Are there polar bears on the streets in Sweden? In my teens, I traveled a lot and I surprisingly often got this question from non-Europeans. NO, no, no, of course there are no polar bears on our streets!!! (The gulf stream keeps northern Europe much warmer than northern USA and Canada at those latitudes.)
Polar bears are adorable and a source for many aww’s on pinterest boards. However, real life polar bears are having a hard time coping with the shrinking ice on and around the North Pole. We all need to step up our efforts to slow down global warming. Did you know that global warming and melting ice is the main reason that more and more cubs get orphaned when their moms can’t find enough food?
So what can you do? Here are 5 ideas:
- Walk and bike instead of driving, but don’t forget safety reflectors if you are out at dusk or later. As much as you love polar bears, you don’t want to be as invisible as a polar bear in a snow storm!
- Replace your gas guzzler with a car that gets more miles on the gallon. Here is some help to find a car that fits your needs – and the polar bears’!
- Your house needs a sweater and a wind breaker. Make sure it has both! Thick fiber glass insulation (sweater) does not help if the air flows straight through (no wind breaker). At a recent energy audit of my own house, I was shocked to see draft coming out of the latch plate in the door frame in a new part of the house. Cold air was coming straight down from the attic and channeled by the frame work. I thought the many inches of fiberglass in the attic would keep my new rooms warm and snug. Ha! If you live in metropolitan Chicago, contact Energy Impact Illinois to find out how to get access to government grants to improve your house. It is easier than you think! You will get a more comfortable home and the polar bears will thank you.
- Replace incandescent light bulbs with more efficient ones. If you don’t like the CFL bulbs, there are now LED bulbs on the market for most light fixtures and for dimmers. Choose LED lights with the Energy Star seal to make sure they perform well in the long run. It will be a while until you need to get up on the ladder again to replace the bulb in that ceiling fixture…
- Contact your congressman and your senator and tell them you are concerned with global warming and urge them to step up the efforts to increase power from renewable energy sources, protect the arctic from exploration and push for higher car fuel standards.
And, finally, here is today’s fun fact about polar bear fur: It’s long been thought that polar bear fur conducts UV light down to the body to keep polar bears warm. Well, it turns out not to be true. Polar bears appear black on UV cameras, because the fur absorbs the light but it does not make it into the skin and it does not keep the polar bears warm. You can find more in this article by the North American Bear Center.
The funflector team
