Our Future -- Let's Build a Vision

Sea ice has retreated to record levels. This is causing new stress for our polar bear friends.  Protecting the polar bear is going to require strategic and plausible plans that we can implement that will reduce green house gas emissions. (I realize that we are all inwardly saying...Ugh..we know, we know..) We will need to derive a strategy and a plan for sustaining a viable and healthy polar bear population. 

Can you envision this in your mind?  Can you imagine a world that honors and supports all life, such as the polar bear? What does this look like?   What type of community could we live in that would support this?  

While it is important to understand the challenges facing the  polar bear (See below), it is vital that we collectively identify a goal and align with a vision that both empowers us and aids us as we create the future.

Ed Oakley and Doug Krug in Enlightened Leadership outline a process where it is possible to derive new answers, insights and establish a compelling and empowering vision by simply asking the right questions.  The first question is

1. What is already working?

Sample Answer: How are we currently succeeding in changing how we as individuals/corporations/governments operate? What else?

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2. What makes this work?

Sample Answer: Could we list public awareness campaigns?  Tax exemptions for green initiatives? Laws and regulations? What else?

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3. What is the objective?

Sample Answer: Could this be preserving arctic habitat or enabling a growing and sustainable polar bear population?  What else?

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4. What are the benefits of achieving this objective? 

Sample Answer: What are the benefits with respect to polar bears/ other creatures in living in the arctic/ humanity/ ourselves? What else?

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5. What can we do to move closer to our objective?

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~Please join the conversation.  Leave your thoughts as comments.

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Let's not dwell exclusively on the problems, let's put our energy into solutions -- SD

Major Threats to the Polar Bear:

Climate Change - Reduction in sea ice and food

Toxic Pollution - PBCs, industrial by-products, pesticides

Oil and Gas - Population, habitat destruction

Overharvesting - Oversight of legal hunting is needed

 http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/threats/

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