ABC’s Good Morning America continued its weekly tribute to environmentalism, Wednesday, in their Extraordinary Earth series with National Geographic leading up to Earth Day. This week, correspondent T.J. Holmes traveled to Quebec's Magdalen Islands to cuddle with some baby seals and scare viewers that if they’re not “doing the right thing” by following the climate change agenda, these adorable animals will die out.
“I wish I could tell you this is just a cute story. This is also a climate change story and how it's threatening to wipe them out,” Holmes warned.
While interacting with the seals, the journalist spoke with some climate change research scientists in the area about how the thinning and melting ice from global warming was affecting the Harp seal pup population.
“To be clear, this species, they cannot survive without ice to be born on,” Holmes noted, as he and the scientists directly blamed man-made climate change:
HOLMES: Over the last 30 years, warmer temperatures have led to less winter ice. Peter Galbraith, a research scientist for Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimates that in just 75 years, these animals will no longer have any solid ice.
PETER GALBRAITH: There's no escaping it. I mean, it's completely tied to global warming.
They lectured viewers that their decisions were making an impact on this species’ population:
GALBRAITH: There is no stopping this as long as the world keeps pumping its CO2 into the atmosphere. Global warming will continue, and winter air temperatures will get warmer and the ice will get weaker.
HOLMES: Weaker ice, less ice, one day, no ice for them? Our world is changing, and as it does, their world is disappearing.
REBECCA ALDWORTH, HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL: Everybody has an impact on this planet. Every one of us, and I think if we all felt we were part of this bigger ecosystem, that we might actually look at what we do every day. So we tell them the story, and then possibly these stories make an impact on some of their decision making and their behaviors.
But the propagandizing became more heavy handed as Holmes spoke with his GMA journalists. Michael Strahan lamented how their children might not get to see these harp seals in person because of climate change, he asked Holmes to share what he learned from this experience.
Holmes gushed about the importance of recycling:
I put the cardboard in this bin. The glass in this bin, and the cans, and recycling because I'm supposed to, but to see how decisions we're making directly impact and is taking away a world from an animal and to see that. I understood or see climate change in a way maybe a lot of people don't get to experience. We do the right thing because we’re supposed to. But to see it this way, strikes a different chord.
