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Saturday, September 08, 2007

But with Knut now a big, real, polar bear, does anyone care?
Posted by Jill | 7:20 AM
I'm not sure most people ever really connected the cute fuzzball at the Berlin Zoo with the real plight of polar bears in the wild. But now that Knut is a big bear:



...one has to wonder if the plight of polar bears in the wild is even a blip on the public's radar.

I'm not sure what makes polar bears so compelling, but you would think that their plight would make the difference in hammering home the very real effect that global warming is having on our planet. There's something delightfully doggy about polar bears. They're like Great Pyrenees on steroids, with their black button noses, their big feet, small ears, and white fur. If there ever was a creature that looks as if it were crafted by Steiff, it's this one. Polar bears, as long as the footage you're looking at doesn't involve them killing and eating a baby seal, which constitutes a fatal Collision of Cute that negates their cuteness, always bring a smile to our faces. This is why the combination of a tiny snow-white cub being bottle fed by a dour-looking middle-aged guy with the worst mullet in history caused millions of women around the world to ovulate simultaneously.

I can't even watch footage of polar bears in the wild anymore, because it breaks my heart. How can you look at a photograph of a polar bear on an ice floe, looking at the huge body of water where other ice floes used to be, as if trying to figure out how the hell he's going to get to where there's food?

The polar bears are so endangered by our addiction to fossil fuels that in fifty years, two-thirds of them will be gone:
Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear by 2050, even under moderate projections for shrinking summer sea ice caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, government scientists reported on Friday.

The finding is part of a yearlong review of the effects of climate and ice changes on polar bears to help determine whether they should be protected under the Endangered Species Act. Scientists estimate the current polar bear population at 22,000.

The report, which the United States Geological Survey released here, offers stark prospects for polar bears as the world grows warmer.

The scientists concluded that, while the bears were not likely to be driven to extinction, they would be largely relegated to the Arctic archipelago of Canada and spots off the northern Greenland coast, where summer sea ice tends to persist even in warm summers like this one, a shrinking that could be enough to reduce the bear population by two-thirds.

The bears would disappear entirely from Alaska, the study said.

“As the sea ice goes, so goes the polar bear,” said Steven Amstrup, lead biologist for the survey team.


And while this ecosystem melts, world leaders fiddle:

Leaders of some of the world's fastest-growing economies are on track toward a "sensible" international agreement to curb climate change, Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced Saturday.

But the hard-won consensus at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum includes no targets for emissions reductions and oceans of wiggle room even within the non-binding APEC communique.

[snip]

"We agree to work to achieve a common understanding on a long-term aspirational global emissions reduction goal," says the text, "to pave the way for an effective post-2012 international arrangement."

APEC members also agreed to reduce "energy intensity" - the amount of energy needed to produce a unit of economic growth - 25 per cent by 2030.

That non-binding, one-per-cent annual reduction doesn't translate into real cuts in emissions, but could slow the rate of increase.


In other words, we're going to give lip service to trying, but actually do nothing.

It all makes you wonder if there is some sort of disease politicians get when they enter so-called public service. Because when you look at Washington, and the Democrats' inevitable caving to George Bush on Iraq by giving him withdrawal requirements to which he must only adhere if he feels like it, "aspirational goals" could be the new Democratic Party slogan.

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