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+--- Thread: Story behind a sick / injured polar bear turned into climate disaster porn (/thread-5834.html)
Story behind a sick / injured polar bear turned into climate disaster porn - C C - Jul 27, 2018
https://polarbearscience.com/2018/07/26/the-truth-behind-the-baffin-bay-starving-polar-bear-video-is-worse-than-we-thought/
EXCERPT: Remember that video of an emaciated Baffin Island polar bear? In an unexpected follow-up (“Starving-Polar-Bear Photographer Recalls What Went Wrong“; National Geographic, August 2018 issue), photographer Cristina Mittermeier makes some astonishing admissions that might just make you sick.
It turns out they didn’t just come across the dying bear the day it was filmed: it was spotted at least two days earlier by Paul Nicklen. He must have had a satellite phone with him when he saw the bear but the only call he made was to his film crew — he made no attempt to find a local conservation officer to euthanize the bear, which would have been the right thing to do.
The bear’s emaciated, near-death stagger[*] was simply too tantalizing to pass up (video needs action: an emaciated dead bear would not been nearly as effective). Mittermeier claims they knew when they filmed the bear that he was sick or injured, but Nicklon presented it as an effect of climate change regardless. Mittermeier now says National Geographic simply “went too far” with their video caption (“This is what climate change looks like“), that she and Nicklan “lost control of the narrative.”
[...] They still don’t understand that many people were as sickened by their lack of compassion as by the film footage itself. People were also angry that Nicklen and Mittermeier misrepresented the situation: by their own admission, they knew the bear was sick, yet peddled their images as climate change tragedy porn anyway. Their response to the public backlash (“National Geographic went too far”) is laughable. They just don’t get it: their actions did real damage to their cause....
MORE: https://polarbearscience.com/2018/07/26/the-truth-behind-the-baffin-bay-starving-polar-bear-video-is-worse-than-we-thought/
RE: Story behind a sick / injured polar bear turned into climate disaster porn - Syne - Jul 27, 2018
Anyone who's eager to find tragedy is truly sick. Distributor or purveyor.