Big Oil and Other Interest Groups Join McCain VP Palin's Lawsuit to Reverse Polar Bear Listing
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 08.31.08
Image from mape_s
After getting past the initial shock of hearing about John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, I quickly honed in on two particularly salient aspects of her environmental views: her belief that climate change is not man-made and her opposition to the polar bear's listing as a threatened species. Now while I may not yet know much about Palin's overall record in office (what little there is), I thought these positions were telling -- especially given the McCain campaign's strenuous efforts to play up its candidate's environmental bona fides.
Which is why I'm sure the McCain campaign won't be too thrilled with the news that the American Petroleum Institute (gee, what a surprise) and several other industry groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers (yup, these guys) and the National Mining Association, are joining the Palin administration's efforts to overturn the polar bear listing, as the WaPo's Kari Lydersen reports.
Polar bears are doing just fine, thank you very much
Palin's team and the industry groups have complained that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision to list the polar bear would create an "Alaska Gap" by only subjecting the state's businesses to onerous greenhouse gas limits. Other states would be able to skirt such controls since they wouldn't have to make conservation a priority. A fair contention, perhaps, but this is where the lawsuit's argument really breaks down:
On Aug. 4, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit opposing the polar bear's listing, arguing that their populations as a whole are stable and that melting sea ice does not pose an imminent threat to their survival. The suit says polar bears have survived warming periods in the past.
Lawsuit seeks to reverse decision by Bush administration
It's one thing to argue that the listing would impose burdensome regulations on your state; it's quite another to argue that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, polar bear populations are not being harmed by climate change and that they have survived such incidents in the past. The important thing to remember here is that the decision would only list the polar bear as a threatened species (not endangered), and that it is being proposed by the Bush administration.
The easiest way to circumvent all this legal tussling would be for the federal government to actually impose greenhouse gas emission limits nationwide -- or, at the very least, allow individual states to do so themselves -- effectively negating the industry groups' argument that the listing would unfairly target Alaska. Of course we all know what the likelihood of that ever happening is.
Via ::The Washington Post: Oil Group Joins Alaska in Suing To Overturn Polar Bear Protection (news website)
More about polar bears
::US Department of Interior Lists Polar Bear As Threatened
::Follow the Ice and Save the Polar Bears
::The Next Polar Bear: Pacific Walrus
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The Flat Earth Society is based in Alaska also so perhaps this isn't so surprising. I wonder if she's sympathetic to their cause as well.
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm
Palin is not pro-science.
I'm so sick of oily republicans; the earth really cannot sustain another term of them.
Please, America give the rest of the world a change...
If it is bad for:
the environment, poor people, women, minorities, the middle class, animals, non organised religions, native Americans.
The GOP is for it.
So please not another "4 more years"
Bears: The #1 Threat To America
I understand Republicans are blamed for a lot of the environmental problems. However, I also know a lot of Democrats talk the talk but do not walk the walk. Is there any way Treehugger can do a report on the candidates and their VPs environmental records? Does any one know if there is one out there that is not biased to blaming the Republicans for everything? I am neither Republican nor Democrat but this next administration, no matter who it is, has a BIG mess to clean up on many levels. I'd like information about the environment on all of them.
This is S.O.P. for these guys. Witness the Coal industry's skirting of the New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act.
Anybody who thinks Bush isn't going to go out swinging isn't paying attention. He's free of all reelection considerations, so he'll be on a go-for-broke sprint to the finish. I truly believe these are crimes against humanity.
The repair of the damages done by this administration will take decades, if they're possible at all.
If the Republicans retain the White House, I'm seriously considering emigration. It's too hard to be this ashamed of my country.
She's also a creationist supporter, if not one herself. She's not exactly a bastion of rational thought.
This really upsets me. Is there any need for them to do that? No. To go threw the all that effort.
Opps! Better watch out I am so wise. Your ignorance is showing! There are many creationists that believe it is a "God- given" job to take care of the Earth, and they take clean air and animal rights very seriously - even if they are social republicans. Rational thought would say to not shoot down a fast growing number of passionate treehuggers by calling them ignorant!
Although a Democrat I prefer not to partake in GOP bashing. I don't think that this article is Republican bashing of any sort- but it is bringing to light a terrible reality of the danger ahead of us if McCain and Palin are elected.
Here is another take.
I live in Alaska
- it IS NOT just a big park, actual people live here - ones that want to work.
Demanding that Alaska bear (yes, it is a pun) the entire cost of misguided GW ...eerrr.. let's just call it hysteria- is hardly fair. Polar bear populations have actually grown in the Alaska area over the last 5 decades - so much so that Canada now allows the hunting (and killing) of the bears.
Just as the nonsense about caribou birth rates being damaged by the TAPS system turned out to be so much rubbish, so will this.
Much of what has been presented as fact is anything but.
I only live and work in Alaska, perhaps the view is better from fat-cat, big bucks 'environmental' NY or Washington DC offices - but I doubt it.
