Polar Bears to Solar Arrays to Our Project

Op-Ed Contributor

Polar Bears to Solar Arrays to Our Project

Judy Basting, Julie Menke, Taylor Woodhouse - January 13, 2011

Polar Bears are very interesting creatures. They are the closest relatives of brown bears. Polar bears adapted rapidly to exploit a vacant ecological niche as a specialized predator of seals. Polar bears eat meat exclusively and seals are their primary source of food. Seals rely on sea ice to reproduce and molt, and are hunted by the opportunistic polar bears for food Polar bears need sea ice to hunt and breed. Annual sea ice, ice that forms and then melts within a single year, is the primary habitat of polar bears and is used various ways: as a platform to hunt, as the habitat for mating, for travel, migration, and connecting habitats, as a summer refuge, and to den and produce young in some areas (primarily in Alaska).

They travel huge distances to find food, travelling over both land and sea ice. A warming climate is altering sea ice conditions, which affects polar bears in many ways, including: more difficulty in getting to and hunting prey, fewer den areas and lower cub survival, increased interactions between bears and humans, and lower survival rate of the species in general. Changes to sea ice are well documented and are happening faster than expected. Some examples of the expected effects of changes in sea ice are the following: increased energetic costs of movement, altered home range size and configuration, reduced access to den areas, increased periods without access to prey, and increased time spent swimming, which may chill small cubs and reduce their survival.

The evidence for climate change effects on all polar bears is not definitive. However, some subpopulations are certainly in decline due to the affects of a warming climate. Highly specialized species are particularly vulnerable to the effects of habitat loss. As you can see, polar bears normally have a harsh life, but we are not making it any easier by potentially changing their climate. Can we save the polar bears by lowering our carbon footprint and reducing global climate change?

Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar energy's uses are limited only by human ingenuity. Today, sunlight can be converted into electricity using active solar cells (photovoltaics). The simplest solar cells power watches and calculators and the like. When the solar cells are bundled in panels and arranged in larger arrays, they can light houses and provide power to the electric grid.

Most of the electrical energy we use is currently generated by burning carbon containing fossil fuels extracted from the limited supplies buried around the earth. The carbon containing pollution generated by burning fossil fuels is likely contributing to the global climate change we are observing today.

A carbon footprint is often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other pollutants, emitted by an individual, nation or any organization. Capturing solar energy for the production of electricity releases no carbon containing pollution into the environment. The reduction of carbon footprints through the development of alternative energy projects, such as solar generated electricity, represents one way of reducing a carbon footprint. Installing a solar panel array on large rooftops such as our school will help us lower our carbon footprint and reduce our impact on global climate change.

At our project’s conclusion, we will make a convincing presentation to our school administration for the installation of a solar array on our school roof to offset a portion of the fossil fuel generated electricity our school uses. This assessment will allow us to determine the size of the potential array, the cost of the hardware with installation, and how much CO2 production will be offset by the functioning array. We further plan to reach out to our community and inform them about benefits of solar panels and renewable energy. We plan to tour a similar facility at another school to learn what challenges and successes they had with their solar array. We will investigate external funding sources, including government grants and the possibility of using a third-party investor. All of these steps will give us the information needed to develop project support and create our solar array presentation for the school administration. Solar arrays on our school roof will help offset our consumption of fossil fuels and help reduce global warming, helping the polar bears.