The fossil fuel industry doesn't like the fact that polar bears need a place to live. They don't like the fact that polar bears need a place to breed and raise their young.
Get off my yard by AWF Volunteering
Add this to your list of reasons to hate the Earth destroying fossil fuel industry. They target one of the most magnificently beautiful creatures on our planet; a creature whose offspring is so adorable that it's replicas are universally popular as children's sleep aids.
Recently, a federal court in Alaska overturned a Fish and Wildlife Service habitat designation for polar bears after the fossil fuel industry sued, complaining that the habitat interfered with oil exploration.
Grist
A U.S. court in Alaska has overturned a federal rule aimed at protecting polar bear habitat in the Arctic, handing a victory to the oil and natural-gas industry.
The rule, established by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is “valid in many respects,” but the agency didn’t follow all the legally required steps before adopting the regulation, U.S. District Court Judge Ralph R. Beistline wrote in the decision, which was dated Thursday and published Friday. …
The government designated barrier islands, offshore sea-ice and “denning” areas, where female polar bears are known to make dens where they give birth to their young during winter months, as critical habitat. At the time of the designation, in November 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service said the areas were “essential for the conservation of the bear.”
The oil industry doesn't listen to anybody. So what if your species will go extinct? You made the great mistake of choosing a habitat that is over vast quantities of the remains of other creatures who were driven to extinction.
A federally protested habitat means nothing when the citizens of a state profit from it's destruction. And so it was with Alaska who partnered with the oil industry to screw the polar bears.
Where is the outrage? When will this end? It will only end when we can drive a stake through the heart of oil company profits.
Join Bill McKibben and 350.org for President's Day Protest at the Whitehouse against the oil industry at the White House. See you there.