Access to oil or minerals because of the Arctic thaw is not the BIG issue. What transpires due to the Arctic thawing is the BIG issue, or it certainly wll be before we know it, perhaps within the next year or two and unless the global warming should suddenly cease for some reason, five years is likely the maximum time we'll have before we witness a world wide disaster unlike any humanity has ever witnessed.

As the highly regarded author of the link I'll post here stated four years hense, ___"everyone ignored the Atic's methane threat." ___ Jacques Costeau warned us 42 years ago and no one listned and few are listening still. If you have not had the privelage of reading the article in the link I'm poting here, please do take the three minutes to read it and then think it over.___It's the issue, or it should be.

http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html

A vote for McSame and Milf is a vote to exterminate the polar bear (and all other Arctic wildlife), excellerate Global Warming, increase sea levels world-wide due to ice sheet melting, and the more rapid depletion of the remaining world oil supplies.

Yup, that's the Republican economic plan for you.

As a further note, Sarah Palin was arch neo-con Bill Kristol's pick for VP. That should tell you something. And scare the hell out of you.

Walk in peace.

I am glad these hunters are shown as the scum they are--not the "preservationists" they always claim to be.

Hunters have been responsible for driving species to extinction--that's their true legacy.

And let's not forget that the polar bears being killed in Canada are done by non-inuit hunters who buy the rights to do it from inuit hunters. Best thing is to be fair to all concerned and stop inuit from doing it. The only true natives of the North are those than can survive there without any help. No human group can without artificial means.

To the polar bears, humans are some sort of alien parasite constantly upsetting their eons old way of life.

We destroy the things we need to get the things we want.

McCain will use Palin to highlight the GOP idea of drilling our way out of the energy crisis. Palin & McCain will mention Biden's opposition to the Alaskan pipeline a few decades ago as support for the GOP belief that concerns over drilling in ANWR are exaggerated.

Even if the desired ANWR drilling sites were nothing but a 1.5 million acre parking lot, the perpetual delay of alternative development to assist Big Oil in locating and selling and pumping out every drop of oil poses too many security risks.

Opposition to the pipeline thirty years ago was a sound position. Too bad the pipeline opposition along with replacing the subsidies historically given to Big Oil with subsidies to develop alternatives didn't win the day.

Where are all the Sarah Palin fans? Here's your hero: against the polar bear.

Barack Obama was for single payer before he came out against it.

Conservatives believe people are more important than wildlife but they like to shoot both of them.

Some people could logically argue that the Polar Bear, evolved into a "Specialized feeder", much like the Panda, and Koala (neither of which are Bears by the way) and were most likely in line for extinction for that reason.
But those people are the very same people who would argue that Human kind has "dominion" and the other life forms are secondary to that "God Given Fact".
The intelligent and educated see these species as "indicators" of an "imbalance" in the natural order, and an indication that "more study" is required along with caution which might be a positive answer to the "dominionists".
If "God" gave them dominion, and they were careless and allowed "species extinctions that could be prevented" then it would be logical to assume that that same "God" who has a record, "in print" no less, of dealing harshly with those humans that "piss him off". He just might deal in the same manner with those "believers" who allow(ed) "his creation" to become such a polluted, imbalanced mess. It really is not the political party that cares about the environment, it is the "people" who populate those political parties.
So one group of "voters" believe one thing and another believe the opposite, on many subjects but especially the environment. The American political system was developed to be under the control of the "people", it has fallen in large part under the control of a few of those people; who mostly wish to profit at the expense of the majority. If the "people" want it back they must take it "back".

Whether one cares about the Polar Bears or any other species is secondary to the fact that Humanity must share this planet with the other life forms, and if the environment for one species is "nasty" then it becomes "nasty" for the others.

It all leads to one conclusion. The people who are in charge, that is the American Voter, are the only people who can stop the environmentally destructive
behavior of the Oil companies, or any other industry for that matter. If and when they can agree on the more important matters they will take control.

