National Geographic

EXPLORE | THROUGH THE LENSPERHAPS WE MADEA MISTAKE NOT TELLINGTHE FULL STORY—THAT WE WERE LOOKINGFOR A PICTURE THATFORETOLD THE FUTURE.``````from the Washington Post: “ ‘We stood there crying’:Emaciated polar bear seen in ‘gut-wrenching’ videoand photos.”We had sent a “gut-wrenching” image out into theworld. We probably shouldn’t have been surprisedthat people didn’t pick up on the nuances we triedto send with it. Yet we were shocked by the response.Many people expressed gratitude that we’d shined alight on climate change, but others angrily asked whywe had not fed the bear or covered him with blanketsor taken him to a vet—none of which would havesaved him. Those responses revealed how discon-nected people are from wildlife, ecology, and evengeography. And then there were those who are stillbent on maintaining the dangerous status quo bydenying the existence of climate change. We becameto them yet another example of environmentalistexaggeration. But they ofered us a glimpse of thedaunting number of people we still need to reach.Perhaps we made a mistake in not telling thefull story—that we were looking for a picture thatforetold the future and that we didn’t know whathad happened to this particular polar bear.I can’t say that this bear was starving becauseof climate change, but I do know that polar bearsrely on a platform of sea ice from which to hunt. Afast-warming Arctic means that sea ice is disappear-ing for increasingly longer periods of time each year.That means many more bears will get stranded onland, where they can’t pursue the seals, walruses,and whales that are their prey and where they willslowly starve to death.After finding nothing of value in the fuel drums,the polar bear waddled into the water and swamaway. Paul worried that he would waste energy anddie, but the bear seemed to have an easier time in thewater. He disappeared around a bend in the shore-line. We never saw him again, but we hope that ourimages of this dying bear moved the conversationabout climate change to the forefront, where it mustremain until we solve this planetary problem.Until then, when we come across a scene like thisone, we will again share it with the world—and takepains to be sure that our intentions are clear and thenarrative remains our own. j``````noise and smell. From the shelter of one of the emptybuildings, we watched the bear. He didn’t move foralmost an hour. When he finally stood up, I had tocatch my breath. Paul had warned me about the polarbear’s condition, but nothing could have preparedme for what I saw. The bear’s once white coat wasmolted and dirty. His once robust frame was skinand bones. Every step that he took was pained andslow. We could tell he was sick or injured and thathe was starving. We could see that he was probablyin his last days.I took photographs, and Paul recorded video. Asthe bear approached the empty fuel drums lookingfor food, I could hear my colleagues sobbing.When Paul posted the video on Instagram, hewrote, “This is what starvation looks like.” He pointedout that scientists suspect polar bears will be drivento extinction in the next century. He wonderedwhether the global population of 25,000 polar bearswould die the way this bear was dying. He urgedpeople to do everything they could to reduce theircarbon footprint and prevent this from happening.But he did not say that this particular bear was killedby climate change.National Geographic picked up the video andadded subtitles. It became the most viewed videoon National Geographic’s website—ever. Newsorganizations around the world ran stories aboutit; social media exploded with opinions about it. Weestimate that an astonishing 2.5 billion people werereached by our footage. The mission was a success,but there was a problem: We had lost control of thenarrative. The first line of the National Geographicvideo said, “This is what climate change lookslike”—with “climate change” highlighted in thebrand’s distinctive yellow. In retrospect, NationalGeographic went too far with the caption. Othernews outlets ran dramatic headlines like this one``````Cristina Mittermeier is a contributing photographer, speaker,and explorer for National Geographic. She is the co-founder,executive director, and vision lead of SeaLegacy, a nonprofitorganization working to protect the oceans.``````National Geographic went too far in drawing a definitive connection between climatechange and a particular starving polar bear in the opening caption of our video about theanimal. We said, “This is what climate change looks like.” While science has establishedthat there is a strong connection between melting sea ice and polar bears dying off, thereis no way to know for certain why this bear was on the verge of death. To see an updatedversion of the video, go to natgeo.com/starvingpolarbear.Editor’s note