"The Caribou love the pipeline" -- moronic RNC delegate

[GrizzlyMan]

I've heard it all now. I literally have heard it all.

[TTUBatfan2008]

1. Actually they do...

The Prudhoe Bay pipeline has helped dramatically increase the population of the caribou herd that lives near there. It's very hot and has the effect of making the area immediately around it warm for animals (or humans), which makes it easier to survive in harsh conditions.

[Kittycat]

2. Great. And humans don't contribute to global warming - per Plain

[endthewar]

3. Keith O pointed out that migratory caribou have had some of their areas bisected

Please provide us a link with your so-called evidence that caribou love them some oil pipelines. If we wanted to heat the Alaskan environment, we can find much more efficient ways to do it.

[GrizzlyMan]

4. KO just said it's actually caused some reduction in Caribou

Because the pipeline intersects with their traditional breeding grounds. Whatever, we have no way of polling Caribou but I don't care what kind of Republican spin people put on it, when you put pipelines in unspoiled areas of the planet, those areas are no longer unspoiled and that fact is not even remotely disputable.

[PCIntern]

5. He's a dumbshit dentist

I attended dental school and later, taught assholes like this guy. They almost always came from money...those who went to Alaska to practice made a fortune from the pipeline construction...when endodontists were getting 350 for a root canal, up there they were getting over a thousand...money was flowing like water.

Then many came back to the lower 48 to set up their practice, already flush with CASH. And I mean CASH...

[KathieG]

6. Oh god..."the caribou like to snuggle up to pipeline", "if the caribou could vote,

they'd vote for the pipeline". Gimme a break. :eyes:

[endthewar]

7. Unfortunately, the GOP has been using this talking point a little while now. Here's a link

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/20/bachmann-caribou-coffee/

"Bachmann: Alaska’s Caribou Will Love Oil Drilling ‘Because Of The Warmth Of The Pipeline’

During a radio interview on Wednesday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attempted to argue that drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) would be beneficial for Arctic wildlife. Bachmann claimed that drilling would cause not only an “enhancement of wildlife expansion,” but that the area around oil pipelines would also “become a meeting ground and ‘coffee klatch‘ for caribou”:

“Some suggestions are that perhaps we would see an enhancement of wildlife expansion because of the warmth of the pipeline,” she said. <…> The pipeline has now become a meeting ground and “coffee klatch” for the caribou, she said.

Bachmann is not alone among conservatives in pushing this narrative of drilling being good for caribou. Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show last week that “the caribou have multiplied ’cause they like the warmth that surrounds the pipeline.” On Tuesday night, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg made a similar argument on Fox News:

GOLDBERG: People don’t realize that at Prudhoe Bay, where they have been drilling for 30 years, the central Arctic caribou herd has increased fivefold since they started drilling up there. Some people say it’s because they get to hide from the bugs. It’s a little easier for them. But people say it’s because of the lack of hunting. But it is not dangerous to the caribou up there."

[ErinBerin84]

8. lol

I love KO. When the delegate said that, I said "oh boy, I know that Keith is going to do a fact check on that." Plus, I find the "drill baby, drill!" t shirts so horrid.

[GrizzlyMan]

9. That's the Repuke way

Left to their own devices, they wouldn't stop until every square inch of the planet was "industrialized".

[kurth_]

10. Yep, they can coexist peacefully

just like the human being and the fish.