{"article":{"id":220031,"heading":"Palin is Perfect Match 4 John "Drill here & NOW!" McCain","author":"Sarah Palin in pocket of Big Oil","created":"2008-08-31 16:42:03","modified":"2013-11-11 00:54:14","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:54:14","article":"

When John McCain says, \"Drill NOW! Drill HERE! DRILL EVERYWHERE! VROOM! VROOM!\" it seems that Ms. Sarah Palin is the perfect woman for this job..



\"The top 11 things you should know about Sarah Palin:



1) She is presently under investigation in Alaska for abuse of power

2) She strongly supports big oil (her husband works for oil company BP)

3) She stands for everything that Hillary Clinton stood against

4) She is adamantly opposed to reproductive rights for women

5) She has no federal or international experience. Prior to being governor (for less than two years) she was only the mayor of a small town and a beauty queen!

6) She believes global warming is a farce and is opposed to listing the polar bear as an endangered species

7) She believes creationism should be taught in public schools

8) She supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and anywhere else big oil wants

9) She supports Pebble Mine which will destroy the richest salmon run in the world

10) She supports aerial shooting of bears and wolves in Alaska

11) She is pro-war



Sarah Palin is being investigated for abuse of power (7\/08) after she fired the Dept. of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. Palin pressured Monegan to fire her sister's ex husband who is a state trooper. When Commissioner Monegan refused, Palin fired him. Click here and here and here to read the news about Palin's corruption.



Sarah Palin - worse for the environment than even Bush and McCain



(Anchorage Daily News, September 2007)



Sarah Palin supports development of the Pebble Mine - the largest open pit mine in North America. Pebble mine jeapordizes the entire Bristol bay ecosystem which contains the largest sockeye salmon run in the world. The mine would pollute an unprecidented number or rivers, lakes, and bays. Although Palin claims that the mine would create jobs for Alaskans, it will effectively destroy the commercial and sport fishing industry in Bristol Bay - the main source of income for Alaskans in Bristol bay. Pebble Mine's potential for pollution would make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look like a tiny grease stain. Click here to watch the NY Times video story about the environmental destruction this mine would create.

Sarah Palin sues the federal government over listing polar bears as a threatened species. Why? Because it could restrict the oil industry that fills her pockets. This is the same reason she wants to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. Read Governor Palin's ignorant op-ed piece here.

Sarah Palin spent $400,000 of state money to \"educate\" Alaskans about aerial hunting of wolves and bears. State tax money was used to directly influence the outcome of proposition 2 which would have limited aerial shooting of predators. Since Alaskans had previously voted twice to ban aerial shooting of predators, Palin used state tax money to buy support for aerial shooting. Proposition two was voted down on 8\/26\/08.

Read more about Governor Palin's \"predator control\" policies and the use of state money to slaughter bears and wolves.

Sarah Palin for Vice-President of the United States?

I'm pretty shocked to hear that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. I thought that given the fact that she is being investigated for abuse of power, that she was out of the running. Obviously McCain is trying to court the women's vote.

Sarah Palin is as bad for women's rights as Bush and McCain combined. She is an ultra conservative politician dedicated to destroying the Alaskan ecosystem in the name of oil exploration and outdated wildlife management policy. Palin has no federal or international experience. Prior to being appointed governor, Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, AK - a town of only 5,469! Her main \"experience\" before entering public office was holding the title of beauty queen in Wasilla!

Don't be fooled by her young age - Palin works side by side with the oil industry. I'm guessing that's why she was really chosen - since the present administration is clearly controlled and driven by oil money. Palin's policy record reflects someone who consistently destroys the environment, jeapordizes the commercial and sport fishing industry in Alaska, and actively cripples the booming bear viewing business in Alaska.



Sarah Palin's wildlife policies reflect junk science and cripple the eco-tourism industry

I think its obvious from the pictures above how Alaska Governor Sarah Palin feels about wildlife conservation. Like many Alaskans, Palin believes that bears – and all Alaskan wildlife, exist for the sole purpose of serving humans. Sarah Palin, and the Alaska Board of Game whose members make decisions about most wildlife, are actively trying to cripple the bear viewing\/eco-tourism industry in Alaska. This photograph (left) was published in the Anchorage Daily News amidst great controversy over the hunting of habituated bears around Katmai National Park and the McNeil River Sanctuary. Several weeks before the controversial Katmai Preserve hunt, Palin posed deliberately next to a dead bear to a make a point – that she will do everything in her power to make sure bears and other wildlife are mercilessly shot for pleasure in Alaska. Palin supports the aerial hunting of wolves and bears, and even spent $400,000 of state money to fund a media campaign to try and convince Alaskans to support aerial shooting (even though Alaskans have voted against it, twice!). In the past two years, bears habituated to bear viewing have reportedly been shot at bear viewing sites around the state – as a statement to bear advocates that Alaska is about shooting animals, not understanding them.

