Headlines tell us that polar bears are in trouble because their sea ice habitat is warming. They've been on the endangered list since 2008. World Wildlife says, "The survival and the protection of the polar bear habitat are urgent issues for WWF." Urgent.
That narrative went viral due in part to this sad video about a starving polar bear:
It's been viewed two-and-a-half billion times, National Geographic's most viewed video ever. "This is what climate change looks like" - that's the message. But is that actually happening in this video?
No (see the details here). A year later, National Geographic admitted that they "went too far in drawing a definitive connection between climate change and a particular starving polar bear. ." The writer said, "we were looking for a picture that foretold the future . ."
An image carries big impact. This video is not really fake, but its message is not supported by the facts. They had an agenda and they used this image to make it convincing.
(cont'd tomorrow)
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