My name is Jeremy Prutchick and I’m thrilled to be a part of Transition Barrie. Being an Environmental Technology student at Georgian College, I’ve learned firsthand about the various issues that our environment faces; one such issue is the constantly rising change in climate all over the world. For any young people reading these too, or those who want to learn more, allow me to educate you.

Climate change is essentially a long-term change in a region’s climate, in terms of temperature, precipitation, humidity and winds. Climate change is caused by a variety of things, but one of the main causes is the emission of the greenhouse gas, CO2, into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Nearly all citizens use vehicles to travel, and these vehicles emit significant amounts of CO2. The large amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere “trap” the heat within the Earth, creating a “greenhouse effect”. This trapped heat continues to heat up the planet, altering the very landscape of different regions of the planet, from mass flooding in Jakarta, to the melting ice in the Arctic. It is in the Arctic that the biggest effects of climate change are being experienced. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning; the ice in the Arctic contains large amounts of permafrost, which hold significant amounts of methane. Methane is another type of greenhouse gas, only much more powerful than CO2. When the permafrost melts, the methane warms the temperatures of the earth even faster than CO2.

You may or may not know a lot about climate change, but I’m sure almost everyone knows about the endangerment of polar bears due to ice loss. Polar bears live all over the northern Regions of North America, in particular, the Arctic. Polar bears hunt their prey, such as bearded seals, walrus, and bowhead whales, from the ice. Due to climate change, temperatures in the Arctic are rising at an alarming rate, and more ice continues to melt each year. When the ice melts, the polar bears have less and less hunting areas, and are forced to either swim out into the open ocean or head south in our cities for scraps. Seeing a TV show of a polar bear struggling to find food in a city’s garbage dump only to be scared off by humans really hurt me; why should the polar bears have to suffer for humans’ mistakes? Every day, polar bears are drowning because there is very little ice to cling to. In addition, mother bears are having fewer and smaller cubs. Today, there are about 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears left in the world. These numbers will only continue to drop unless something is done.

Canada has listed the polar bear as a species of special concern; United States has listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, as well. Unfortunately, that is nowhere close to saving the polar bears. There are many things that we can do to help them. Since climate change is mostly caused by emissions of fossil fuels, we can do our part and reduce the amounts we emit. How do we do that? There are many different ways everyone can help; instead of driving your car to go pick up a magazine, walk or take your bike, carpool with coworkers to work, take public transit instead of your own car when you can, lower the A/C in the summer, and even use less heat in the winter. All of these activities can conserve energy and help reduce the amount of CO2 within our atmosphere and reduce the speed of the melting ice.

The polar bear is truly a beautiful and magnificent animal, and I do not want to see it disappear, especially by us. Instead of having the polar bears’ blood on our hands, let us join hands and save these animals. Mother Earth is for everyone and everything in it.

-Jeremy Prutchick