The Alaskan government consistently ignores decades of scientific research that has proven that predators actually keep prey populations healthy. The Alaskan government is wiping out entire populations of predators -using cruel practices such as baiting, trapping, and aerial shooting, in the name of boosting dwindling moose populations. This is just plain ignorant, since biologists have known since the 60’s that wolves and bears do not negatively impact prey species such as moose and caribou. Anyone who has taken ecology or biology 101 knows this is established fact. What is threatening moose and other prey species is over hunting by humans, and a large number of yearly road-kill fatalities. The impact of habitat destruction, climate change, and a decrease in predation also contributes.

If you find Sarah Palin as ignorant and offensive as I do, LET HER KNOW. The majority of people who visit Alaska do not support sport hunting and the destruction of wildlife! Most tourists come to Alaska to view wildlife, not to slaughter it. The best hope for Alaskan wildlife is for the tourists who fund the economy to make their wishes known loud and clear – that they do not support archaic policies which are destroying the Alaskan ecosystem. Alaska is the last place in the U.S. where humans have not gobbled up and destroyed the natural world. This unique place on the planet needs to be protected, and not allowed to continue to be nothing but a place where animals are trapped, and shot and skinned, and stuffed, and hung on a wall, or used as a rug to wipe your dirty feet. Tell Sarah Palin that the bears on this website are not a rug!

Contact Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

Tell Governor Sarah Palin that you oppose the slaughter of bears, wolves and other predators. Mention that you oppose the hunting of habituated grizzly bears in the Katmai Preserve. Tell her you support the abolishment of the Board of Game, which is comprised entirely of trophy hunters. These ignorant trophy hunters set most wildlife policies in Alaska.



Even Katmai bears can be hunted! Learn more here.\"

this info found @;