Saving the Earth (and ourselves) is bigger than politics - if only Al Gore didn't make for such a terrible example, more people might receive his message
Peace, out
Doesn't her husband Todd Palin work for BP, or at least up until recently (December I think I read), resigning because of 'conflict of interest' ? Sounds to me like oil is a personal cash cow for the Palin family. If this is an obvious and blind statement, please correct me!
It is frightening to think that ANYONE (democrat, republican, independent...) would pick someone as inexperienced as Palin. Her ignorance in such basic issues is embarrassing. The fact that McCain picked her as a running mate shows extreme bad judgment on his part. I hope this country has enough rational people to prevent this ignorant "team" from even getting close to getting elected. This is not a political issue, it is about the future of our environment and the quality of life for our children and our children's children. We humans have been "elected" to be the caretakers of this earth.
If the earth starts to warm up we put polar bears on the threatened species list. Does that mean that we should put the humans on the threatened list if the earth enters an ice age?
I don't think anyone here knows anything about Palin except the person that commented from Alaska. I will admit that I didn't know anything about her either till I did my research. I know one thing. A lot of dirty politicians who are inbedded in the white house better watch out. She isn't popular in Alaska for her looks. Thats for sure. She cleaned out several of the politicians that were taking kick backs and bribes from oil companies. Most of those dirty politicians were Republican.
polar bear population has had a major increase since the '70's. Too bad the truth doesn't support your "do it for the poor animals" beleifs.
An Anti Sara Palin Evolutionary Antidote to Mindless Evangelical Babbling:
Evangelicals have been denying evolution with the greatest vigor especially since the turn of the 21st Century and the arrival of George Bush on the scene. Now, so tightly intertwined with the Republican Party as to be indistinguishable from them as evidenced by the hoopla and shouting and talking in tongues up in Minnesota, they are denying all truth to a degree that should be alarming to any thinking person. Join with us in considering a new ideology that is neither conservative nor liberal but is based on the straight scientific truth of evolution put together with mathematical precision and clarity. Now is the time when America must make its stand against these lunatic, double talking, control mad, war mongering fascists who want to enslave the country and conquer the world for God, up to and including waging nuclear war to satisfy His Divine will in their suicidally juvenile and unhappiness driven desire to all die and go to Heaven, and take us with them. Are you on the hit list to be activated the minute McCain wins the election?
Mrs. Ruth and Dr. Peter V. Calabria
www.matrix-evolutions.com
The ignorance on display on this website is staggering and frightening. First, polar bears are no where near endangered. Their numbers are far greater now than any other time in history. And, it blows my mind so many are willing to believe the 2000 u.n. scientists whose funding will be cut if they denounce 'global warming' (which was switched to 'climate change' after the Earth was found to be cooling), but not the 31000 scientists who came out in an untelevised (surprise) press conference in early summer to put on display unbiased science proving 'global warming' was b.s. I'm sure my comments will not appear on this site because I have an opinion on our environment based in fact. It bothers me those who only believe what they are told are trying to cool the planet when it already is cooling. The projects being proposed to cool the earth will do something terrible, and potentially ruin the earth. Ignorance is dangerous and could (and has) killed a lot of people.
joe: i think you are an idiot. And I will prove my point.
one)
Polar Bears ARE an endangered species. It's a fact, not a question of belief (like, for example, my belief that you are an idiot...I may be right, I may be wrong). Anyhow! Polar bears are, I quote: "classified as a vulnerable species." This means that the animal may be in danger of becoming extinct, unless threats disappear ASAP. They [polar bears] were NOT classified by the UN, but by the IUCN, standing for "International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources." The IUCN also happens to be an international organization therefore it is NON-governmental, hence, it does not receive any funding or support from the government. Humans by nature are greedy and if it weren't for these organizations, our world (without a doubt) would (and perhaps will) be driven to the ground by selfish/self-ignorant people. Many people like them tend to keep themselves bliss with ignorance fed by religion. Sorry if this insults anyone, but I was raised in a Catholic household, and anything related to expression that one way or another went against the books (by this I mean a stalk of different-year-published Bibles), was immediately criticized; I felt like I wasn't allowed to think for myself, so I left that fanatic way of thought and caught up with science and what my self felt was right. Helping people, animals, nature.
two) Global Warming is also a fact. It is happening right now and human being are a mayor cause of the temperature elevation. Don't believe me? This is what wikipedia says (and yes, I believe it): "Since 1979, land temperatures have increased about twice as fast as ocean temperatures (0.25 °C per decade against 0.13 °C per decade).[55] Temperatures in the lower troposphere have increased between 0.12 and 0.22 °C (0.22 and 0.4 °F) per decade since 1979, according to satellite temperature measurements. Temperature is believed to have been relatively stable over the one or two thousand years before 1850, with possibly regional fluctuations such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age." And if this doesn't change your mind well I suggest you do some research.
In conclusion)
When you say that you are afraid because you see so much ignorance displayed on this website, I say (in the first place): what a moron, you KNOW what tree huger is, you therefore must know how people who must think. And if you visit this website only to criticize people who think just the opposite way you think, then I believe you should get a better past time.