Sarah Palin Vs. Polar Bears: "Adding Them To The [Endangered Species] List Is The Wrong Move"

NY Times :

ABOUT the closest most Americans will ever get to a polar bear are those cute, cuddly animated images that smiled at us while dancing around, pitching soft drinks on TV and movie screens this holiday season.

This is unfortunate, because polar bears are magnificent animals, not cartoon characters. They are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation's list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts.

Read the whole story: NY Times

Comments

[Philidor]

08:58 AM on 09/08/2008

http://www.brightcecilia.com/pictures/watchforpalin.jpg

[mjc]

10:51 AM on 09/02/2008

Having read through most of the posts on this blog, think the animals which should be put on the endangered species is us: homo sapiens. Sad commentary about our society to have people with some education here just toss species like bears and wolves aside, simply because they don't provide any monetary reward and get in the way of OIL!

[christabor]

02:37 PM on 09/04/2008

What moral certainty when it comes to the polar bear. The Polar Bear deserve our care and compasion because they were created by God. We should protect the eagle's egg. Now can we show some love and compasion for the human fetus.

[saltysea]

02:48 AM on 08/31/2008

Here's a nice recent article about how it is also affecting the economy. there is no 2008 ipcc report, but there is a recent report from a different group of scientists on ice melting faster. anyway, here's one on what the locals see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/28/AR2008082803489.html

[saltysea]

01:46 AM on 08/31/2008

sorry about that. that's the link to the 2007 report. i'll post the 2008 one as soon as i find it.

[saltysea]

12:43 AM on 08/31/2008

Here is a link to a post on HuffPo, which has a link to the report.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-romm/must-read-ipcc-report-de_b_73416.html

The report:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

[saltysea]

12:31 AM on 08/31/2008

Yes, it is already happening. The Nature series on PBS showed carcasses floated by the shore. Mothers & cubs are being swept out into the open sea on floes of ice. Many are drowning & starving. Drowning is a terribly painful way to go; starving is also agonizing. This time we have gone too far.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-433170/Global-warming-sees-polar-bears-stranded-melting-ice.html

[LarBear]

11:15 PM on 08/30/2008

Let's ponder this... There is, let's say, possible Global Warming... If correct, that Global Warming has a tipping point, after which that Warming accelerates with little to be done to modify that... Current models and observation input into those Models, say that tipping point in time is very near... And, the consequences to all Life is disastrous...
Others argue there is no Global Warming... This is a "Natural Cycle"...
By acting as though Global Warming is a Fact, we may be able to not reach that tipping point... To NOT act is to ignore a possible approaching disaster for all Life... And, if Global Warming does not exist, we have cut our pollution, have a cleaner environment, new technology, new jobs... (Denmark just outsourced 1350 jobs to Windsor Colorado)
"DENVER—Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Wind Systems said Friday it will build two more plants in Colorado and bring a total of 1,350 more jobs to the state.
The factories, both planned 15 miles northeast of Denver in Brighton, would be the Denmark-based company's third and fourth facilities in the state and would eventually bring its Colorado work force to 2,450.
One of the Brighton plants will manufacture wind turbine blades and have 650 employees. The other will manufacture nacelles, the turbine housings that include the generator, transformer and gearbox. It will have 700 employees."
So my choice IS possibly being "Dead wrong" (NO Warming) or, Intelligently better off and alive... DECISIONS!

[christabor]

10:57 PM on 08/30/2008

Abortion is just another issue that proves Democrates will suspend all logic in order to satisfy their own SELFISH DESIRES. Its all about them. Me Me Me. I'm God. I have a right to choose if the "Fetus" lives or dies. Me Me Me. As a child of the monkey and a product of the "Big Bang" I'VE BEEN ENDOWED WITH ONE RIGHT I KNOW AND THAT IS """"""THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE." The only othe Moral Certainty and Virtue is "Tolorance." When the liberal Messiah layed down the 10 Commandments those were obviously the top two. Oh what faith they demostrate in this God they've made with their own hands.

[4gloria]

10:04 PM on 08/30/2008

I wonder if the 9 polar bears at risk of drowning this very moment because they have 400 miles to swim will be available to welcome Palin back home after her current jaunt.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/30/eapolar130.xml

[mont0307]

09:24 PM on 08/30/2008

Her argument is that putting them on the list not justified: because the research is based on POSSIBLE effects...not current statistics, or "they aren't dying enough yet."

This is not a strong enough reason for a governor to write an NY Times Op-Ed disagreeing.

