Many environmental activists have opposed the Olympics for the role they claim it plays in environmental degradation, release of carbon emissions through the construction process and the displacement of animals from their habitat. Whether you’re of this viewpoint or not, you will be happy to know that the Olympics hopes to bring environmental benefits by increasing the world’s knowledge about climate change in Northern areas of Canada and the impact upon the polar bear.
Now that the polar bear is about to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, the state of Alaska is taking legal action to challenge the decision.
Following the announcement that threatened polar bears are set to receive over 128 million acres of critical habitat designation, Alaska Governor Sean Parnell and Attorney General Dan Sullivan responded by taking legal action against federal protection of polar bears.
Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin has announced that the state of Alaska plans to sue the federal government over its decision to place beluga whales from Anchorage’s Cook Inlet on the Endangered Species List.
Palin is said to be against the decision because of the effects it may have on oil and gas developments and the expansion of the city’s port. (The area happens to be a mature oil-producing basin.)
Yesterday at Planetsave, I wrote about a sculpture of two polar bears floating down London’s River Thames to bring attention to climate change and a new natural history television channel in the UK. Here’s a video of the bears in action:
A 16 foot high sculpture of an iceberg featuring a stranded polar bear and its cub was launched on the River Thames in London today to mark the launch of a new natural history TV channel.
A team of 15 artists spent two months constructing the 20′ x 20′, three thousand pound, 100% recyclable structure which was launched in Greenwich, South East London at 6:30 this morning. The sculpture traveled 7.5 miles up the Thames before stopping beside Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament for a photo op.
The sculpture was specially commissioned to mark the launch of the new Natural History Television channel Eden, which starts today and features programming including Planet Earth and Attenborough Explores Our Fragile World.
The general reaction to Sarah Palin’s energy policy seems to have been that she’s a staunch supporter of the ‘drill, baby drill’ school of thought, with little real analysis beyond that.
Coming up in a couple of weeks is the International Furniture Fair in Valencia Spain, Sept. 23-27. There, from the NEL Collective (produced by Nanimarquina), will be the Global Warming Rug. The rug (shown above) features a blue sea spotted by a lonely ice floe with a polar bear riding out his isolated, floating fate.
Ask yourself this question. Does Sarah Palin believe that the polar bear should not have been listed as endangered because it is not based “on the best scientific and commercial data available,” or because it gets in her way of drilling in Alaska?
It has only been a fortnight or so since the polar bear was finally listed as an endangered species under the US Endangered Species Act, and already conservationists have supplied some more names for the ESA; ringed, bearded and spotted seals.
The Center for Biological Conservation was the group who filed a petition on February 17, 2005, asking that the polar bear be listed under the ESA. They have followed the landmark decision approving this petition by adding the three seals for consideration as species under threat. The “landmark” aspect of these decisions is that the polar bear was the first animal to be recognized as threatened as a direct result of climate change.
“While the polar bear may be the first Arctic species listed under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming, it will, unfortunately, not be the last,” says Shaye Wolf, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
For a long time now we’ve spoken about the continuing effort by US and other environmental and animal rights groups to get the polar bear listed on the United States Endangered Species Act.
Polar bear populations have been declining over the past few years, attributable, some claim, to man-made global warming. Al Gore helped the plight of the polar bear by including in his award winning An Inconvenient Truth a cartoon of a polar bear swimming, unable to find land. The cartoon was inspired by evidence that some polar bears had drowned – a hitherto unforeseen occurrence.
So it is good news that on Wednesday the Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the polar bear has finally been listed as “threatened” under the ESA. However he was certain to ensure in his announcement that the decision should not be “misused” to regulate global climate change.
Meet Flocke, a new polar bear cub at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany.
Her name means “snowflake.” Since her birth in December, photos and videos from the zoo have been overloading the public with cuteness, stirring up “Flocke fever.”
Still, no one outside the zoo staff had ever seen Flocke in person. This week, she made her first live public appearance.
