Polar Bear Graphs

Arctic on the line: oil industry versus Greenpeace at the top of the world

At the top of the world sits a lone region of shifting sea ice, bare islands, and strange creatures. For most of human history the Arctic remained inaccessible to all but the hardiest of peoples, keeping it relatively pristine and untouched. But today, the Arctic is arguably changing faster than anywhere else on Earth due to global climate change. Greenhouse gases from society have heated up parts of the Arctic over the past half-century by 4-5 degrees Fahrenheit, leading to a staggering decline in the Arctic sea ice. The large-scale changes suffered by the Arctic have created a new debate over conservation and exploitation, a debate currently represented by the protests of Greenpeace against oil company Cairn Energy, both of whom have been interviewed by mongabay.com (see below).

With less sea ice, regions of the Arctic are suddenly accessible to industrial exploitation for oil and gas (the very fuels which have heated up the world, melting the Arctic). On the one hand, environmentalists and conservationists say the Arctic is a warning that the world must turn more quickly toward green sources of energy and leave major sources of fossil fuels, such as those in the Arctic, in the ground (or in this case deep under the sea), to avoid global disaster. On the other side, both big energy companies and small upstarts see a different green in the Arctic: cash.

This conflict—between conservation and exploitation—has been playing out in miniature over the past couple weeks at the top of the world. On the one side is an upstart Scottish-oil company, Cairn Energy, which has won the right to drill exploratory wells for oil in the waters of Greenland amid floating ice-bergs and frigid temperatures; on the other side is the non-violent activist organization, Greenpeace, whose activists are taking direct action against the oil company.

Two activists—enclosed in a survival capsule hanging from Cairn's oilrig—halted drilling for four days before being arrested. In response, Cairn Energy has warned it will sue Greenpeace for nearly $3 million for every day lost. But Greenpeace was not cowed. On Saturday, 18 Greenpeace protestors scaled the oilrig to request to see Cairn Energy's oil spill plan and were subsequently arrested.

Mongabay.com recently spoke separately to both Greenpeace through Graham Thompson, and Cairn Energy through Ellie Goss, but their respective interviews are posted here together.



GREENPEACE VS.

The Wild Photographer: Abused Polar Bear With Radio Collar - Alaska

I have always been interested in wild plants and animals. When I was 4, I took my 2 year old brother with me on a field trip along a canal a few blocks from home to look for tadpoles. (The big kids across the street had a tub full of them they had collected there) We forgot to tell our aunt, who was babysitting us, about our plans and when she finally found us along the canal with our collection bottles looking for tadpoles and frog eggs, she wasn’t happy. I got an awful spanking for leading the field trip and taking my 2 year old brother near the canal. When I was about 8, Carnation Cornflakes started putting an Audubon bird Identification card in every cereal box. I became a collector of bird cards and consumed many bowls of cornflakes in order to get new ones. Before long I had dozens of bird ID cards and by the time I was 10 or 11 knew the names of most of the birds that lived on our farm and along a branch of the Snake River that flowed a short distance from the back of our farm. I looked in every bird nest I could find, and examined hundreds of eggs and baby birds to see what they looked like.

The encyclopedia of fantasy

In RB's works costs are always registered, as in a parallel tale, The Bear ( graph 1994), in which a large polar bear visits a similar home. ...

Understanding Animal Graphs

Polar Bears in the Southern Beaufort Sea Area Solve It! a. Use the data in the table and the steps below to create a bar graph. ...

Polar bears, proceedings of the Tenth Working Meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group, October 25-29, 1988, Sochi, USSR

Figure 1 presents a graph of the sexual behavior of the polar bears "Umka" and " Diksa" during a coitus on April 13th, 1987 (time 08.12-08.42) in the Ka/an' ...

Polar bear math, learning about fractions from Klondike and Snow

Uses charts and recipes for bear milk prepared for two baby polar bears born in a zoo to teach about fractions.

Polar bears, proceedings of the Eighth Working Meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group, held at the Ministry of Environment, Oslo, Norway, 15-19 January 1981

Skip Ladd discussed several of his specific concerns about Taylor's presentation ■ (a) Based on the graphs presented, the Alaskan polar bear population has ...