... who needs sea ice and polar bears anyway.
Eh ... 10
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Posted 4:44 PM on 9 Sep 2007
by David Roberts -
Posted in
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David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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Biodiversivist Posted 9:41 am
09 Sep 2007
Only people matter and we will find ways to stay housed and fed even with half of our biodiversity gone.
People are not all that matter. Action to end the extinction event should be on an equal footing with poverty reduction.
I'm in the second camp. My position is that conservation NGOs are in the business of protecting biodiversity and those who are in the business of poverty reduction should work with them. The conservation NGOs should not be saddled with both extinction prevention and poverty reduction.
It just so happens that saving carbon sinks would account for about 20% of our global emissions so conservation should be one of the biggest players in the game right now.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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caniscandida Posted 9:50 am
09 Sep 2007
It is not clear to me, just what effect listing polar bears as threatened or endangered will have. What would be the consequences? And would they in any case be restricted to the territory and citizens of the US?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Andrew Wetzler Posted 11:23 am
09 Sep 2007
Listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act would:
First, make it a federal crime to "take" (that is, kill, injure or harm) a polar bear;
Second, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be required to designate "critical habitat" for the polar bear (critical habitat is habitat essential for the recovery of the bear);
Third, listing would require all federal agencies to refrain from taking any actions (such as issuing federal permits) that would either "jeopardize the continued existence" of the polar bear or result the in the destruction of its "critical habitat.
Finally, the Act would require the Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare a "recovery plan" for the bear. That plan, of course, would have to address the main threat to polar bears--i.e., global warming.
For more about the polar bear and this most recent report, see my blog post at:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/awetzler/grim_news_and_ ...
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:02 pm
09 Sep 2007
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0907/p03s03-usgn.html
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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spaceshaper Posted 3:08 pm
09 Sep 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 5:33 pm
09 Sep 2007
One cannot help noticing that the Alaskan population, presumably the only one that would be immediately affected by listing the polar bear as threatened, represents but a small fraction of the whole species.
(I say "presumably"; but it is possible that by listing the polar bear, trophy hunters and merchants, whether American or from anywhere else, would no longer be permitted to enter the US with body parts of bears killed in, say, Nunavut.)
It seems clear enough that the designation of "critical habitat" will be good not only for the bears but for other members of their ecosystems, both plants and animals. E.g., if the coastal plain of ANWR, and the offshore waters, become much more secure from petroleum drilling than they are at present, all for the sake of the polar bears, that would be a good thing for a large number of organisms. And the same would be true for the corals discussed in the Christian Science Monitor article to which BioD has sent the link.
But it is still not quite clear whether the designation of a "critical habitat," and the preparation of a "recovery plan," will be enough of a legal weapon with which to impose strict regulations on GHG emissions on a broad scale. As the CSM article says, judges would probably not be ready just yet to prohibit the construction of a coal-fueled power plant in the Midwest, on the grounds that global warming is killing corals off of Florida.
Anyway, even if we meet with one legal victory after another, and the ESA becomes the best friend of biodiversity in history, nevertheless there are pessimists, bear experts who have already consigned the polar bears to extinction, regardless of what we do right now. If, as we are told, the GHGs, especially CO2, hang around in the atmosphere for a long time, then it is already too late, say the pessimists, just as by the time the helmsman of the Titanic caught sight of the fatal iceberg late on April 14th, 1912, it was already too late to steer that huge, swift-sailing vessel out of danger.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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SMLowry Posted 9:30 am
10 Sep 2007
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NonprofitWatch Posted 4:01 am
11 Sep 2007
according to a quote in this article which highlights the logging and agricultural pressures in Brazil.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/08/3710/
bernardo issel - http://www.NonprofitWatch.org -
bernardo (at) NonprofitWatch.org
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:24 am
11 Sep 2007
http://greyfalcon.net/fish
http://greyfalcon.net/fish2
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:26 am
11 Sep 2007
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