Polar Bears are Doomed and So Are We......

[leftchick]

:cry:


Fewer polar bear cubs survive in Alaska
By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_sc/beaufort_polar_bears_2




ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Far fewer polar bears cubs are surviving off Alaska's northern coast, a federal government report released Wednesday has concluded.

The study of polar bears in the south Beaufort Sea, which spans the northern coasts of Alaska and western Canada, also found that adult males weigh less and have smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades ago.

<snip>

The study warns that the decline in cub survival and the smaller adult males are the same conditions that preceded a decline in the polar bears of western Hudson Bay, Canada, where the population dropped 22 percent in 17 years.

Advocates seeking protections for U.S. polar bears say the report proves their point.

"It's just another example of seeing all of the impacts that scientists have previously predicted coming to pass," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity in Joshua Tree, Calif. Siegal is the lead author of the petition seeking to list polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

"The Grim Reaper of global warming is now clearly killing polar bear cubs," said Deborah Williams, president of Alaska Conservation Solutions, an Anchorage-based group aimed at halting climate change. "This study should be interpreted as a cry from the North to reduce greenhouse gases."

[Mythsaje]

1. So are we?

Okay, people. You've heard the clarion call. Everyone get out your guns and shoot yourself in the head. It's over. We're doomed anyway.

Too bad about the polar bears though.

[leftchick]

2. funny

very funny.

[peacebird]

3. so are we UNLESS we take serious steps and soon

There is time to effect a change but we need to do it. And I do not see a serious concerted effort for change in America....

And yes - it truly IS too bad about the polar bears, and the birds and other innocent creatures who will die for human conceit and greed.

[leftchick]

4. U.S. rejects Annan call to cut greenhouse gases

the situation is dire. I am glad some people recognize it. Thank you....

NAIROBI, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The United States rejected on Wednesday a plea by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and to join the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol on fighting global warming.

"We think that the United States has been leading in terms of its ground-breaking initiatives," Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, told a news conference during Nov. 6-17 U.N. talks on combating global warming.

Earlier, Annan told environment ministers from 70 nations that there was a "shocking lack of leadership" in cutting emissions. He also said: "I think it would be preferable if they (the United States) signed the Kyoto agreement."

Dobriansky said that the United States was sticking to its goal of braking, rather than capping, the rise in emissions and investing heavily in new technologies to fight global warming.

"We seek to slow, reverse and to really curb emissions," she said.


http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L15319476&WTmodLoc=World-R5-Alertnet-2

[Patchuli]

9. Our new Congress and Senate can work on this

and we need to NUDGE them continuously!

[acmejack]

8. You're on a roll today.

First it was dissing the the soldiers & veterans, now the environmentalists. Wow, what did you take some good drugs where you just don't give a shit anymore?

[Mythsaje]

11. Maybe the doom and gloom crap gets a little much sometimes...

And I dissed the military--not the individual soldiers and vets. I have no problem with the sane ones, just the ones who engage in torture, rape and kill innocent civilians, shoot their fellows in the back, kill their wives and families when they return, and the FUCKING SYSTEM that doesn't do anything to help the situation.

How's that?

[hatrack]

14. I'm sure you'll cheer us up with an abundance of good environmental news

Eagerly awaiting your input.

[Mythsaje]

15. How about a headline that says

The planet's in trouble, what can WE do to help?

Not one that says "Oh, my god, we're all going to die!" ??

My whole life I've paid attention to this. I grew up with it. Sustainability, alternate energy, all the things that can make a difference. My parents had a subscription to Mother Earth News throughout my childhood.

I don't see how there's any value in negativity in this struggle. It drains hope and makes it all that much harder for people to understand there still are things they can do. They can contact the new Congress, press for more strict environmental regulations, the repeal of the giveaways to the energy companies. They can fight to bring renewable energy to the forefront of the dialogue, not only nationally, but locally.

If we're "doomed" then what the hell's the point? How hard is that to understand?

Don't ever tell people they're "doomed." It breeds helplessness and despair.

[leftchick]

20. The US is not doing a fucking thing to help

as a matter of fact they are impeding Climate Change initiatives. I, the mother of two young boys, am in despair. And I am not sorry if that bothers you because it is REALITY!

[Mythsaje]

25. Despair helps no one...

And, no, the US isn't doing anything to help, at the moment. Of course, that's one of the things that could change come January. And we have to make it happen.

Despair is dangerous and should NEVER be passed along if there's a choice. It prevents people from doing what little things they CAN do.

It's a little like the internal monologue that undercuts one's own possible successes in life. If you let it rule, success is never attainable. Passing negative thoughts to other people has a similar effect on a holistic level. No success is possible if people can't believe in it.

[Der Blaue Engel]

10. Greenhouse gases ARE a gun to the head

We're playing Russian Roulette with the planet. Pretty stupid.

