climate change in arctic的八卦，Yahoo名人娛樂都在討論

Enjoyed meeting President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson from Iceland today. He is on a state visit here — the first by a President of Iceland.

President Grímsson will be speaking tomorrow at the Arctic Circle Singapore Forum. The forum is organised by the Arctic Circle and the Singapore Maritime Institute. We have participated actively in events convened by the The Arctic Circle (a non-profit organisation co-founded by President Grímsson) and Sam Tan has been attending their meetings.

Glad Singapore can contribute to developments in the Arctic even though we are not very near the Arctic :). We are an observer state of the Arctic Council (an inter-governmental cooperation platform among Arctic states), which Iceland is a member of. Our friendship with Iceland and other Arctic nations is helpful as we tackle common issues like climate change and sustainability together. - LHL

(MCI Photo by LH Goh)

氣溫驟降 北極渦旋效應襲台
全台急凍，今天可以說是今年冬天最寒冷的一天，根據氣象局資料，全台總共有10個測站，都創下入冬最低溫的紀錄，北極渦旋造成全世界各地低溫記錄， 台灣這波寒流，也是北極渦旋威力的展現！
*北極渦旋 : Arctic vortex, Polar vortex
美國各地酷寒成災,白宮發佈影片解釋北極渦旋
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eDTzV6a9F4

OH NO... Let me so sad.

For tourists and wildlife photographers, the main reason to come to Svalbard is to see polar bears. And yes, usually we find them: beautiful bears, photogenic bears, playfull or even at a kill. At first glance, everything is as it has always been in one of the most easily accessible polar bear populations of the world, strongly protected and doing good, so some scientists say.

But are they really doing good, the bears up here? I am a critically minded person, and I observe. I see the summers being so pleasant (and warm) as never before. I see the glaciers calving, retreating dozens to hundreds of metres every year. I see the pack ice disappearing in record speed. Yes, I have seen bears in good shape - but I have also seen dead and starving polar bears. Bears walking on the shores, looking for food, bears trying to hunt reindeer, eating bird's eggs, moss and seaweed. And I realized that the fat bears are nearly exclusively males which stay on the pack ice all year long. The females, on the other hand, which den on land to give birth to their young, are often slim. With the pack ice retreating further and further north every year, they tend to be stuck on land where there's not much food. In the first year, they lose their first cub. In the second year, they lose their second (and last) cub. Only once I have seen a mother with a nearly independent cub. Only few times I have seen beautifully fat mothers with beautifully fat young. Many times I have seen horribly thin bears, and those were exclusively females - like this one here. A mere skeleton, hurt on her front leg, possibly by a desperate attempt to hunt a walrus while she was stuck on land.

Experts claim the Svalbard population is stable, even rising. Well, here comes my question: how can a population be stable if it consists of less and less females and cubs? How can a population be doing good if most bear will score a body index of 2-3 out of 5? Only once I have seen a bear getting a big fat „5“, but several times I have seen dead bears and bears like this one: a mere „1“ on the scale, doomed to death. I do not have scientific data to proof my observations, but I have eyes to see - and a brain to draw conclusions. Climate change is happening big deal here in the Arctic. And it is our decision to trying to change this. So: let's do something about the biggest threat of our time. Maybe we cannot save this bear here. But every little action we do to change our ways is a step in the right direction. We just have to get started and keep on going!