Why the image of polar bears as the face of climate change has changed
The photographers Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen witnessed a polar bear taking what were probably its final steps in horror at a deserted hunting camp in the Baffin Islands, Northern Canada.
The bear walked slowly and laboriously, its gaunt frame and mangey, discolored fur making it appear gaunt. It stopped to forage for food in an abandoned barrel at one point, chewing on the foam seat of a burned-out snowmobile that had been thrown away.
“Observing this animal, likely in its final moments of life, was extremely painful,” remarked Mittermeier, the photographer of what would go on to become one of the most controversial and widely shared polar bear photos of the decade.
Her photo and the related video footage of Nicklen were published in December 2017 issue of National Geographic Magazine with the caption, “This is what climate change looks like,” superimposed over it. With an estimated 2.5 billion views in a short period of time, the Baffin Islands scene went viral and sparked a global conversation about the threat posed by melting ice caps and global warming.
Photographs of distressed polar bears hanging onto ice floes or in remote Arctic settings have come to represent the climate catastrophe. But in the past ten years, researchers, activists, and news outlets have started to turn away from these images, doubting whether they accurately depict the effects of climate change.
Once eerie attention-grabbing imagery was criticized for being too detached, unrelatable, and destructive, leading to a demand for more varied depictions of climate change. The popular media started to move away from these classic pictures and toward pictures of extreme weather, like heat waves, droughts, and typhoons, which highlight problems that are much more localized.
Experts concur that ice caps are melting at record speeds, but some have cautioned that pictures of frightened polar bears may not provide the whole picture.
Since 1979, sea ice concentrations have decreased by 13% every ten years as a result of rising global temperatures. The sea ice level in Antarctica in 2023 is significantly lower than any winter level ever recorded, a statistic that the National Snow and Ice Data Center called “mind blowing” recently.
Polar bears are one species that suffers from this shift; they spend less time on sea ice, which causes them to fast for longer periods of time, gain weight, and have fewer pups. Photographic historian Michael Pritchard of the Royal Photographic Society in the UK, however, cautions against taking startling pictures of polar bears at face value as they can be “problematic.”
“We must consider the circumstances surrounding its theft, the method used, and the motivation behind it. Photographs, so the saying goes, never lie. Actually, it can tell a story that is very different from reality,” he says.
Mittermeier’s starving polar bear photo sparked criticism, suggesting that other factors like cancer might be at play. National Geographic responded by saying that it had “gone too far” by drawing the connection between the dying polar bear and climate change.
Mittermeier later wrote an opinion piece for National Geographic in which she said that she had “lost control of the narrative” after the picture went viral. But as a co-founder of the climate campaign group SeaLegacy, she thought back, she hadn’t meant to make a scientific claim, more of a talking point.
“When scientists say polar bears are going to starve to death in the Arctic because of the loss of sea ice, this is what it’s going to look like,” she continues. “Polar bears represent more than just a figure on a spreadsheet.” We were hoping that would affect the course of the discussion.”
She says powerful visuals have the power to change the conversation, much like the iconic 1972 “Napalm Girl” image that shaped public opinion and became a defining symbol of the Vietnam War.
“I really wanted this photograph to become a moment in which we stopped to recognise that climate change is an existential threat to humanity, and it starts with animals,” she continues.
Experts contend that polar bears have lost their significance as climate symbols, misrepresenting an entire species and minimizing the immediate threat of climate disaster, even though they may have once served as a shorthand for climate change.
Polar bear pictures can, on the one hand, be a powerful tool to encourage donations from people who are sympathetic, according to Pritchard. Like the panda, which gained popularity as a symbol of environmental preservation and was adopted as the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) mascot in 1961, the polar bear came to represent a world that people wished to preserve.
