If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
More than two-thirds of these amazing animals, including all the polar bears in Alaska, will likely be gone by 2050. So it boggles the mind that the Obama administration announced plans to reissue a Bush-era regulation that limits protections for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.
But there was one thing missing from the final installment of Frozen Planet: in 45 minutes, not a word was uttered about why all that Arctic ice is melting. Discovery has admitted to wanting to avoid criticism from climate change deniers.
To the Arctic is a celebration of Arctic life in its many resilient forms with intimate glimpses of our fellow mammals -- polar bears, foxes, walruses, caribou and others who share with humans a common need for water, warmth, food, shelter -- and protection from predators.
The reasons not to drill just keep mounting -- and the reasons to drill? Well, there seems to be just one, and I can't say it in politically correct company. I can give you a hint: Republican rhetoric and the 2012 presidential election.
Shell is suing 12 environmental organizations to preempt legal challenges to exploration in the Arctic Ocean. It's a bully image that can only hurt, and Shell should know better because it's happened to them over and over again.
Cameras click as twenty feet from our polar rover, two yellowish polar bears stand on their hind legs, swatting each others shoulders and heads. Tough boxers.
Should we believe the industry that brought us Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon that oil blowouts can be contained and controlled in the frigid oceans of the arctic?
Polar bears fasting on land lose about two pounds per day, and it's not clear how much longer it will be before the ice freezes and bears here can go back out onto the ice to hunt seals.
It all really boils down to a simple equation: sea ice + seals on the sea ice = healthy polar bear populations. Take away the ice and polar bears can't hunt seals and their populations decline.
Thanks to a farsighted decision by a US federal judge, polar bears will continue to have protections from unnecessary killing by trophy-hungry American hunters.
We have to demand more and fight at every turn to make sure President Obama secures a future for the polar bear -- the largest and most magnificent bear on the planet -- rather than simply write it off as a casualty of a crisis we could have controlled.
We've got to get national leaders off the dime. Here's one way: When city leaders speak out, especially in large numbers, Washington tends to listen.
Longtime polar bear researcher Dr. Charles Monnett may be back at work after being sidelined earlier this year, but his life at a federal offshore oil agency isn't the same.
At 17, Parker Liautaud has already walked to the North Pole. Twice. And that's not all. He's also a motivational speaker and an environmental campaigner.
