Companies get OK to annoy polar bears

Jun 14, 2008 By DINA CAPPIELLO , Associated Press Writer

(AP) -- Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming, the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.

Content from The Associated Press expires 15 days after original publication date. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org .

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User comments : 16

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superhuman

3.5 / 5 (12) Jun 14, 2008

I hereby grant moral support to all polar bears if "small numbers" of oil company workers are incidentally harmed by their activities over the next five years.

xen_uno

2.4 / 5 (8) Jun 14, 2008

Me too ...

Bush ... what a disgusting MoFo. His admin also gave coal companies permission to dump mine tailings in surrounding hollows and valleys with no liners and no water treatment ... in short, no regulations at all. How the executive branch is re-writing a sovereign agency's (EPA) regulations is beyond me. He's a damn enviromental criminal. I hope the impeachment gathers some major steam. Since McCain is turning into a major Bush cronnie, it's looking like Obama or a Libertarian would be the wise choice to vote for.

xxxxxxx

2.5 / 5 (12) Jun 14, 2008

notwithstanding the nuts and oppertunists using the global warming by humans myth, this is a good start wacking some polar bears... hopefully this will spread to wacking a bunch of other usless animals and we can get some oil domestically. the democrates sure messed this up for the past 40 years.

SDMike

2.3 / 5 (9) Jun 14, 2008

Steven Amstrup said "To assess what the impacts are going to be, we should know more about the bears." US scientists have had over 200 years to study polar bears. They will never know enough as long as their ignorance can be used to block human use of the earth. These nuts will only be satisfied when there are no humans on earth and their "natural" balance is restored.

xen_uno

2.8 / 5 (10) Jun 14, 2008

xxxxxxx ... "GREW UP WITH IT" ... you did huh? What, as a CEO's son or an heir to some coal mining company fortune? .. or maybe part of coal mining family where the choice was either be a miner or live on welfare. I would tell you to watch "Burning the Future: Coal in America" but what good would it do. You would see it as slanted and one sided, after all, well water is supposed to be black as it's high in nutrition. Here's to hoping the next coal mine is right in your backyard.

That's right Mike but but change the "use" in "block humans use of the earth" to "overuse" then figure out how to mockingly put words like polluted, sterile (or lifeless), and toxic in there too. I would guess you support drilling in the AWR too.

roguetrekker

1.8 / 5 (9) Jun 15, 2008

xen_uno...take another look at McCain's policies please. He is against drilling in Alaska and is calling for a nationwide cooperation to end the oil burning once and for all. Harnessing the power of the tide, new and improved solar energy, and getting the government and privatly employed scientists involved to work together not to end our dependency on *foreign* oil, but end our dependency on oil period. As a scientist myself, I know the technology is out there but no one is getting all of the information. The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing.

Bush is horrible. McCain is no Bush or Bush cronnie. He's using him to get money, something he needs to win. If I had a choice at voting for a presidential candidate that has fabulous ideas with no chance of winning or voting for a presidential candidate who has some good ideas with a real chance of winning the presidency, I would vote for the guy who has a *chance* to make a positive impact. If you vote for someone you know isn't going to win how are you helping the Earth? You are only satisfying your own conscience and thinking "I did the best I could." When that person doesn't win, all you can do is throw your arms up and say, "Hey, don't blame me."

I am a Druid, and I am voting for McCain, no doubt about it.

aufever

2.9 / 5 (9) Jun 15, 2008

Ignorance is really evident in this article and by a lot of the people posting here. If you would check it out Polar Bear Numbers have actually increased something like 5 or 6 fold in the last 30 years. The earth has been historically warmer from approximately 75 BC till approximately 1300, when it cooled dramatically. This Disinformation is just like the crap being put out on ANWR. The area the oil companies want to drill in is about the size of a postage stamp compared to a tennis court and just happens to be a High Arctic Desert, not some pristine wilderness as the Enviro-Whackos would want people to believe. Btw, the world has cooled for the last 2 years.

ofidiofile

2.3 / 5 (9) Jun 15, 2008

well, "ignorance", huh? i guess we been done told off!