http:\/\/www.grizzlybay.org\/SarahPalinInfoPage.htm<\/a>



<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Sarah Palin is certainly not the 'naive and innocent' Alaskan village mayor as many in corporate media claim her to be. She is very much like John "Big Driller" McCain in many ways, savvy with the corporate sponsors and willing to sell workers and the ecosystem down the river to satisfy the interests of big oil and mining corporations. ","numcomment":4,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2008\/08\/220031.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":220098,"heading":"and don't leave out","article":"that Mossad has plenty of intel on hand to blackmail her","author":"spector","parent_id":220031,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-08-31 23:32:39","modified":"2008-08-31 23:32:39","fileurl":""},{"id":220099,"heading":"Yea,right.....","article":"......like the fact that she hunts moose and there are some pics of her out there in a bikini.....Mossad ought to be able to a lot with all that","author":"Lord Locksley","parent_id":220031,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-09-01 00:32:00","modified":"2008-09-01 00:32:00","fileurl":""},{"id":220139,"heading":""She . . . is opposed to listing the polar bear as an endangered species"","article":" http:\/\/www.cs.org\/publications\/csq\/csq-article.cfm?id=1999\r\n\r\n Of Ice and Men\r\n\r\nBy Cameron M. Smith\r\n\r\nAugust 1, 2008 | Cultural Survival Quarterly | Issue 32.2\r\n\r\nIn most quarters, the US government decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species was heralded as a milestone in awareness of global warming, but the people you might expect to most rejoice in the decision\u2014the Arctic indigenous peoples who suffer the greatest effects of global warming\u2014are strongly opposed to it.\r\n\r\nAs the thin end of the global warming wedge begins prying apart the foundations of traditional life in the Alaskan Arctic, you might think that the native people there would welcome the federal listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. After all, everyone loves polar bears (Knud, the Berlin Zoo\u2019s \u00fcber-cute furball, appeared on the cover of the May 2007 Vanity Fair, photographed by none other than Annie Leibovitz), and they bring tourism dollars to the Arctic, raising awareness of global warming at the same time. But the I\u00f1upiat\u2014the indigenous people around Barrow, for whom the bears are a cornerstone of their traditional hunting culture, along with whales, seals and caribou\u2014argue that listing the polar bear as threatened won\u2019t save it. And as I explored the polar bear\u2019s frozen-sea habitat on the north coast of Alaska in the winter of 2007, I came to understand their point of view.\r\n\r\nDragging my supply sled toward my base in Barrow one frigid morning\u2014it had been 30 below the night before, and I didn\u2019t dare to check the temperature before I crawled out of my sleeping bag\u2014I recalled the simple wonders of the past week. I\u2019d heard the Arctic described as a wasteland, but nobody who\u2019d taken the time to walk here could call it anything less than a thriving ecosystem. Cold, yes, but without question thriving, electric with life. I wanted to learn what native people thought about what was being done to protect this priceless wilderness in the face of increasing oil and gas exploration, and I thought the proposed listing of the polar bear as a threatened species might help smooth the way.\r\n\r\nBut Billy Leavitt, an I\u00f1upiat hunter who picked me up on the outskirts of Barrow, blew that idea to pieces with a few words. As we tore down an ice road in his battered pickup truck, and a 60-below windchill blew through an open window\u2014just about killing me but cooling him nicely\u2014Billy gestured at the landscape, speaking in long, flat vowels and drawn-out consonants.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s too warm for this time of year,\u201d he said, \u201cThat global warming is really happening.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYeah, I hear the polar bear is in trouble,\u201d I replied, trying to sympathize. Billy tensed up.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cThat\u2019s your Greenpeace people sayin\u2019 that. That\u2019s your conservationists,\u201d\u2014he spat the last word\u2014\u201cpeople who watch that Discovery Channel and then come up here to tell us how to hunt.\u201d I considered myself a conservationist, but I had no reply to that conversation-stopper. I sat there wondering what else I might be wrong about.\r\n\r\nStill, Billy cordially shook my hand when he dropped me off in Barrow, inviting me to come to his cabin out on the land. \u201cYou\u2019ll learn a lot,\u201d he said. Although I didn\u2019t have a chance to visit him, I did take another trek, and learned a little more about his point of view. On March 7th, the residents of Barrow (over 60 percent I\u00f1upiat) met with representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency then considering listing the polar bear as threatened.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat Heritage Center, where the meeting was held, is a modern, multi-million-dollar facility at once a museum displaying relics of pre-contact life, a meeting hall, and a work area where walrus-hide boats are sewn together in preparation for whale-hunts. Once everyone\u2019s snowmobiles had been parked it was quiet in the meeting hall, but the atmosphere was tense. A handful of Fish and Wildlife presenters sat at a table in the front of the hall, looking out at a hundred mostly native Barrow residents, who awaited the government\u2019s presentation with patience, but no smiles.