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Polar bears in life jackets
22nd November 2008
“We wanted to show this issue in a different light"
Photo Courtesy of ADDI
Life jackets for polar bears may not be the most feasible solution, but as the number of bears drowning in Arctic waters increases, the digitally created image (at right) may help to raise awareness of the problem. At least that is the hope of designers ADDI Concepts, based in Sweden.
A 2006 study in the journal Polar Biology found that the number of bears swimming in open water had increased from 4 per cent of all bears spotted to 20 per cent, including four that had drowned. As summer sea ice melts, the distances between floes widen, and the animals become exhausted, sometimes fatally.
“The solution to global warming isn’t the vest; it’s changing your light bulbs, or not flying or taking your car,” Andreas Karlsson, one of the designers with ADDI, said in an e-mail. “We wanted to show this issue in a different light and hopefully put a smile on your face while addressing a very serious problem.”
This is ADDI’s second design for threatened animals: The first was a Bengal tiger wearing a bulletproof vest, drawing attention to a creature that once numbered in the hundreds of thousands in its native India, and is now reduced to a population of 2,500 or less.
But isn’t it a bit contradictory for ADDI, which designs decor products, to implicitly criticize the kind of consumer culture that contributes to global warming? “I agree it’s an interesting contradiction,” Mr. Karlsson concedes. “We just don’t want to encourage the ‘throw-away society;’ we try to create emotional products designed to be passed on through generations.”
Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail
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