evidence: One victim of this change are polar bears, who spend less time on sea ice, leading them to fast for longer, become thinner and have fewer cubs. But Michael Pritchard, a photo-historian at the Royal Photographic Society in the UK, warns that taking shocking polar bear photos at face value can be "problematic." [...] "When scientists say polar bears are going to starve to death in the Arctic because of the loss of sea ice, this is what it's going to look like," she says. "[Polar bears] are not just a number on a spreadsheet. We were hoping that was going to have an impact on the conversation." [...] Although polar bears may have once been shorthand for climate change, experts have argued they have lost their value as climate symbols – misrepresenting an entire species and distancing the immediate threat of climate disaster.