are 2-3 meters long and weigh up to 800 kilograms.And the other twist is that it's the world's biggest land predator.Polar bears mainly live in the Arctic Circle, including the United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark, Greenland, and Norway, and mainly hunt and feed on seals.In particular, Hudson Bay in Canada is a world-class polar bear habitat, with about half of the world's 25,000 polar bears living in the area. The problem is that global warming is causing fewer and fewer freezing periods in the Arctic Ocean, which is causing fewer and fewer polar bears, mostly active on sea ice, and difficulty hunting for food.In Hudson Bay, Canada, its main habitat, the ice that began to melt in mid-July in the 1970s and 1980s melted in mid-June in the 2000s, and the melting period of sea ice began about a month earlier.It is also said that the ice age of glaciers averaged 250 days in the 1980s and then decreased significantly to less than 200 days in the 2000s. 해빙을 통해 이동 중인 북극곰 가족의 모습 (사진출처_ © Stuart Yates) What's the problem with ice disappearing from the North Pole? A polar bear that hunts on ice and eats nutrients has to swim further north with a weakened body because it does not get enough nutrients while waiting for the ice to freeze.Polar bears, who have to eat at least 1,600 kilocalories to maintain their weight of hundreds of kilos, have to swim longer without food, but with less sea ice, their hunting success rate has gradually decreased and more and more starved.In fact, it is said that every week the ice melts quickly, the polar bear loses an average of 10kg.As a result, the polar bear's overall physique has become smaller than in the 1980s, and its breeding rate is also decreasing.The WWF reports that by 2050, polar bears could be "extinct" from the current "endangered." The fact that polar bears could become extinct in itself is something we should be careful about, but I don't think it's really just a story about polar bears.When I was young, global warming and climate change were stories of the distant future that would only come on the day of the Earth's end in the distant future.But what I feel these days is that we are now living in the midst of climate change, and as a result we are experiencing unprecedented disasters, including wildfires that blanket NSW in 2019, cool and humid summers with La Nia, and a food crisis caused by wheat reduction in wheat.According to a study by Potsdam University in Germany, "Climate change policy along the common socioeconomic path and changes in the world's absolute poverty," the adverse effects of climate rise are more severe in developing countries, exacerbating global inequality, and even in the same country, the poor are more vulnerable to various abnormal and climate change. 2000년대에 들어서 2배 가까이 증가한 자연재해의 숫자를 보여주는 도표 (사진출처_ © 2020 AFP) Today, climate change is occurring in various forms, including extreme weather events such as drought, heat waves, and heavy rain, in addition to reduced sea ice and rising sea levels that threaten polar bears' ecology.Our homework is increasing, and we need immediate action to slow down climate change and reduce carbon footprint, as well as to respond quickly to the crisis caused by climate change, called "Climate resilience.In addition, as mentioned earlier, there are growing neighbors who have to look back and share their minds, from the absolute poor who are in absolute poverty due to climate change to the energy poor who do not have the economic capacity to handle adequate energy consumption. Is this only happening to polar bears living in the Arctic because there's no damage I'm going to suffer right now, and I don't feel uncomfortable?Maybe it sounds too luxurious to talk about our environment for those who have a hard time making a living right now, and who have a hard time day by day.Indeed, that is why many developing countries oppose carbon neutrality, and at the G20 summit in 2021, China and Russia have failed to agree on a 2050 carbon neutrality point.But why shouldn't we stop trying? That's because this is not the Earth where only polar bears live, but "the Earth we live." 생활 속 탄소발자국을 줄이는 작은 실천 (사진출처_ 레줄러) At the beginning of the new year, our team had time to talk about how to reduce the use of carbon footprints and disposable products in our daily lives and live a more environmentally friendly life.It's very simple, but I've made resolutions such as carrying a personal cup and tumbler for coffee or tea, conducting a paperless meeting, turning off all buttons when not using an outlet, reducing unnecessary consumption such as clothes, and aiming for a vegetarian diet.Isn't it too easy? Wouldn't it be an "activities with no reason not to do" if we could reduce the risk of unpredictable disasters and climate change that we and our next generation have to go through by doing something easy?I recommend you to make small daily decisions for International Polar Bear Day! All right reserved : http://www.hanhodaily.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=73111