\r\n\r\nThe meeting began with the government representatives presenting their case for listing the polar bear, supported by two main points. First, the polar bear\u2019s sea ice habitat has been steadily reduced in the past 30 years, a finding of 5 independent studies that nobody can deny: today, satellite imagery shows us an Alaska-sized hole in the summer sea ice cover, where 30 years ago it was a solid sheet, and the prediction is that by 2050, most of the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in the summer, driving polar bears either to adapt to land in that season, or go extinct. The I\u00f1upiat agreed with this, saying in fact that they\u2019d been trying to raise the alarm over global warming for years. Still, they let this point slide.\r\n\r\nSecond, Fish and Wildlife argued that polar bear populations are already in decline, as seen in a study of the western Hudson Bay polar bear population, which they claimed has decreased by over 20 percent in the last 20 years. The I\u00f1upiat weren\u2019t so sure of this; like their Canadian counterparts, the Inuit, they believed that polar bear numbers were actually up, but that the bears had migrated out of the scientists\u2019 survey areas. Still, Fish and Wildlife concluded that while over-hunting, disease, and other factors do not threaten the polar bear throughout its natural range, it should be listed as threatened because of the well-documented decline of sea ice.\r\n\r\nThen the I\u00f1upiat took the podium. For two hours they presented their own testimony, questioning Fish and Wildlife\u2019s assumptions and facts, and making a strong case for entrusting the survival of the polar bear not to regulations dictated from Washington, D.C., but to the I\u00f1upiat and other native polar people.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not surprising that the I\u00f1upiat\u2019s discussion of polar bear biology, behavior, ecology, habitat, and population was more sophisticated than that of the Fish and Wildlife representatives; after all, the federal representatives had flown in from Washington or Anchorage, and would fly out in a day or two, while the I\u00f1upiat lived their entire lives in the polar bear\u2019s habitat. They were not new to the polar bear, and they weren\u2019t impressed by 30-year studies that Fish and Wildlife called \u201clong-term.\u201d The I\u00f1upiat had cultural knowledge about polar bears\u2014and the rest of their ecosystem\u2014that went back far longer. \u201cAs the ice retreats,\u201d one hunter said, \u201csome bears will follow it, and others will get stranded on land, like some of them are now, when the ice retreats in the summer. Those that follow the ice will survive, and those that live on the land will have to adapt, just like their ancestors did.\u201d Glenn Sheehan, executive director of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, pointed out that the polar bear had been living with climate changes for more than 200,000 years, and that it had survived at least one other warming episode, the Medieval Warm period. \u201cHave you considered that at all?\u201d he asked the Fish and Wildlife representatives. \u201cDo you even have data going back more than 50 years?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat speakers included common citizens, native hunters, several whaling captains, and North Slope Borough mayor Edward S. Itta, all of whom looked hard into the eyes of the Fish and Wildlife representatives. After all, in this modest meeting they were doing nothing less than fighting to prevent yet another important part of their traditional life from being wrested away from them by a distant federal agency.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat based their opposition to polar bear listing on three main facts. First, in their experience polar bear numbers were not declining, an observation also noted by native Canadians on Hudson Bay, who say the decline there has been misunderstood by scientists who drop in from time to time, but fail to understand polar bear migration behavior. One resident pointed out that scientists were fond of saying they needed \u201cholistic, long-term studies\u201d of the polar bear, but were\u2014insultingly and stupidly\u2014ignoring exactly that kind of knowledge by relying on studies that \u201conly went back a generation or two.\u201d Mayor Itta sharply pointed out that the Fish and Wildlife study did not actually have empirical data for the population increase or decrease of polar bears in northern Alaska, only projections and estimates based on the Hudson Bay population, 4,000 miles away. If the tables were turned, Itta noted, Washington wouldn\u2019t respond to hypotheses or hearsay; they\u2019d want real, empirical data, and the I\u00f1upiat deserved the same. In short, Fish and Wildlife\u2019s data on the polar bear population was largely theoretical (they had admitted this in their own presentation), and based on no more empirical facts or observations than the I\u00f1upiats\u2019 own. The implication was clear to all: who would you rather trust about these numbers\u2014the people who live in the area and observe the polar bear population day by day, or federal government monitors?\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiats\u2019 second point was that they simply don\u2019t take enough bears to threaten the species, only about 20 a year. Indeed, Fish and Wildlife\u2019s own study concluded that over-hunting was not a threat in Canada (because of sound management policies there) or Alaska (because of the 30-year old Marine Mammal Protection Act). Barrow Arctic Science Consortium president and native hunter Richard Glenn told Fish and Wildlife, \u201cIf you want to address over-hunting, go to Russia, where they poach 200 polar bears a year!