On Twitter I follow a "green" online outfit called Grist - “a beacon in the smog". It's worthy enough, most of the time. Not today. They've tweeted a link to a piece by one Jess Zimmerman (yes), trailing it as “Watch a mama polar bear help her baby out of the water to safety: This is so. cute." I was expecting the YouTube clip to be interesting in spite of being told it was “so. cute." And it was, slightly. But I hadn't expected so vacuous a commentary underneath:
“It’s sort of unfortunate that polar bears have become such a symbol of the need to protect our natural world, because while I support them being alive and all, they are also cold-eyed killers that if given a chance would eat you and everyone you care about (adorable sled-dog stories notwithstanding.) But still, this is a nice family moment where a mama polar bear helps her baby out of the water. Let’s all help the baby polar bears, shall we? Let’s help them until they slaughter us."
Below the YouTube clip the text says this instead: “As seen from the RRS James Clark Ross during the UK Ocean Acidification cruise http://www.arcticoacruise.org/ in June 2012, in the sea ice off the east coast of Greenland."
Not hard to decide which is the beacon and which the smog.
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