The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the Obama administration is “setting aside 187,000 square miles off Alaska as a ‘critical habitat’ for polar bears.”
A consequence of this is that oil and gas companies wanting to drill in the area would come under increased scrutiny and possible restrictions.
I'm a big fan of polar bears. But the danger is to the entire ecosystem, not just polar bears. Climate Change threatens pretty much all animals, including humans.
I like setting aside conservation land, and I'm also in favor of stopping offshore drilling for oil and gas. But that's not just because I'm pro-polar-bear, it's because I'm pro-life.*
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while this action by Obama will have some effects that I really like, I'm still not sure the cited rationale is a good one. In fact, I think it's the kind of politically well-intentioned act that could backfire.
This move appears to blame some very useful and important conservation on a rationale that is not compelling to many people. The political opposition will use it as fodder to claim that once again, animals are being seen as more important than people. I don't personally buy that argument, but I perceive that there are many who do.
I'd like to see those bears saved as much as anyone, but there's a risk that this particular action could trivialize what's really going on and end up being counter-productive. What we need is a serious discussion about the need to fix the real problem, which is that looming Climate Change risks a mass extinction, possibly to include humans. That problem cannot be fixed by setting aside more and more refuges.
By blaming drilling restrictions on the polar bears, we draw attention away from stronger reasons not to drill. And if we don't address those stronger reasons, it won't matter about the polar bears. All this will do is delay the inevitable. Frankly, Climate Change is such a serious threat to the planet that it probably won't be until we start to lose species in a visible way that we all start to pay attention. And if it takes losing a fine and visible species like the polar bear to make this point, I'm not so sure it would be a bad trade.
Polar bears are just the canaries in the coal mine. Creating an oxygen-filled safe-room in that coal mine to protect these metaphorical canaries from deadly gases just isn't the point. When the canary starts dying, that's a shame, but what we must do first is get out of the coal mine—or start repairing its air flow. And since I don't see us investing in any desperate NASA efforts to immediately colonize another planet, it's time we started to take care of the planet we have.
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For more information on Climate Change, see my Climate Change page.
Footnote
*Relax. In calling myself “pro-life,” I don't mean the term in the sense it's been hijacked to mean in the abortion debate. Rather, I intend the more general meaning indicated by the actual component words: I want the ecosystem we live in, the system that keeps us all alive, to continue to function. And, right now, I think that ecosystem is at serious risk—that we are at risk of a mass extinction or some other highly disruptive event that threatens human society globally.
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go polar bears!
If you are interested look up The Spirit Bear.. There are only 500 left on the west coast of Canada. They look just like polar bears.
rated with hugs
Susan, yeah, I hate to go against the list, but I kind of hope that by taking a non-standard position (and not just for shock value, but because I think it would work better), I can wake people up a little and cause them not to operate on automatic. The two positions seem to be “Endangered? Yeah. Ok, check box. Move on.” or “Endangered? Damn, not again. Those damned animals.” Both of those miss the point.
Linda, maybe you can ask him what he thinks of my position. Pushing for saving the polar bears might win the battle and lose the war. I love all of those bears, but my present worry is that we'll lose basically all mammalian life on the planet pretty soon if, for example, the food chain breaks and/or the temperatures change radically in ways that destroy not just these but all customary habitats faster than they can relocate. Only part of the Climate Change issue is change, the other part is the expected rapidity. If it happened over a long time, people and animals could adjust. But over a very short period, it's much less likely.
"By blaming drilling restrictions on the polar bears, we draw attention away from stronger reasons not to drill. And if we don't address those stronger reasons, it won't matter about the polar bears."
No doubt about it, which is probably the reason that President Obama is habitually lumped in with the 'Progressive' crowd rather than the 'all-at-once-ers' in both parties who seem determined only to pillage and gauge at the Earth for reasons that can only begin to be described as selfish.
For them, a whole new world of free-trade and ice-free oceanic cargo transportation is emerging (especially between Canada, Alaska, Russia, Scandinavia, Greenland, Iceland and the like); In a sense, its like a new oil-based Hanseatic League is emerging in the north, and is taking advantage of Global Warming (which they caused in many ways).
It makes me sick.
Rw005g, I knew they were into the new drilling, are they also into the shipping? In either case, yeah, it's terrible to see people profiting from such misdeeds. Probably one of the survival tests of mankind will be if we can stop ourselves from new drilling there. The last thing we need are more lucrative sources of oil. One of these days, it will be the straw that broke the camel's back, triggering the methane problem, perhaps validating the clathrate gun hypothesis. What a scary thing.
