Once not so long ago, as you must know, in the far north of our land lived large bears white as snow. These bears were strong, but seldom attacked their two-legged neighbors. They spent their lives upon enormous sheets of ancient sea ice, which seemed to them much the same as earth does to other creatures. They were beautiful, even though it was often hard to spot them out there in the snow – which you might say was as white as a polar bear.
Also in the North, but not as far north, lived a bear not as large as the polar bear and certainly not white. Now this bear was robust and strong, and known to be as vicious as his name, the great grizzly, suggests. In one-on-one battle with him, no man has ever been known to survive.
Now, until recently, the polar bear and the grizzly bear lived separately – that great white bear out on the sea ice, and the grizzly bear on the land. They rarely came in contact with each other, that is, until the two-legged ones so polluted the earth with the burning of coal and the refining of oil that what some call climate change began. The temperature in the Far North began to rise. The ice was melting.
Some said “it is not happening.”
Lots of us said “it’s not my fault.”
Thus, the beautiful homeland of sea ice melted and the polar bears have been forced to live unhappily sharing the province of the grizzly bear. The bears do not fight among themselves, but now and then, a polar bear mates with a grizzly bear to create offspring, which scientists are calling a “super bear.” This new bear is far larger than the polar bear, some say as large as a dumpster, and far more vicious than the grizzly bear. This bear is appropriately called the “Grizzly Grizzly Polar Bear” to reflect his truly murderous nature.
Now, as I am sure you know, we two-legged ones have pretty much despised bears throughout history – even those bears from whom we had nothing to fear. But now we are creating a Grizzly Grizzly Polar Bear with all the damage we do. And each new oil well turns up the heat just a drop.
This new bear embodies all we have feared from the depths of our forests throughout the ages. He bands with other bears – especially the now very hungry polar bear, whose turf continues to shrink. I see the band circling a village; more bears than people, and the village is decimated in one single night, demonstrating the power of this hybrid Grizzly Grizzly Polar Bear.
And from those of us who live in the South of this great land, I still hear the murmuring, “It is not my fault.”
So the eternal questions remain: who is to be held culpable for all the blood and death?
And more personally, which of us can ever be certain of our innocence?