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe third point, mentioned time and again, was summarized by Mayor Itta: \u201cListing the polar bear does not address the problem!\u201d Whaling captain Charlie Brower said, \u201cThe problem\u2014pointed out in your own study\u2014is shrinking sea ice, which is caused by carbon dioxide emissions!\u201d The I\u00f1upiat said that listing the polar bear as threatened does nothing to address sea ice retreat; it\u2019s just a measure meant to make people of the Lower 48 feel as though they\u2019re \u201csaving the polar bear\u201d when in fact they\u2019re doing nothing at all.\r\n\r\nListing a species as threatened or endangered is meant to force federally backed action to preserve that species\u2019 critical habitat. If that habitat isn\u2019t delineated, however, the listing has little value. In this case, the Fish and Wildlife Department found that the bears\u2019 habitat needs were \u201cundeterminable.\u201d The proposed listing did not mention greenhouse gas or carbon emissions at all, an omission that was made overt when Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the official threatened listing for polar bears on May 18, 2008. \u201cThe most significant part of today\u2019s decision,\u201d he said, \u201cis what President Bush observed about climate change policy last month. President Bush noted that \u2018The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nIf the polar bear\u2019s critical sea ice habitat isn\u2019t defined, the I\u00f1upiat argued, and its reduction isn\u2019t linked to human-induced warming brought about by greenhouse gas emissions, then listing the polar bear will not work as a lever to force action on climate change.\r\n\r\nIn short, the science brought by the Fish and Wildlife representatives to justify listing the polar bear as threatened looked great on paper, but was incomplete\u2014even to other scientists\u2014and ignored I\u00f1upiat traditional knowledge. And putting the polar bear on the endangered list wouldn\u2019t stop illegal poaching in Russia, or the sea ice from retreating, or anything else that was actually affecting polar bear populations. In fact it would mask the real issue of climate change.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat solution was for Washington to address climate change head-on by legislating global-warming preventatives, and leave the polar bears to the native peoples of the Arctic. After all, they are subsistence hunters who manage animal populations so that they will be there in the future. The word \u201csustainable\u201d has been in the American consciousness for about a generation, while it has been the cornerstone of I\u00f1upiat life for millennia. Not taking their lead in this issue would be a terrible loss of opportunity, especially considering that they are living on the front line of global warming, where change is felt first and foremost.\r\n\r\n* * * * *\r\n\r\nDr. Cameron M. Smith, an archaeologist at Portland State University\u2019s Department of Anthropology, has recently published The Top Ten Myths About Evolution (Prometheus, 2006) and has written articles for Scientific American MIND, Archaeology, Spaceflight, Playboy and other magazines. He returned to north Alaska in February 2008.\r\n\r\n","author":"indigenous wisdom","parent_id":220031,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-09-03 13:48:59","modified":"2013-11-11 00:54:15","fileurl":""},{"id":220147,"heading":""She . . . is opposed to listing the polar bear as an endangered species"","article":" http:\/\/www.cs.org\/publications\/csq\/csq-article.cfm?id=1999\r\n\r\n Of Ice and Men\r\n\r\nBy Cameron M. Smith\r\n\r\nAugust 1, 2008 | Cultural Survival Quarterly | Issue 32.2\r\n\r\nIn most quarters, the US government decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species was heralded as a milestone in awareness of global warming, but the people you might expect to most rejoice in the decision\u2014the Arctic indigenous peoples who suffer the greatest effects of global warming\u2014are strongly opposed to it.\r\n\r\nAs the thin end of the global warming wedge begins prying apart the foundations of traditional life in the Alaskan Arctic, you might think that the native people there would welcome the federal listing of the polar bear as a threatened species. After all, everyone loves polar bears (Knud, the Berlin Zoo\u2019s \u00fcber-cute furball, appeared on the cover of the May 2007 Vanity Fair, photographed by none other than Annie Leibovitz), and they bring tourism dollars to the Arctic, raising awareness of global warming at the same time. But the I\u00f1upiat\u2014the indigenous people around Barrow, for whom the bears are a cornerstone of their traditional hunting culture, along with whales, seals and caribou\u2014argue that listing the polar bear as threatened won\u2019t save it. And as I explored the polar bear\u2019s frozen-sea habitat on the north coast of Alaska in the winter of 2007, I came to understand their point of view.\r\n\r\nDragging my supply sled toward my base in Barrow one frigid morning\u2014it had been 30 below the night before, and I didn\u2019t dare to check the temperature before I crawled out of my sleeping bag\u2014I recalled the simple wonders of the past week. I\u2019d heard the Arctic described as a wasteland, but nobody who\u2019d taken the time to walk here could call it anything less than a thriving ecosystem. Cold, yes, but without question thriving, electric with life. I wanted to learn what native people thought about what was being done to protect this priceless wilderness in the face of increasing oil and gas exploration, and I thought the proposed listing of the polar bear as a threatened species might help smooth the way.