WOW look at the SIZE of that seal! (photo added by Anthony, not NYT)
By SARAH PALIN
Published: January 5, 2008,
Juneau, Alaska
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.
To help ensure that polar bears are around for centuries to come, Alaska (about a fifth of the world’s 25,000 polar bears roam in and around the state) has conducted research and worked closely with the federal government to protect them. We have a ban on most hunting — only Alaska Native subsistence families can hunt polar bears — and measures to protect denning areas and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations worldwide.
This month, the secretary of the interior is expected to rule on whether polar bears should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts.
The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears’ habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The state takes very seriously its job of protecting polar bears and their habitat and is well aware of the problems caused by climate change. But we know our efforts will take more than protecting what we have — we must also learn what we don’t know. That’s why state biologists are studying the health of polar bear populations and their habitat.
As a result of these efforts, polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis.
We’re not against protecting plants and animals under the Endangered Species Act. Alaska has supported listings of other species, like the Aleutian Canada goose. The law worked as it should — under its protection the population of the geese rebounded so much that they were taken off the list of endangered and threatened species in 2001.
Listing the goose — then taking it off — was based on science. The possible listing of a healthy species like the polar bear would be based on uncertain modeling of possible effects. This is simply not justified.
What is justified is worldwide concern over the proven effects of climate change.
The Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned for the polar bear to be protected, wants the listing to force the government to either stop or severely limit any public or private action that produces, or even allows, the production of greenhouse gases. But the Endangered Species Act is not the correct tool to address climate change — the act itself actually prohibits any consideration of broader issues.
Such limits should be adopted through an open process in which environmental issues are weighed against economic and social needs, and where scientists debate and present information that policy makers need to make the best decisions.
Americans should become involved in the issue of climate change by offering suggestions for constructive action to their state governments. But listing the polar bear as threatened is the wrong way to get to the right answer.
“If they want to maintain tradition, then hunt with the tools used before modern technology came along.” Jeff Alberts
One of those tools was a curled-up sharpened whalebone tied with sinew and placed in some meat. When the bear ate the meat, the sinew would dissolve, and the bone spring open in the bears gut.
Nope, a 30-06 to the head is much less cruel. Perhaps game limits is the better way to go.
JA: Re. the Inuits. It’s moot. If you are going to allow a “way of life”, you can’t carve it in stone or dictate it from the outside. Either you allow the concept or you don’t and you “include” a group IN or you include it OUT.
It goes back to reservation status. I had an ancestor who walked the Trail of Tears and eventually left the reservation. (She had to reject the old ways and was not permitted back once having left.) But the point is that the reservations were autonomous and made their own rules.
I could come up with arguments for and arguments against the whole concept.
I’ll add that I agree that some of those “stone tools” could be pretty cruel by modern standards and sensibilities.
(The Canadians, IIRC, make the same allowances.)
P.S., I am now helping moderate posts; jeez is setting up regular schedules for me, him, and a couple of others, helping to take the load off the Rev. So keep it civil and clean, folks (which you have been doing pretty well).
I really don’t care if their way of life is allowed or not. I just think it’s silly. They wear modern clothing and use snowmobiles, and are somehow maintaining a “traditional lifestyle”. And if they’re so “in touch with nature” as we’re always told about “native peoples”, why would they hunt something that was endangered in the first place, like whales? We once had a rich tradition of whale hunting, but we stopped. Traditions which are destructive or counter-productive really should be abandoned.
Since endorsing Falwell’s Liberty U, McCain hasn’t had any sound judgement.
I’m not talking about cruelty, I’m talking about tradition, which is why they do it. Don’t use a 30-06 and call it tradition. They’re deluding themselves.
Lol, you ARE going to clean that up, right? 😉
[Sigh . . . My first act of BigBrotherhood. E]
He’s sound on taxes, sound on the war, and rapidly coming around on energy issues. Those are my big three considerations. I don’t happen to agree with him on a number of social issues. For me there is no perfect choice. Oh, well.
But I don’t think we should let the best be the enemy of the good. We need to consider the alternative.
The “in touch with nature” bit I never bought in the first place. And it’s not an issue of aesthetics. It’s autonomy, plain and simple. It has its good points and its bad points.
I’m not talking about cruelty, I’m talking about tradition, which is why they do it. Don’t use a 30-06 and call it tradition. They’re deluding themselves.
If they have autonomy, they can decide among themselves what is and is not traditional. (One might even argue that the Inuits would never have rejected such capabilities, if available, and to reject them would not have been traditional, in and of itself.)
I would venture to say that the use of rifles for over 100 years constitutes a tradition. As did using a whale bone harpoon for untold generations before they discovered (or more likely were introduced to) the rifle.
I would also say that living north of the arctic circle in insulted wood-frame houses for the last 80 or so years now constitutes their new tradition.
In a similar way we might think that driving a car is now the traditional mode for most of us to get to work. Different traditions might have held sway 100 years ago.
Jeff Alberts (20:51:07) :
“Since endorsing Falwell’s Liberty U, McCain hasn’t had any sound judgement.”
