Living in Peace and Wisdom on our Planet

We are being warned that polar bears may become extinct, as the Arctic ice for 2008 is either the lowest in size or second lowest in the world's records.  Because polar bears need sea ice in order to hunt, the loss of this ice during the summer will extinguish that part of their population. Meanwhile, the polar bears that live in northern Canada are under pressure from human encroachment and are experiencing disturbances in their natural hunting patterns.

The above green polar bear could be an excellent emblem for the green environmental movement – in an ironic twist, the reason the bear is green is that unplanned algae grew in their central Japan zoo's swimming pond.  This occured for two reasons: the zoo was changing the water less often than previously in order to conserve pure water, which is in shortage, and in addition the summer temperatures were once again higher than normal in 2008.

The bears of that Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens are expected to recover normal color, we hope, by some time in November, when algae freeze and die once again.  It makes me wonder whether we will be seeing green polar bears every summer from now on.  They would indeed make a good emblem for environmental causes, wouldn't they, possibly with the words "Save Me" underneath?