\r\n\r\nBut Billy Leavitt, an I\u00f1upiat hunter who picked me up on the outskirts of Barrow, blew that idea to pieces with a few words. As we tore down an ice road in his battered pickup truck, and a 60-below windchill blew through an open window\u2014just about killing me but cooling him nicely\u2014Billy gestured at the landscape, speaking in long, flat vowels and drawn-out consonants.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s too warm for this time of year,\u201d he said, \u201cThat global warming is really happening.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYeah, I hear the polar bear is in trouble,\u201d I replied, trying to sympathize. Billy tensed up.\r\n\r\n\u201cNo,\u201d he said, \u201cThat\u2019s your Greenpeace people sayin\u2019 that. That\u2019s your conservationists,\u201d\u2014he spat the last word\u2014\u201cpeople who watch that Discovery Channel and then come up here to tell us how to hunt.\u201d I considered myself a conservationist, but I had no reply to that conversation-stopper. I sat there wondering what else I might be wrong about.\r\n\r\nStill, Billy cordially shook my hand when he dropped me off in Barrow, inviting me to come to his cabin out on the land. \u201cYou\u2019ll learn a lot,\u201d he said. Although I didn\u2019t have a chance to visit him, I did take another trek, and learned a little more about his point of view. On March 7th, the residents of Barrow (over 60 percent I\u00f1upiat) met with representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency then considering listing the polar bear as threatened.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat Heritage Center, where the meeting was held, is a modern, multi-million-dollar facility at once a museum displaying relics of pre-contact life, a meeting hall, and a work area where walrus-hide boats are sewn together in preparation for whale-hunts. Once everyone\u2019s snowmobiles had been parked it was quiet in the meeting hall, but the atmosphere was tense. A handful of Fish and Wildlife presenters sat at a table in the front of the hall, looking out at a hundred mostly native Barrow residents, who awaited the government\u2019s presentation with patience, but no smiles.\r\n\r\nThe meeting began with the government representatives presenting their case for listing the polar bear, supported by two main points. First, the polar bear\u2019s sea ice habitat has been steadily reduced in the past 30 years, a finding of 5 independent studies that nobody can deny: today, satellite imagery shows us an Alaska-sized hole in the summer sea ice cover, where 30 years ago it was a solid sheet, and the prediction is that by 2050, most of the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free in the summer, driving polar bears either to adapt to land in that season, or go extinct. The I\u00f1upiat agreed with this, saying in fact that they\u2019d been trying to raise the alarm over global warming for years. Still, they let this point slide.\r\n\r\nSecond, Fish and Wildlife argued that polar bear populations are already in decline, as seen in a study of the western Hudson Bay polar bear population, which they claimed has decreased by over 20 percent in the last 20 years. The I\u00f1upiat weren\u2019t so sure of this; like their Canadian counterparts, the Inuit, they believed that polar bear numbers were actually up, but that the bears had migrated out of the scientists\u2019 survey areas. Still, Fish and Wildlife concluded that while over-hunting, disease, and other factors do not threaten the polar bear throughout its natural range, it should be listed as threatened because of the well-documented decline of sea ice.\r\n\r\nThen the I\u00f1upiat took the podium. For two hours they presented their own testimony, questioning Fish and Wildlife\u2019s assumptions and facts, and making a strong case for entrusting the survival of the polar bear not to regulations dictated from Washington, D.C., but to the I\u00f1upiat and other native polar people.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not surprising that the I\u00f1upiat\u2019s discussion of polar bear biology, behavior, ecology, habitat, and population was more sophisticated than that of the Fish and Wildlife representatives; after all, the federal representatives had flown in from Washington or Anchorage, and would fly out in a day or two, while the I\u00f1upiat lived their entire lives in the polar bear\u2019s habitat. They were not new to the polar bear, and they weren\u2019t impressed by 30-year studies that Fish and Wildlife called \u201clong-term.\u201d The I\u00f1upiat had cultural knowledge about polar bears\u2014and the rest of their ecosystem\u2014that went back far longer. \u201cAs the ice retreats,\u201d one hunter said, \u201csome bears will follow it, and others will get stranded on land, like some of them are now, when the ice retreats in the summer. Those that follow the ice will survive, and those that live on the land will have to adapt, just like their ancestors did.\u201d Glenn Sheehan, executive director of the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium, pointed out that the polar bear had been living with climate changes for more than 200,000 years, and that it had survived at least one other warming episode, the Medieval Warm period. \u201cHave you considered that at all?\u201d he asked the Fish and Wildlife representatives. \u201cDo you even have data going back more than 50 years?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat speakers included common citizens, native hunters, several whaling captains, and North Slope Borough mayor Edward S. Itta, all of whom looked hard into the eyes of the Fish and Wildlife representatives. After all, in this modest meeting they were doing nothing less than fighting to prevent yet another important part of their traditional life from being wrested away from them by a distant federal agency.