The Polar Problem

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If one’s source of environmental news was solely the major news networks, they would know all about the melting of polar sea ice, the plight of the polar bear, and the suffering of the Inuit people. While each of these is a tragic consequence of global warming, the news media is steadfast in keeping the attention away from home. Evidence of global warming, however, can be found globally and the polar bear is definitely not the only animal faced with endangerment and extinction. 

Known insect species number around 900,000. However, it is estimated that roughly 3.4 million species exist. While totally unnoticed by the news media, with the exception of Africanized bees and the problems they cause, “a third of the world’s crop production depends on pollination by wild insects” and the loss these insects would cause “117 billion dollars worth of U.S. crops to fail.” The colony collapse disorder plaguing honey bees  the last few years has been a definite cause for concern, but you wouldn’t know it watching MSNBC. Bees are still portrayed by the media as nuisances and dangers. While MSNBC is focused on the polar regions and the Northwest Passage, where they can stir up a little debate about untapped oil resources, it takes smaller news organizations  and PBS to call attention to a problem literally taking place in our backyard. And even when a cure for CCD may have been found, you’ll never read or hear about it unless you Google it.

But if you want to talk global warming, the Polar bears and sea ice have nothing on the amphibians. Ponds once teeming with frogs are now littered with their corpses. Their permeable skin makes them particularly vulnerable to changes in the climate and the Chytrid fungus. This fungus, some scientists argue, spreads more easily as waters warm up. Amphibians are often likened to the canary in a coal mine. If the canary dies, there’s something wrong. Unfortunately, a third of amphibious species have already been lost. I think we have a problem.

On Saturday, April 18, 2009, a frog made it on to the front page of the Springfield Republican. The story of an accidental breeding which yielded one mature yellow-banded poison dart frog in captivity at the Springfield Science Museum began with an obvious piece of information that is shameful to even call news. “Just touching one may be fatal to a human, but the Springfield Science Museum has evidence that yellow-banded poison dart frogs are anything but dangerous to each other’s touch.” Did we really need to have a tadpole born in captivity to know that? Besides, readers are informed later in the article that poison dart frogs do not create the neurotoxins secreted through their skin in captivity because “they acquire them from their diet in the wild.” Finally, on page A5 in eleventh paragraph of the story, it is noted that many poison dart frogs are endangered, but not the yellow-banded poison dart frog. It is a little bit weird that we are expected to celebrate the birth of a frog in captivity that isn’t even endangered, when amphibians all over the world are croaking (and I don’t mean the sound they make) because of a fungus and our pesticide use. And like the rest of the news media, the writer has to feed our need for sensationalism by telling us of the poison dart frog’s cannibalistic tendencies, just like the polar bears. Well, this may seem unreal to our pampered population, but every other species in the world is struggling for existence, and whether they have to eat thier young to keep from starving or to protect their gene pool, it shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a barbaric activity – especially when, for the most part, it’s caused by us.

So while the reigning news media warn us of polar sea ice melting and cannibalistic polar bears, unable to hunt effectively, it is up to us to realize that the problem is much more vast than just that. The polar regions may act as “an air conditioner” for Earth, but insects, like the honey bee, keep our stomachs full. The demise of amphibians will soon be our own and the insistence of the news media in keeping the focus of global warming on ice is making the problem seem less urgent and further from home than it really is. I’m not saying don’t mourn the polar bear. Just don’t forget about the frog and honey bee.