The polar bear was today recognized by the Bush administration as a “threatened” species. This means that, under the Endangered Species Act, the majestic, apex predator of the Arctic is just one step away from endangered and two steps away from extinction.
Indeed, scientists are concerned. But the Bush administration doesn’t give a fuck about scientists. Nor do they give a fuck about you, your kids or your kid’s kids. That’s why there’s this little addendum:
A threatened listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is supposed to provide broad protection to polar bears. Greenpeace, however, noted an exemption (technically known as a 4d exemption) for global warming pollution contained in the ruling.
“Global warming is the biggest threat facing polar bears and this exemption eliminates any real protection the listing could have provided,” the group said. “It specifically says federal agencies don’t need to consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear.
“This might look like a listing to protect the polar bear but it’s really just a way for the administration to protect the interests of the oil and gas industry, as well as get away without taking action on global warming.”
Editor
This is just sad. Polar bears aren’t anywhere near civilization and yet they pay the price for our stupidity.
I think PETA should go up there and help the polar bears. Then hopefully they’ll freeze or get eaten.
Here’s a question for all of you:
Al Gore was VP for 8 years. How come he never didn’t anything about Global Warming then?
because he was inventing “the information superhighway” RutRoe
I get tired of people kicking Gore around for ‘inventing the internet’. He never said he invented it. What he said was, “I took the initiative in creating the internet.” And he did, if you bother to actually look at his record instead of just spewing out the right wing babble you would see the truth from the fiction. Don’t believe me?
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
http://www.sethf.com/gore/
http://web.archive.org/web/200.....01,00.html
Polar bears have been designated as an Appendix I species on the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (”CITES”) for a long time. That means you can’t lawfully trade polar bears, or parts thereof.
kate: actually polar bears do live near civilization. In Canada, polar bears live near in Churchill, Manitoba and towns in the Yukon. So they do come into contact with people. Whether that is because they are in search of food or because people are encroaching on their habitat, I don’t know. Even if bears do live near people, that is not a reason to kill them. Unfortunately, in B.C. when a bear hangs out in a populated area, that is sometimes the reason they are killed.
Did anyone read the article in the LA times 5/11 in the opinion section? If we do not stop our bullshit in THREE years, it will all be over. I personally am glad we will be extinct, being we are mostly such useless egotistical, shallow assholes. But, I bet some of the more caring parents are wondering about their choice to give birth. Ah- hope, it is so endearing, yet futile.
We’re doomed.
Holy shit RutRoe I was being sarcastic. Take a chill pill (as my mother would say). I am completely aware that Gore didn’t say that and I know he’s joked about it on the late night talk show circuts. christ you noob. right wing babble? Are you bi-polar?
Actually Maria, I believe your ire is directed at me and not RutRo. I’ll take my own heat and not let it be passed on to another. I’m assuming you wrote their name by mistake.
I wrote that comment after taking part in a rather heated political debate on another site. Had I waited awhile before I posted here I might have left your comment alone. I offer my apology for offending you.
It’s a bit of a hot button issue for me. I find it appalling that the very people who gain so much from the internet has the audacity to try and tare down one of the people who helped establish one of the last places of free speech.
I go back to the early day of the internet. I remember the days when their was more message boards than porn sites. I refute you noob assertion, if anything I’m more old school. As to being bi-polar, I’ll get back to you if I ever get a job with health insurance again.