the area to be drilled in ANWR may be comparatively small, but both it and much of the surrounding area has been explored/surveyed. do you know how they do that? with large, heavy tracked vehicle, among other things. damage is done whether we drill or not. do you have any idea how excruciatingly slow the carbon cycle is up there, and how long the native flora etc takes to recover? and the caribou depend on the land, too. sure, they'll browse around oil rigs -- but they won't calve there. but, yeah, we're all just whackos, i know.

and "high arctic desert", huh? aren't MOST terrestrial arctic landscapes pretty much arid (ie, desert)? and the coastal plain of northern alaska is hundreds of miles further south then, say, ellesmere island (the actual HIGH ARCTIC). learn some geography and ecology, why dontcha? jeez, come to a science site, and still, crackpots as far as the eye can see....

aufever

3 / 5 (10) Jun 15, 2008

I came to a Scientific Site to read something Scientific, not some rant from an Associated Press Writer. As to Geography, I have just a little more knowledge than the average bear. A Desert Calssifcation is based on Amount of Precipitation. I happen to know a little of the Ecology of the area also. The travel in these areas is done during the winter months with vehicles the could run over a human and not hurt them. Most of the time by the Polar Bears is spent on the Sea Ice and the oil companies won't be on the sea ice, they will wait for open water to do their exploration when there are no Polar Bears. I do have knowledge of how long the carbon Cycle is up there.

zevkirsh

2.4 / 5 (5) Jun 15, 2008

the u.s has already don eht ehard part of beating our dependence on oil. our functioning capital markets will reward solar and wind when they finally do show more promise to turn a profit. jsut take a alook at first solar (fslr) their stock is up about 10x since a year ago, when they ipo'd
zeev

RAL

2.9 / 5 (9) Jun 15, 2008

Isn't there some way to turn these lumbering carbon emitting creatures into oil?

If these environ-mental cases at AP had been around when humans learned to control fire, they would have tried to ban its use because it annoyed wooly mammoths. Who gives a ratsazz whether polar bears are annoyed? Answer: People who are so rich they don't notice the price of gas, or someone else is buying it for them.

itistoday

2.4 / 5 (5) Jun 19, 2008

roguetrekker: I believe the more important question is, why on earth would you vote for McCain when you can vote for *Obama*?? I mean, unless you're missing part of your frontal cortex... it just doesn't make sense..

Modernmystic

2 / 5 (4) Jun 20, 2008

I'm totally ambivalent towards polar bears. If it can save one human life or one job for a family I could care less if all the polar bears on Earth went off the edge of a very high ice shelf.

ofidiofile

3 / 5 (2) Jun 24, 2008

I'm totally ambivalent towards polar bears. If it can save one human life or one job for a family I could care less if all the polar bears on Earth went off the edge of a very high ice shelf.

wow, the world would get very small very fast if that was policy, thanks be to Whoever that you're not in charge. (btw, "ambivalent" means being conflicted on a subject, which is kind of the opposite of the way you're using it here....)

Belle

3.7 / 5 (3) Aug 20, 2008

If all the polar bears on earth went off a very high ice shelf, it would be a concern to not only one human, but to us all. Everyone is missing the big picture. The plight of the Polar Bear is an example of the current impact we humans are having on global warming and the climate. In saving the Polar Bears, we are also saving ourselves. Drilling, emissions and the pollutants we are spreading on the ground and in air are effecting the climate. When it gets to be oh lets say, 95 everyday, 365 days a year, it will be too late to do anything about global warming. We need to make serious changes now that will provide a sustainable environment for all. The effects we are seeing now on the polar bear habitat, will one day be realized in the human habitat. As you can see, "I am not ambivalent" on this topic.

xen_uno

4 / 5 (1) Aug 22, 2008

mystic ... come on ... what you really meant to say is "I'm totally ambivalent towards (insert any flora - fauna here) ... If it can save one human life ...". Do you have any pets? If so, how come you haven't sacrificed them to feed starving people in Africa, or a few locals down in the 'hood? Your lack of compassion for the other creatures on this planet is rather sickening.

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