City Science Kids Reports from the People's Climate March in NYC

Today, 310,000 people made their way down Central Park West for the People's Climate March. Many of them held up signs to let watchers know what about global warming they were concerned about, such as using the fossil fuels coal, oil and gas to heat our homes and drive our cars. The marchers in this photo are all holding posters of polar bears. How does global warming affect these mammals that live up by the Arctic Circle?

Polar bears eat seals that swim in the sea and rest on the Arctic ice. The ice in the Arctic has been melting very quickly because of global warming. This means that the bears have no way to hunt seals—they can't catch them out in open water. So, the bears are starving. According to the organization Polar Bears International, melting ice means that many bears in Russia have been stranded on land. In Canada, polar bear populations have shrunk 22% because of shorter ice-bound hunting seasons. Off the coast of Alaska, some bears attempting to swim from land to ice have drowned—there's just too much water for them to navigate.

Have you thought of ways that global warming affects you or the people and animals you care about? Write in and let us know!