Time may be running short though, and if Polar Bears have turned to cannibalism to survive, how far away are the Human inhabitants from the same.

How come noone mentions that Alaska citizens get an annual royality check from the Oil companies producing oil in Prudhoe Bay, which will soon be depleted. ANWAR is there other source of continued payout to citizens of Alaska. No media or any group seems to want to mention that fact

I also read Gov. Palin's husban is a "Cross Country, Snow Mobile Racer"? Lovely. I cross country ski in New York State during the winter which is also a snow mobile mecca. Ever see the beer dring, cigarette smoking, snowmobilers with BUTTS the size of Brazil. I guess were suppose to be impressed with a cross country enviromentally insensitive snow mobiler's

Polar bears are cool; supposedly they can smell and track a seal from 40 miles away. (And too bad for the seal once a PB gets on his tail...)

That being said, I see no problem in hunting them; hunting fees are probably Alaska's principal source of revenue for wildlife conservation.

I'm just curious.

Why are so many people so ready to cut Sarah Palin a major amount of slack just because she is a woman?

Given the easily obtained evidence and history of her terms as mayor and governor, which includes the FACT she is under investigation for improper dismissals (not her brother-in-law), improper use of government computers including hacking said computers for personal political gain, as well as information that she is anything but a supporter of the environment, and in favor of increased militarism, why aren't more people holding her to account?

If she was so concerned about the environment and what is going to happen to Alaska, is there any record that she opposed development of the oil leases in ANWR? What about the damage to the environment that will come as a result of the proposed Trans Alaska/Canada pipeline? What about the destruction of caribou habitat (for example) that will result from all of these activities?

Is there any record other than stating 'Alaska will be impacted' by Climate Change and sea level rise, of her doing anything to oppose the oil companies and their actions? Did she take any actions to help relocate the inhabitants of the Aleutian Island chain, whose homes are being inundated and eroded even as we debate this?

As a mother with a son in the US Armed Forces, why isn't she demanding the end of a war that could very well take the life of her eldest son?

Given the FACT that she casts herself as a devout Christian, why didn't she say 'no, thank you' to John McCain when he chose her as his VP, give McCain's known history re: divorce?

Does she *really* deserve the blank cheque she is getting, just because she is female?

Walk in peace.

Wow. You guys are a trip.

If most everything I have read about this Sarah Palin VP candidate is true, then maybe when she grows up she will become a second Arianna Huffington (who started her career as a right winger on weekend television talk shows).

When I was younger I wanted to move to Alaska, as I thought it was inhabited by a bunch of pioneering Libertarians. Today Ted Stevens and the crooked GOP are their legacy.

Sarah Palin is a classic "coups within a coups." Anyone want to speculate on why Palin allegedly opposed Alaska's "bridge to nowhere"? But wants to drill in ANWR?

This woman is as unknown to at least 95 percent of the Media Morons as to the brilliants at CommonDreams. Perhaps in a few days things will be clearer. Meanwhile, I side with the polar bears. Humans have a tendency to snuff out the higher forms of competition even when we have alternatives. Wasn't it General Sherman, who destroyed Atlanta, who later called for the extermination of the buffalo to exterminate the Plains Indians? And was it not the author of "The Wizard of Oz," who in an earlier life wrote as a news reporter that the American Indian was a lower form of life not worth preserving?

Time to rent the old original Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury and what's-his-name the suicide. McCain's cynicism in naming Palin as his VP candidate is beyond the pale and it might work.

We live in interesting and utterly insane times.

-30-

Here is what Palin has to say

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/alaska-govenor-sarah-palins-op-ed-on-polar-bears-and-climate-change-in-the-nyt/#more-2575

"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."

Frankly, nobody even knows how many Polar Bears there are. Some of the native tribes report Polar bears have never been so numerous. In Canada and Greenland, Polar bears are allowed to be hunted. In Alaska, some of the tribes allocate some of their subsidence allowance to trophy hunters. This will all continue despite being listed under the Act. The only thing that will change will be higher energy prices due to GHG reductions while the rest of the world keeps on burning oil and coal.

