Harp seal pups rely on our frozen planet from birth.
But the future of this species is delicately balanced,
as its polar home is changing rapidly.
Harp seals breed on the sea ice in the winter, in the Subarctic,
and then migrate up into the High Arctic
during the summer, following the sea ice as it retreats.
They need the sea ice to breed during the winter,
but they also forage around and forage under the sea ice.
And so it's a really crucial habitat for them,
and we know that the sea ice is changing.
There's been a declining trend in both the extent and the thickness of the ice.
What happens is that it breaks up
and it doesn't survive for the time that the pups need it.
And so we get mortality.
In years when there is very little or no sea ice,
we know that harp seals can fail
and we lose the whole population of pups in that particular year.
We know that within the next 30 years or so
the Arctic will be ice free in summer.
We have a responsibility to understand how these seals
are going to adapt to this or if they can even adapt to this.
Sea ice is in retreat due to warming
caused by our planet's changing climate,
which is having similar impacts on life on the opposite side of the globe.
We are on Biscoe Point,
which is an area that historically harboured
a very large population of Adélie penguins.
What we're seeing now are gentoo penguins,
which are in effect replacing Adélies.
They evolved in a much warmer system than Adélies did
and they are essentially a very good indicator
of the sort of climate change that we're seeing here on the peninsula.
Our mid-winter temperatures now are
12, 13, 14 degrees warmer than they once were.
And gentoos are taking advantage of that.
The arrival of gentoo penguins in this region
is just the tip of the iceberg.
Gentoo penguins are indicative of much larger changes.
Their increase is coincident with
increases in southern elephant seals, in southern fur seals,
in humpback whales, for example.
At the same time that this community of sub-Antarctic species is increasing,
we are losing the polar species.
We’re losing Adélie penguins,
we're losing Weddell seals.
And it appears that even minke whales have perhaps diminished in this area.
They've probably retreated to the south.
So what we're seeing just doesn't involve a single species.
It involves a change across an ecosystem.
It's become really sort of popular to look at the effects
of climate change in terms of who wins and who loses.
And this is a really, really good example of who the losers are
and who the winners are.
The impacts of climate change on our planet
are clearer than they've ever been.
Rising water temperatures
are killing off coral reefs across the globe.
They could all be gone by 2100.
Indigenous communities can no longer rely
on once stable relationships with the natural world.
It is forcing many to abandon traditional ways of life.
Wildfires are becoming more common across our planet.
In just one summer in Australia,
3 billion animals were killed or displaced by fire.
But we can choose a different path.
I think there are reasons to be hopeful about climate change.
If we don't make changes, then we're sleepwalking into a world
where we don't have Arctic sea ice,
where harp seals don't have a home,
where polar bears don't have a home.
Climate change is a global problem.
The changes that we need to make don't have to be drastic.
They don't have to be horrendous to everybody's way of life.
But we do need to make changes.
If you have a sense
that what you're doing is making some difference,
even if it's only in your local neighbourhood,
then you're willing to continue to do it.
And I think that's what people need, is they need to know
that they can make a difference, even if it's only a small one.
We all have a part to play
and we are stronger together than as individuals.
The decisions that we make now could build
a more certain future for all life on Earth.
This is our frozen planet.