[leftchick]

22. I think the gun went off

and we were hit. :(

[MoonRiver]

5. Even those totally self-absorbed homo sapiens, who don't give a shit about innocent sentient beings,

should WAKE UP to their own peril from the effect of global warming. But I doubt they have the requisite number of brain cells to do so.

[earth mom]

6. Al Gore for President NOW!!!

If we care about this planet we must find a way to get him to run for President!

I can barely read threads on the environment anymore, because they upset me to absolutely no end. And even though I haven't even seen An Inconvenient Truth yet either, I don't need to to know that Al Gore is absolutely correct and that more than anything we need him in office NOW!

Our Poor Earth! :cry:

[MoonRiver]

7. Al Gore is my president!

For the survival of every living thing, please, let it be.

[Jcrowley]

12. The song of the Dodo

Slice up a fine Persian carpet into a few dozen neat rectangular pieces. The swatches may together occupy the same area as they did before. But your carpet no longer exists. You're left with a pile of worthless tatters and fabric. That fabric is unraveling as once-unbroken expanses of woods, jungle and grassland, home to untold species of plant and animal life, are sliced up into industrial parks, housing developments, farms, parking lots, malls, roads. And maybe here and there a nature preserve. But a nature preserve is not nature in miniature, however much it might awe a human visitor, for in its isolation and limited extent, it functions as an island. And islands consign animal and plant species to extinction.

It's all connected.

K&R

[Selatius]

13. it's too late for many species, but we should start trying to stop the runaway train anyway.

If your country puts 5,000,000 tons of CO2 from fossil fuels into the atmosphere, and you spent the next 10 years cutting it in half, you've made progress, but you still put 2,500,000 tons of CO2 from fossil fuels into the atmosphere each year into the atmosphere. You gotta switch over to biofuels or other renewables completely to stop taking carbon sequestered in the earth's crust and releasing it back into circulation in the atmosphere.

If you want to stop a fast moving train, you have to put the brakes on it now. It will take a while, but better a while spent now than a while spent later.

[BlooInBloo]

16. ROFLMAO!!!! Yah, because what happens to polar bears ALWAYS...

... happens to us!

:rofl:

[leftchick]

19. I am glad you think this is so funny

because I wish I did. It isn't, this is deadly serious.

[BlooInBloo]

27. It's your "inferential abilities" that are funny.

Approximatey a jillion species have gone extinct since humans arrived on the scene. But POLAR BEARS! They're the indicator!

:rofl:

That's some funny shit.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

32. Laugh at the inference, but the logic stands true:

It's not so much: If Polar Bears are doomed, then we are doomed, as it is: If global climate change is real, then the planet is doomed, which includes both polar bears and humans.

It's a slightly different logic problem than what was presented by the OP, but I got it.

And damn those bears are cute!

[laundry_queen]

21. I suppose you've never heard of a canary in a coal mine. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

24. Of course I have. Now prove this is one, else it's irrelevant.

[leftchick]

26. no

you need to disprove the facts on climate change. You seem to be in the minority like bushco** who rejects the notion.

[BlooInBloo]

28. No. You're just mendaciously attributing things to me I never said.

[YankeyMCC]

17. k & r

[rhiannon55]

18. Gore/Obama '08

An environmentalist and a diplomat. And all those smart Democrats in Congress. It's not too late. Not with the right leadership.

[Gregorian]

23. Doom.

Da doom doom, daddio.




But really, I have wondered what took everybody so long. I've been in the state of doom since the early 70's. I saw this coming. Why didn't everyone else see it? At this point in time, I have actually decided to just let the rest of the people deal with it. And that's not irresponsible. I did my share. Much more than my share. And when you feel like you're fighting all by yourself, and no one else notices the problem, then you just move on. I'm pretty much overwhelmed by it. Every minute of every day. And we didn't take the necessary steps to prevent what is happening. Now it's too late. Gore can't change it. India and China want to live like America lives, and no one is going to stop them. And they have not even started yet.

Sorry. But to lighten it up a bit, I have to recall a previous lifetime. I was a trumpet player. My teacher had a cartoon on his door that I would encounter whenever we had a lesson. The beatnik, and the protester. I guess I'm the beatnik now. Da doom doom. Daddio.

[OneBlueSky]

29. nothing fills me with more emptiness than news of a species extinction . . .

or one on the verge of extinction . . . it touches some deep, fundamental place that I can't really describe, but that evokes a tremendous sadness unlike almost any other . . . maybe it's because it's my own species causing all the damage, as if we were the only ones in creation that matter . . . the ultimate hubris . . .

[dweller]

30. from the land with their head in the sand...

dp

[dysfunctional press]

31. the resourceful ones are inter-breeding with grizzlies

now that their respective habitats are overlapping more and more.

they'll probably evolve into a race of Uber-bear that ends up ruling us all!
(those of us who are left behind come rapture-time)