In the eye’s of the beholder.
Jeff, that’s what makes this country so great, everyone can use their individual voting right, as they wish, in accordance with their opinions/beliefs. Not so everywhere on this earth. Be thankful for your “right to live/vote here”. Please, just don’t “abuse it blindly”.
statePoet1775 (19:40:06) :
Since you publish poems,get corrections 🙂
yous said:
“I know they’re cute and cuddly
but this unwelcome fact:
if you meet a hungry polar bear
you’ll end up polar scat.”
Polar Bear
I know they’re cute and cuddly
but for this unwelcome fact:
if you meet a hungry bear
you’ll end up as polar scat.
Ah, so it’s a “new” tradition, for the sake of autonomy. Sorry, not buying it.
My argument would be that under the current rulings the Inuit get to decide. Is it an Inuit custom that bears be killed by method X or merely that they be hunted by most efficient means? Autonomy means autonomy. (I assume there are limits, but this does not seem to press heavily upon them.)
anna v (21:51:50): I loved it!
Had to laugh at this one. I had an English teacher HS in 1952, just like you! Of course, that was back when it was required to teach English in US public schools. “Go girl keep us honest”.
Re: statePoet1775 (19:40:06): ” Poet she got you!”
Go Sarah!!!!
When a native and an endangered species, somewhere in America a liberal’s head explodes.
Bears: Not tinned food again!
Are you people dense. Sarah Palin just wnats to keep the polar bear off the list so she can drill for oil in ANWR You people need to wake up and see that the Oil men in the white house are robbing this country for everything we have and they have turned Mccain and now Sarah Palin is there pick to open up Alaska for Trillions of dollars in profits to the Oil companies and more money for Bush, Chaney and now Mccain and Palin WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!
Don’t be so dense wake up sake up wake up wake up
I can’t believe how dumb we as Americans have become.
Another interesting note –
Palin’s father was a science teacher back in the day when science was actually taught in the school systems.
The more I read about Palin, the more I like –
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/sarah_palin_vp/2008/08/29/126139.html
Speaking of energy, how much oil and gas does America really have?
We have billions and billions of barrels of oil and trillions of feet of natural gas. We have so much potential from tapping our resources here in Alaska. And we can do this with minimum environmental impact. We have a very pro-development president in President Bush, and yet he failed to push for opening up parts of Alaska to drilling through Congress — and a Republican-controlled Congress, I might add.
I thought when we hit $100 a barrel for oil it would have been a psychological barrier that would have caused Congress to reconsider, but they didn’t. Now we are approaching $200 a barrel. It’s nonsense not to tap a safe domestic source of oil. I think Americans need to hold Congress accountable on this one.
What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?
A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.
Jim (01:20:29)
No jim it’s [snip] robbing this country by not allowing for real energy policy as $700,000,000,00 / year of our tax based flows to other governments.
So you would put the polar bear on the endanger list reguardless of the science just to stop oil production? The end justifies the means. [This gives] science and enviromentalist a bad name.
[REPLY: Now, now, be nice! E.]
anna v and buck036,
poetic license of course.
Jim
You’re speaking for yourself, right? Because you’re certainly not speaking for me, or for most Americans.
I lay the blame for $4/gal gas, rolling blackouts [we just had one yesterday in Northern California], high utility bills, dependence on foreign oil, etc., etc., directly at the feet of the environmental lobbyists and their string puppets in Congress. These problems are their doing.
How is it ‘robbing this country’ to use our own resources instead of funneling $trillions into the Middle East, Venezuela, etc.? Can you explain that?
I did enjoy your comments, though. They reek of desperation. When the Left starts screeching about polar bears and a woman with some common sense, to me that is a Good Thing.
My advice: take an aspirin and lie down. Everything is going to be OK.
Jim:”Are you people dense. Sarah Palin just wnats to keep the polar bear off the list so she can drill for oil in ANWR You people need to wake up and see that the Oil men in the white house are robbing this country for everything we have and they have turned Mccain and now Sarah Palin is there pick to open up Alaska for Trillions of dollars in profits to the Oil companies and more money for Bush, Chaney and now Mccain and Palin WAKE UP PEOPLE!!!”
Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy…
Are you aware that Palin has established a trust fund from oil tax profits that goes back to each and every Alaskan each year? You need to do some open minded research on her instead of trumpeting old and tired far left BS.
Once a species gets listed on the Endangered Species list all kind of government control takes over. We have similar issues here in Florida with the Gopher Tortoise and the Scrub Jay. They have acutally considered restrictions on any land that MIGHT be able to sustain either of these animals. Their greed for control never stops. If you hate Washington so much, why would you want them to control more things?
Dee Norris: ” Now we are approaching $200 a barrel”
Did i miss the morning news? When has oil ever approached $200 per barrel?
As I predicted, as soon as the government simply started seriously talking about drilling, the day trader investors left the market and the price came down. Now they are coming back in as it looks like liberals may stay in control of things.
anna v, buck036
I left those words out for the sake of the meter. But notice that you got the meaning anyway after a little thought 🙂
Thanks for the feedback.