I’m ready for a moratorium on all polar bear imagery.*

Far more humans have been rendered homeless by global warming than polar bears: the Inuit in Shishmaref, Alaska, whose homes are being destroyed by melting ice, the people of the Marshall Islands, which is drowning in the South Pacific, hurricane victims in New Orleans, Sub-Saharan Africans fleeing drought, and many more to come, especially in India.

This kind of ad is designed for the priviledged, whose experience of global warming is limited to panicky or tear-jerking reports from the media and in small talk with their neighbors (“I can’t believe how warm it is today! Climate change, you know.”)  They’re not the people who have suffered and will continue to suffer at the expense of a carbon-fueled global economy.

This approach alienates millions of Americans who are too worried about their own livelihoods to worry about polar bears.  We’re at the point now that our focus needs to be on the economy, security, and people, particularly the disadvantaged in the U.S. and around the world, who are the most vulnerable to the climate crisis and have the least resources to protect themselves.

* I admit, I’ve been guilty.  What can I say?  They’re cute.

via whatonearth, kari-shma, intrsystm.