Green Options

A plethora of corroborative data shows that this year’s sea ice levels in the Arctic are the lowest seen in 800 years.

The new research, published in the journal Climate Dynamics, doesn’t specify a cause or reason for the retreat, but it does note that if sea ice melt continues at this level, it’s likely that the North Pole will be completely ice-free during the summer months within a few decades.

As the earth warms, the melting of the earth’s two massive ice sheets—Antarctica and Greenland—could raise sea level enormously. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise sea level 7 meters (23 feet). Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level 5 meters (16 feet). But even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea level rise.

So far 46,000 online signatures have been gathered by the Center for Biological Diversity to support the re-writing of the Bush administration’s regulations which allow for the emission of greenhouse gases to not be considered as a threat to wildlife habitats and wildlife like the polar bear, even though global warming is clearly harming polar bears.

They also removed the capacity of the Fish and Wildlife service to monitor wildlife conservation impacts for federal projects involving timber sales, and dam construction. 

The US Fish and Wildlife Service rejected an attempt by trophy hunters to re-allow shipments of polar bear parts from countries where it is legal to kill the embattled species.

The Humane Society of the United States lobbied the agency hard against the proposed reopening of the trade. The animals are listed as a threatened species in the United States, but other countries still allow the bears to be hunted.

Score one for the environment - at least temporarily. Shell Oil announced that it will not be drilling off the Alaskan coast in the Beaufort Sea in 2009 as planned. This decision comes after a November court ruling which determined that Shell had erroneously been given permission to drill without properly assessing the environmental impact drilling would have on the fragile region.

The Arctic, already vulnerable and suffering from the effects of Global Warming, has been spared this blow by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals following a formal objection by Pacific Environment. The organization, along with a coalition of conservation groups, formally challenged the granting of Shell’s permit with an aim towards blocking the oil giant from drilling in this fragile ecosystem.

Sarah Palin says the causes don’t matter. The Bush Administration admits they do, but says that since there’s no single source of greenhouse gases, wildlife agencies should ignore global warming.

CNN recently came out with a chilling report titled; Polar Bears Resort to Cannibalism as Arctic Ice Shrinks. I can only imagine how Bill O’Reilly spins this on The O’Reilly Factor.

From our friends at ZapRoot this week: Arizona tests artificial CO2 filtering trees. Sarah Palin loves oil. We help you find ways to get rid of your junk mail.

Teachers and parents donning polar bear heads is inherently fun and effective in getting the attention of the K-8 crowd. If you can snag just ONE assembly hour to kick off this grassroots green program for climate change, KIDS can take it from there, bringing home Cool the Earth influences for micro-change into every household.

Social change agents have learned the hard way that adapting kid-friendly programs into ‘core curriculum’ is a time sink, whereas schools embrace participation as ‘enrichment,’ since it’s no hassle for teachers, ‘apolitical,’ and take place in an informal, volunteer environment with programs that are ready to run.

Sarah Palin has said many times that the polar bear habitat is safe, and there’s no need to classify them as a “threatened” species.  Yet today comes word that as the Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are finding less and less food sources and are beginning to cannibalize one another.

The Republican vice presidential nominee’s Alaskan administration has not only supported the aerial hunting of adult wolves, but also the slaughter of their pups.

Sarah Palin’s record is not very favorable for wildlife. She’s put efforts into undoing federal wildlife protections for polar bears and beluga whales in order to protect oil and gas drilling operations, for example. But her position on wolf hunting is perhaps the most controversial.

One of Palin’s first acts in office was to put a $150 bounty on the heads of her state’s wolves, allegedly with the goal of increasing the moose and caribou population. But this was no ordinary hunt - it was meant to incentivize the aerial killing of wolves, in which private hunters take a small plane and chase down wolf packs until they’re exhausted and can’t move any more, when they either shoot them from the air or land and execute them at point blank range. A Defenders of Wildlife ad illustrating this process is available at ClimateProgress.