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat based their opposition to polar bear listing on three main facts. First, in their experience polar bear numbers were not declining, an observation also noted by native Canadians on Hudson Bay, who say the decline there has been misunderstood by scientists who drop in from time to time, but fail to understand polar bear migration behavior. One resident pointed out that scientists were fond of saying they needed \u201cholistic, long-term studies\u201d of the polar bear, but were\u2014insultingly and stupidly\u2014ignoring exactly that kind of knowledge by relying on studies that \u201conly went back a generation or two.\u201d Mayor Itta sharply pointed out that the Fish and Wildlife study did not actually have empirical data for the population increase or decrease of polar bears in northern Alaska, only projections and estimates based on the Hudson Bay population, 4,000 miles away. If the tables were turned, Itta noted, Washington wouldn\u2019t respond to hypotheses or hearsay; they\u2019d want real, empirical data, and the I\u00f1upiat deserved the same. In short, Fish and Wildlife\u2019s data on the polar bear population was largely theoretical (they had admitted this in their own presentation), and based on no more empirical facts or observations than the I\u00f1upiats\u2019 own. The implication was clear to all: who would you rather trust about these numbers\u2014the people who live in the area and observe the polar bear population day by day, or federal government monitors?\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiats\u2019 second point was that they simply don\u2019t take enough bears to threaten the species, only about 20 a year. Indeed, Fish and Wildlife\u2019s own study concluded that over-hunting was not a threat in Canada (because of sound management policies there) or Alaska (because of the 30-year old Marine Mammal Protection Act). Barrow Arctic Science Consortium president and native hunter Richard Glenn told Fish and Wildlife, \u201cIf you want to address over-hunting, go to Russia, where they poach 200 polar bears a year!\u201d\r\n\r\nThe third point, mentioned time and again, was summarized by Mayor Itta: \u201cListing the polar bear does not address the problem!\u201d Whaling captain Charlie Brower said, \u201cThe problem\u2014pointed out in your own study\u2014is shrinking sea ice, which is caused by carbon dioxide emissions!\u201d The I\u00f1upiat said that listing the polar bear as threatened does nothing to address sea ice retreat; it\u2019s just a measure meant to make people of the Lower 48 feel as though they\u2019re \u201csaving the polar bear\u201d when in fact they\u2019re doing nothing at all.\r\n\r\nListing a species as threatened or endangered is meant to force federally backed action to preserve that species\u2019 critical habitat. If that habitat isn\u2019t delineated, however, the listing has little value. In this case, the Fish and Wildlife Department found that the bears\u2019 habitat needs were \u201cundeterminable.\u201d The proposed listing did not mention greenhouse gas or carbon emissions at all, an omission that was made overt when Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the official threatened listing for polar bears on May 18, 2008. \u201cThe most significant part of today\u2019s decision,\u201d he said, \u201cis what President Bush observed about climate change policy last month. President Bush noted that \u2018The Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act were never meant to regulate global climate change.\u2019\u201d\r\n\r\nIf the polar bear\u2019s critical sea ice habitat isn\u2019t defined, the I\u00f1upiat argued, and its reduction isn\u2019t linked to human-induced warming brought about by greenhouse gas emissions, then listing the polar bear will not work as a lever to force action on climate change.\r\n\r\nIn short, the science brought by the Fish and Wildlife representatives to justify listing the polar bear as threatened looked great on paper, but was incomplete\u2014even to other scientists\u2014and ignored I\u00f1upiat traditional knowledge. And putting the polar bear on the endangered list wouldn\u2019t stop illegal poaching in Russia, or the sea ice from retreating, or anything else that was actually affecting polar bear populations. In fact it would mask the real issue of climate change.\r\n\r\nThe I\u00f1upiat solution was for Washington to address climate change head-on by legislating global-warming preventatives, and leave the polar bears to the native peoples of the Arctic. After all, they are subsistence hunters who manage animal populations so that they will be there in the future. The word \u201csustainable\u201d has been in the American consciousness for about a generation, while it has been the cornerstone of I\u00f1upiat life for millennia. Not taking their lead in this issue would be a terrible loss of opportunity, especially considering that they are living on the front line of global warming, where change is felt first and foremost.\r\n\r\n* * * * *\r\n\r\nDr. Cameron M. Smith, an archaeologist at Portland State University\u2019s Department of Anthropology, has recently published The Top Ten Myths About Evolution (Prometheus, 2006) and has written articles for Scientific American MIND, Archaeology, Spaceflight, Playboy and other magazines. He returned to north Alaska in February 2008.\r\n\r\n","author":"indigenous wisdom","parent_id":220031,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-09-03 19:39:39","modified":"2013-11-11 00:54:15","fileurl":""}]}