Lawmakers call for 'education' on impact of endangered listing for polar bears
Published Friday, April 11, 2008
JUNEAU — State lawmakers are planning to spend $2 million on a national conference and public relations campaign about the potential impacts of listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.
The money was requested by Senate President Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, and House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, and is included in the state’s capital budget.
Eddy Grasser, a legislative staffer working for Green and Harris, said one goal is to sort out fact from fiction in the science behind the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to list the animal as threatened under the act.
He said he’s done a lot of research on the issue and found there’s a “diversity of opinion” over the human role in climate change — the driving factor behind the agency’s proposal to list the bears.
Another goal is to educate people about the impacts a listing would have.
“The state’s got a huge vested interest in the outcome of that listing as far as the economics of development projects,” he said Thursday.
The listing is based on the idea that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening bears, he said, so anything that emits greenhouse gases could be affected.
Bruce Woods, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, questioned that claim in an interview Thursday.
He said the Endangered Species Act requires a direct link between cause and effect.
“There has to be a direct, scientific line between your gas pipe and this dead bear,” he said. “And frankly, climate science and pollution science aren’t developed to the point to make that kind of connection.”
A listing could lead to additional habitat protections, he added, but that wouldn’t stop development projects outright.
The point of the act isn’t to block projects but to allow them to proceed in a way that minimizes environmental impacts, he said.
Woods also cautioned that the ultimate impact of a listing would likely be decided in the courts.
The Fish and Wildlife Service first proposed listing the bears in early 2007. A subsequent scientific review by the U.S. Geological Survey found that future reductions in sea ice could lead to the loss of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears within 50 years.
A decision on the proposal has not yet been announced.
The legislative budget request calls for an “academic based effort” leading to a national conference and various communications work, including a “significant national education campaign,” according to a supporting document.
“The project will include research methodologies such as computer modeling and perceived consensus,” it reads. “Research shall be non-biased to specific groups’ opinion and shall present scientifically fact based outcomes.”
“It’s economic development, and true and accurate data,” said Ginger Blaisdell, a staff member to Green.
The money would go to the Legislative Council, a joint legislative committee, and the project would go to bid through a request for proposals, according to Grasser.
The request follows two legislative resolutions approved last year in the House and Senate. Those documents also pointed to potential impacts on development and claimed the Fish and Wildlife Service was ignoring scientific data questioning the listing.
Pamela A. Miller, arctic coordinator for the Fairbanks-based Northern Alaska Environmental Center, criticized lawmakers for requesting the funding.
“If education is really needed, why aren’t we supporting the university and the Department of Fish and Game?” she said.
Comments
A $2 million dollar "education" campaign? Give me a break. This is the most blatant waste of state money that I have seen in a long time. This "education" campaign is nothing more than an attempt to persuade Congress and the American public that polar bears are not losing their habitat.
If polar bears are listed as endangered, then Shell and the rest of the Big Oil boys will have a harder time drilling in the Chukchi Sea -- which, coincidentally, is where polar bears live when they're not moving inland because of melting sea ice. (And if you're of the camp that doesn't think the ice is melting and that global warming is a myth, you're suffering from an acute case of cranial-rectal inversion.) No drilling means no oil. No oil means no revenue
Education campaign? Ha. It's a government-sponsored spin campaign to pull a bull's-eye on the back of the polar bear in the name of money.
What?
Who is suggesting that the climate is not changing? No one is arguing that the current trend appears to be heading upward (at least for the northern hemisphere that is).
Get a grip will you.
Scientist have mountains of evidence that shows that the current climate trend is moving upward. What they lack is incontrovertible or direct evidence of what exactly is main driver or cause of this trend (even todays warmer temperatures are not outside of normal variations that have been estimated for the past).
Many scientist agree/know that temperature preceeds CO2 and that CO2 may not be the main driver of the warming trend.
Many people for various reasons are convinced however that CO2 is the main driver with little evidence to prove this contention.
There are so many variables in what causes the climate to change that it currently isn't possible to pin it or even determine to what percentage each variables impact has on climate change.
Every attempt to place some of the known variables and even unkowns into an equation used in climate models have failed to reproduce the past climate history.
Huge sums of money have been spent to collect the results or evidence of climate change but little in comparison has been spent to determine what actually causes the change.
At this time it is not possible to place the blame of climate change or even determine a impact percentage that is manmade, that is to say an impact clearly higher then what is of a natural occurrence. Which is why it's irresponsible to place polar bears on the protected species act for lack of direct evidence that mans influence or impact percentage on climate is the direct cause of ice melting in the arctic.
thank you lawmakers. money well spent!
but it is hard to educate the indoctrinated.
A 2 million dollar PR campaign, yea that's a good idea. Does anybody else see the irony in this being spearheaded by legislators who think of themselves as fiscal conservatives?
I'm sure they'll change a lotta minds, we Alaskans have such a good national reputation for using public resources wisely. But seriously aren't there better ways to spend this dough?
Maybe if they spent more of our money Lyda and John could convince us the bears are causing global warming. In fact, for only $100,000 I'd be willing to say global warming is a vast animal conspiracy!
The State of Alaska rarely funds any of ADF&Gs 30 plus million dollar budget. Only a few hundred thousand dollars for wolf controll efforts. ADF&G is primarily reliant on non-resident licence sales, and Federal excise taxes, Pitman/Roberts funds. PR funds are distributed in formula to how many State licence dollars are sold. The more licences sold the more Federal dollars are distributed at a ratio of 3 PR dollars for every state licence dollar.Because non-residents pay high licence fees the Board of Game allocates harvest as much as possible to them. This is ususally NOT benificial to the resident of Alaska trying to fill his freezer.
ADF&G can no longer be reliant on Federal funding, nor can the game recources continue to suport esculating non-resident participation. The legeslature needs to do THEIR constitutional duty to sustained yeild, and fund wildlife management.
Waisting 2,000,000 on some public relation firm to "educate" the public on Polar Bears is funding squanded. ADF&G could well use those funds for surveys and other management necessities to benifit Alaskan residents. General fund dollars benifit the Alaskan resources and Alaskans, not outside public relations firms or non-resident hunters.
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