I'm thinking putting the bears on the list, would add regulations to the oil companies in the protected areas, having them limit greenhouse gas emissions - which would cost them money :(

So Palin/Oil Industry trumps Polar Bear/Enviroment. Or what she is really saying is (bluntly) "Lets wait till they start dying off to the levels that would permit putting them on the list, so we don't have to strain the Oil Industry, thus lowering the Alaska GDP.

Capitalism / Palin / Oil: 1 Humanity / Polar Bear: 0

[saltysea]

12:17 AM on 08/31/2008

and by then we'll be entrenched; we have so many leases sold offshore right now it's not funny, to anyone but us right wingers, that is.

[wxman]

04:44 PM on 09/04/2008

Record loss of Ice as of 9/2. Polar bear caracasses stench all over the place on the north shore and back north of Russia and Greenland. big piece of Greenland - Petersons glacier about break off and fall into the ocean - this folks is not ice flotating already in water - if it goes it's massive tidal wave with instantaneus results of a few inches sea rise - the friggin world over and it might happen befoe the elction one can only hope.

Hanna, Ike cat.4 josephine, Kyle and laura possible google it.

[notepad2]

04:02 PM on 08/30/2008

I love watching the lefts total meltdown

[Shacked]

04:14 PM on 08/30/2008

Those little ones make nice coats, the fur is still nice and soft, and being small, they are not so hard to skin. By the way, if you have never had a polar bear burger, you just don't know what you are missing. A little medium rare, heavy on the pepper and salt with lots of onions and swiss cheese, damn I am getting hungry, might have to pull some Bambi burgers out of the freezer. Scoped my rifle in this afternoon, ready to go.

[Shacked]

04:16 PM on 08/30/2008

Man you just can't beat young polar bear burgers.

[nunzia]

04:46 PM on 08/30/2008

lookee here, another 12 year old heard from.

[danoj]

04:49 PM on 08/30/2008

That's because the young ones are more tender.

[batguano]

03:50 PM on 08/30/2008

Beside fighting to keep polar bears off the Endangered Species List as their home ice melts under their paws, Sarah Palin also re-introduced bounty on wolves (bring in a wolf foreleg and get $150!) & promotes aerial "hunting" of wolves, wolverines & bears; chase the animal from a plane or helicopter until they are exhausted (torture), then shoot them. Acts of extreme cowardice, cruelty & depravity IMO. Is that the kind of person we want as VP or Prez? Great pick John; just what America needs.


Add to Gov Palins disregard for the lives & pain of wild animals ( or the views of wildlife bioligists -only pro-hunting groups had access) her support for drilling in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She is a tool of big oil, just like Cheney & Bush, & her arguments are just as deceitful.

This candidate has been a disaster for the lives of wild animals & will just as surely be a disaster for America. She is in the pocket of big oil & "hunting" interests, like Safari International who funded pro aerial killing adds in the recent vote on continued wolf killing. By this pick McCain thumbs his nose at the environment & wildlife, & gives the nod to more of the same big oil profits & business as usual. Great pick John!


http://www.akwildlife.org/content/view/105/

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2007/03_21_2007_defenders_condemns_gov._palins_decision_offering_bounties_for_wolves.php

http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html

[AmericaninProtest]

03:27 PM on 08/30/2008

You do know, this is part of their economic policy.

[edva]

03:22 PM on 08/30/2008

As the most dominant species on this planet, we have a sacred duty to protect what has taken nature billions of years to bring forth - the intertwined web of Life that, as far as we know, may only exist on the fragile, five-mile-thin bubble we call our Ecosystem. We MUST stop killing Animal beings for our pleasure and profit, and we MUST stop our greed-driven, wanton destruction of their and our environment, or we will be destroyed by our own immoral depravity.

[LarBear]

11:40 PM on 08/30/2008

edva....
Based on Agro Chemical grown and highly unaturally processed food we raise and eat... Add a Multi Billion $ Medical Pharmaceutical INDUSTRY $...

Well.... NO! Wrong word..... Sickly, we have yet to grasp we ARE this Nature you speak of......

We are so Schooled, Religioned and Socially entrained to believe Nature is a hostile thing outside us, to be feared, and exploited, most do NOT grasp that...

[FogBelter]

03:15 PM on 08/30/2008

I'm sure she would love to blast a polar bear cub with an AK47.

Theodore Roosevelt she ain't.

[bluesnot]

03:22 PM on 08/30/2008

I don't Teddy would have felt too good about the aerial hunting. I can't get that video out of my head of the guy in the plane shooting the wolf.

What happened to hunting as a sport?

[strandwolf]

04:07 PM on 08/30/2008

Well, they consider that to be 'sport', sorry to say.

[scouserinlondon]

04:17 PM on 08/30/2008

It appears that she "cannot wait to shoot her first wolf"
Class.Pure class.