Saving Polar Bears and the DaVersity Code

It is unusually warm in the Bay Area right now. Unusually warm for this area and unusually warm for the middle of March. As I was falling asleep last night, in our usually icy bedroom, I was thinking about how much I loved this warm weather, and then in my half asleep/half awake state I saw an image of a polar bear, and I felt less happy.

You've probably already read in other places that the loss of Arctic ice causes the polar bears to swim long distances more frequently to hunt, which can cause them to drown or starve.

Synchronistically, there was an email from the Sierra Club this morning asking people to sign a petition to Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, asking him to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

I can't imagine a world without polar bears, can you?

Listing the polar bear as threatened is also an acknowledgement of the detrimental affect of global warming. If you would like to sign the petition, here is the link.

The spoof of Coca-Cola's polar bear commercial above was created by Greenpeace. Here is the YouTube link if you want to pass it on, or post it on your web site.

The Sierra Club has also joined with The Harvard Medical School, World Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, Audobon, Center for Biological Diversity, Species Alliance, Buckminster Fuller Institute, The World Conservation Union and the Endangered Species Coalition to create a new Free Range Studios online film, 'The DaVersity Code," a spoof of The DaVinci Code.

In the film, Robert Penguin, the world’s leading expert on biodiversity, is contacted to investigate the murder of a polar bear at the Natural History Museum. He works with Sophie Minnow to discover the ancient, “Priory of Species” and unravel ”The Greatest Lie Ever Told.” During their investigation, they learn that the web of life, or the "Priory of Species" has existed for millions of years, but that it is being dismantled by human activities that destroy key habitats, release greenhouse gases which cause global warming, introduce invasive species, and over-harvest species to the point of extinction.

They learn that the "The Greatest Lie Ever Told" is that humans are not part of the web of life and that they can survive apart from it. For example, they don't realize that if a tree dies, then the frog that lives in it dies, and the mosquitoes that the frog would have eaten live, which can cause an epidemic of mosquitoes and potentially, illness for humans.

The solution? We all need to realize that we are part of the web of life and that we need it to survive,

You can watch the film at www.daversitycode.com or on YouTube.


global warming
polar bear
biodiversity