But the climate models that predicted we would have less this year than last year in the arctic, and we have more, say the polar bear will be threatened as a result of mans CO2 emissions.

From a paper published by Hydrological Sciences in Aug 2008 by D. Koutsoyjainnes et all.

"At the annual and the climatic (30-year) scales, GCM interpolated series are irrelevant to reality. GCMs do not reproduce natural over-year fluctuations and, generally, underestimate the variance and the Hurst coefficient of the observed series. Even worse, when the GCM time series imply a Hurst coefficient greater than 0.5, this results from a monotonic trend, whereas in historical data the high values of the Hurst coefficient are a result of large-scale over-year fluctua-tions (i.e. successions of upward and downward “trends”). The huge negative values of coef-ficients of efficiency show that model predictions are much poorer than an elementary prediction based on the time average. This makes future climate projections at the examined locations not credible. "

It is clear the GCM's are not up to snuff yet.

I will have no problem disparaging this woman who thinks polar bears should not be placed on the endangered species list. I heard a report on NPR, I believe (perhaps it was the BBC) that a few poplar bears swam to Iceland from Greenland, a 200 mile swim, and unprecedented. Most polar bears wouldn't be able to attempt that, but would drown trying. Polar bears have been drowning in the Arctic too, as there's just less and less sea ice. They've been moving south to try to find food, and then have to discover new ways to hunt, and also compete with other animals for food. Funny what one learns watching PBS! It should be required viewing!
We humans have more brain power, more ability to adapt, like perhaps adapting to taking a train or bus to work instead of driving, or buying a Prius instead of a Hummer, or voting for an obvious progressive like Obama over a mental midget like McShame. Auto manufacturers have the corporate and financial ability to re-tool and start making hybrid or electric vehicles. A democratic majority has the ability to pass legislation on to a President Obama to sign into law subsidies to solar and wind start-ups and established solar and wind companies (and not one cent to T. Boone Pickyournose). So there's plenty we humans can and could have done so that animals like polar bears don't have to suffer because of what we humans do and don't do!
Very simple: a vote for McCain (and McCkinney or Nader) means more of the same: burning fossil fuels till there's none left, more talk about solar and wind and electric cars being ten years off into the future (and no Federal subsidies for you!), and according to McBush, no one takes trains to work or on holiday (and so just who is making it standing room only on the Metro in LA, or CalTrain in San Francisco aliens from Mars?), so lets just kill Amtrak and tear up all the tracks, and widen another few thousand freeways in the process.

As for Palin I find it an utter disgrace that McCain would choose someone so inexperienced for such an important job – being a heartbeat from the presidency. McCain is a panderer who has sold his soul for a job he is too late in seeking.

As for the bear, I’m rooting for it...

It appears the neocons are grooming Palin as their next Frankenstein. A relatively clean slate, and great fundamentalist, pro-development and big biz, and conservative lip-service credentials. Bill Kristol and FOX have been pushing her awhile. All they have to do is orient her in the PNAC/WTO/AIPAC/globalization American hegemony agenda, and she is all set. Maybe she can even speak in complete sentences and find something to speak about besides "activist judges".

The "fire my ex-brother-in-law or else" scandal, if true, shows she isn't afraid to put a political or personal agenda ahead of good government, and ruin a few great careers along the way. So? So much like Bush-Cheney-Rove, the federal prosecutor firings, the ruination and imprisonment of a former governor, political inteference with scientific findings... Win or lose, she's putty in the neocons' hands, and they have 4-8 years to develop the package.

As I Kare commented in the first post, Palin's candidacy and futuren neocon grooming is, at the least, a distraction from the most important issue of our times - global warming caused by fossil fuel CO2 emissions.

The article also shows orgnizations such as API, NAM... are not the least bit on board regarding global warming. Biz as usual still comes first.