Walt, just your endorsement adds a lot for me. Thanks for taking the time to read and for your kind words of support.
If you measure the distance across the North Pole, it takes much less time, than having to go around the Pacific.
Nice write.
A great piece. I commend you on your relentless committment to helping others understand the dangers of Climate Change.
The polar bear appears to be the Bambi of forest fire prevention, so perhaps it helps to get the refuge.
On another front, the City of Pittsburgh has passed an ordinance banning fracking and establishing community and nature rights over corporations:
http://www.alternet.org/story/148881/pittsburgh_bans_fracking_(and_corporate_personhood)_
Liberal, thanks. :)
O'Steph, thanks for the info on the fracking. Good to know there is still some sense in the world.
mgin, I certainly agree about the attention spans. It's just downright weird having a political discussion on much of anything knowing how quickly people will tune out even if you get their attention.
By 'all-at-oncer', I simply meant those folks on both sides of the aisle -although with Independents and 'Tea-Party candidates' it appears to have actually become *all sections* - all of whom insist on playing a zero sum game in which all Americans are the losers, and through which we are made to give up - or simply lose - more of our rights by the minute. I sometimes wonder if politicians have finally made trolling for the lowest common denominator obsolete; instead resorting to pandering directly to the dumbest of them all.
How is it that the politicians were able to accomplish this feat? It seems to me that they were able to bypass the middleman that is the *informed* electorate, by passing laws that have collectively homogenized the machinery we rely on to inform ourselves, and in the process (all at once) helped to speed up the dumbing-down of our country.
So while the takeover of the governmental mechanisms of the people has occurred gradually, albeit with our consent - the result of legislation that paves the way for the type of ice-free commerce which Rw005g mentions in their comment, is the steady and above all, heavy-handed obliteration of the possibilities for sustainable practices, as it regards the guardianship of the Earth which we find is our lot.
I just wish that we as a country - as one so adept at and in love with forming, destroying, merging and otherwise changing the forms of various business enterprises, will also one day soon hold the integrity of our intellectual capital in such high esteem.
I about fell over reading that the Arctic has risen some 6C. And the last summer there the ice thinned much more. I expect the winters to continue to worsen here.
Climate change is real. Glad you write here Kent. I have learned plenty over here on your porch.
Purple, thanks for the clarification on your terminology. As to intellectual capital, I agree. We're up against some pretty big problems and we need to leverage our collective brainpower as much as possible.
Most of the time, I view this species of homo sapiens as little more than glorified plants or dodo birds. I wish there was intelligent life on Earth, but it sure seems to be in short supply lately. The wildlife preserve in Alaska is a micro-bandage on a broken aorta.
Okay, so what, exactly, is the problem? What is the solution? Is climate change a problem? Is the answer allowing other species to suffer, or to perish, as "canaries in the coal mine"? Is Homo-sapiens the only species that matters?
We have senators in the U.S. Senate who think the christian god is the only source of knowledge and that we should just ignore science. Would the world unquestionably be worse off if Homo sapiens perished? How arrogant can we be?
It all comes down to money and as long as the biggest polluters put short term profits ahead of long term survival, there will be little reason for other countries to do their part. If the big boys won't even try, why should the little guys?
When the polar bears disappear, and they will disappear, those who control the money will shrug their shoulders and say "What a shame, but what could we do? It's a natural phenomena."
If half the population has been led to believe that climate change isn't man-made, then there is little the other half can do to slow the process. We either all bail the boat, or we all sink together. When we eventually get to the "I told you so" stage, it will be too late. I hate to say it, but I don't see this ending well.
Rick, it seems a little late to worry about that. The polar bears will die if we die, almost certainly, since all the things that will kill us will kill them. But if what you're suggesting is that mankind dying and other species surviving is OK, I don't think that's so. I think sentience matters. It took nature a long time to get us here, and I think we have a duty to make it work.
Don, uh, ... noted.
Leigh, it's a good point. Thanks.
Michael, it's a complex space with much room to hide. That's very sad.
Ablonde, one very complicated ethical question is that of what needs to survive at minimum. I'm going to “pull a Fermat” here and claim that my thoughts on that matter don't fit in this little input box. Although, it would probably be a variant of the initial quote I did in my article about Erik Naggum on Atlas Shrugged, where he talks about “the meaning of life.” I made notes for a future blog post.