Shifting Waistlines: Polar Bears and Global Warming

In his 2002 Op-Ed in the LA Times, Randy Olson wrote about the concept of shifting baselines and uses this analogy: "If your ideal weight used to be 150 pounds and now it's 160, your baseline--as well as your waistline--has shifted." But get this:

Due to global climate change (which has cascaded into changes in feeding patterns), female polar bears weigh an average 20 percent less than they did in 1980. This I heard yesterday from a Program Officer for the UN Convention of Biological Diversity (which the U.S. has signed but not ratified--our "signature" move). Skinnier polar bears, just another shifting baseline (waistline).