Living on Thin Ice – Campaigning To Save Polar Bears

The combination of polar bears and melting ice is a heady mix - so much so that the animal's plight has become a rallying cry in the fight against climate change. Simon Garfield reveals how activists have used dramatic pictures of the Arctic's most fearsome predator to give their cause real bite and to ignite an emotive PR campaign.

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One photograph in particular has captured the imagination. In a neat piece of marketing, the Canadian Ice Service made available a stunning image to coincide with the IPCC report. Two bears, probably a mother and her cub, are pictured on a spectacular ice block off northern Alaska that might have been modelled by Henry Moore. They appear to be howling against injustice. The drama is clear: this is truly the tip of an iceberg, the bears are desperately stranded as the water swells around them. The first thought among viewers is surely one of pity and concern, but this is to misjudge the situation: polar bears are reasonable swimmers, and certainly climbed upon such sculptures centuries before we climbed into our 4x4s.