When you think of climate change, the image that might come to mind is a distressed polar bear perched on a tiny piece of ice in a warming ocean. In fact, a Google image search for “global warming” will show a handful of those exact images.
However moving the image, it doesn’t tell the full story of how climate change is affecting this particular species. As arctic ice shrinks, polar bears have been migrating inland into new territories to hunt. Warmer temperatures are also driving grizzlies north into the same territories, which has let to interbreeding and a new hybrid type of bear—the pizzly.
Pelts and skulls of both types of bears and the story of the impact climate change is having on them is on display in We Are Nature: Living in the Anthropocene, a new exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Natural History that explores the interconnectedness of humanity and nature in the Anthropocene.
The Anthropocene is the current geological era in which humans are making a profound impact on the geological strata. While the term itself is still being debated by geologists, the museum is embracing it as a social and cultural tool for exploring the broad sum effect humans are having on the planet in the exhibition We Are Nature: Living in the Anthropocene—open now through summer 2018.
