Palin Fights To Take Polar Bears Off Endangered Species List,
Aiding Big Oil Profits

The survival of Polar Bears is highly threatened in the wild.

Alaska is increasingly devastated by global warming: melting glaciers, permafrost and sea ice, as well as the severe impacts on wildlife, ecosystems and people. In contrast to the arguments made by Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the scientific literature is very clear that polar bear survival is highly threatened in the wild.

Polar Bears inhabit areas that oil companies seek to drill. By protecting the species, oil companies would be barred from exploring certain parts of Alaska's wildlife refuge.

Governor Palin is using public position to become the advocate for oil company and their profits.

In May 2008, Palin objected to the decision of Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican United States Secretary of the Interior, to list polar bears federally as an endangered species, saying this move was premature and was not the appropriate management tool for their welfare; the State of Alaska filed a lawsuit to stop the listing amid fears that it would hurt oil and gas development in the bears' habitat off Alaska's northern and northwestern coasts.

Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity stated: "Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying [evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, the polar bear's habitat]."

Palin has strongly promoted oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), where such development has been the subject of a national debate.

Learn more

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837868,00.html

http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html