On April 10th, the Bush administration will finish taking public commentary on whether or not the federal government should protect polar bears. As a result of a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the feds are considering whether to curb actions that harm polar bear habitat. I received the following message from the NRDC, with a link to the site where you can give your input. Please ... take action on this one, and consider signing up to receive NRDC updates on these and other important environmental take-action issues.
Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,
Thanks to courtroom pressure applied by NRDC, the Bush administration has agreed to consider federal protection for the polar bear, which is mortally threatened by global warming.
But now we've really got to turn up the pressure! The Bush administration is taking comments from the public until April 10 before making its decision about whether to protect the polar bear.
Go to NDRC
right now and tell the Bush administration to protect the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
Global warming is rapidly pushing the polar bear to the brink of extinction.
Over the past three decades, more than a million square miles of the Arctic sea ice that polar bears depend on for survival has disappeared. And on the western coast of Canada's Hudson Bay, the ice is melting about three weeks earlier in the spring than it used to.
Polar bears range over hundreds of miles of sea ice in order to find mates, hunt for seals and fatten themselves up for dormancy.
But according to the best available scientific data, global warming could cause the polar bear's sea ice habitat to completely disappear by 2100! No sea ice, no polar bears. It's that simple.
If the polar bear receives federal protection, the Bush administration will be required by law to ensure that any new federal actions -- including those affecting global warming -- do not jeopardize the bear's survival or harm its
essential Arctic habitat.
Go to NRDC
and tell the Bush administration to ensure that global warming doesn't drive these majestic natives of the far north to extinction.
Thank you for all your efforts to protect polar bears and slow global warming.
Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council
C'mon, Kossacks... it'll take 2 seconds to follow the link and another 4 seconds to take action, and it means a lot.
Go 'head with your bad self. Go on, now. Git.