Monday, June 18, 2012

Hucksters

Ad on facebook this morning.   Care About Wildlife?  The EPA is considering a new rule that would help them protect wildlife.  Tell them to do it!

Wildlife?!   I care about wildlife!   Where do I click????

I'll just mandate that wildlife is, you know, protected!   Make my voice heard, and stuff!

So you click through to a National Wildlife Federation page that informs me what I need to know.   And what that is is that evil power companies that provide the electricity to power my electric car and iPad have been evil-ly dumping unlimited amounts of industrial (double plus un-good!) carbon pollution into "the environment".

And the EPA is considering bold new standards limiting industrial (that's probably not the electricity that powers the blower fan in my central heat and air, no.  It's industrial!)  carbon (which is different from the carbon I breath out as well, I'm sure) from power plants!   (But only industrial ones.)

This would be a critical victory for wildlife in the fight against melting icecaps, climate change, and environmental destruction (oh my!).

And look, there's a photo of a swimming polar bear just to drive the point home.  (Wait a minute, I saw a buffalo on the original link.  Is this bait and switch?)

What you can do.  Oh boy!  Here it is.  I'm gonna save a polar bear!

Why you can sign the statement below by filling out the form.
I support the EPA's standards limiting industrial carbon pollution from power plants. These standards would be a step in the right direction. It's time to start taking better care of our environment and the creatures that inhabit it. 
I support clean air for the future of our environment and our planet's wildlife!
And if you don't, you're a wildlife hater!  A clean air hater!   A ....  what, why is my electric bill so high?   Those greedy power companies!  They should be socia-nationalized!!!! Like our health care!!!!

And look, it turns out that polar bears actually swim 30 miles regularly, and have been known to swim for 10 days straight for more than 400 miles!   That clearly means ice caps are melting due to global warming, and that the polar bears must be doooomed.  DOOOOOOMED!!!!!  Doooooooomed!

Never mind that, even in the article it states:

‘That these bears can swim such long distances might mean that they are not as vulnerable to being stranded at sea,’ said the USGS in a statement.

and
‘They appear to be moving continuously. But whether that’s affecting survival, we don’t know.’ says Anthony Pagano, lead author of the study.

Despite the fact that polar bear populations seem to be doing just fine (and that's not Obama saying it, either) and there's no evidence that there's a negative impact on the survival of polar bears, the article nonetheless concludes:
 The bears cannot survive without the sea ice and use it to hunt seals, their main food source.

1 comment:

Cylar said...

Would someone explain to me why the hell I should care even if polar bears do go extinct? Does the polar bear provide some function that humanity can't do without?

Why is my life affected one damn iota just because a predator up in the Arctic is no longer around to hunt seals? You're going tell me that the seal population is just going to up and explode because there are no bears to hunt them?

Uh...except...seals are also hunted by...wait for....

Orcas.

That's right. Killer whales. They do love them some seal meat, just like da bears.

And even if we didn't have orcas swimming the icy waters looking to make meals of seals (hey, that rhymes)...it would be easy enough to open up the species to hunting by human beings.

I never understand why it's supposed to be a big screaming deal that some wildlife population is going to get out of control, not when there are usually plenty of men with guns who are willing to take care of the problem. Often for free, definitely if you started offering monetary bounties for pelts or something.