Bush-Cheney Administration Issues Polar Bear Gag Order

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Bush-Cheney Administration Issues Polar Bear Gag Order

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 09, 2007 — By the Center for Biological Diversity

 

ANCHORAGE, AK — Today the Center for Biological Diversity denounced a Bush

administration directive restricting the ability of government scientists

traveling abroad to discuss global warming, sea ice, and polar bears. The memo

requires employees traveling in situations where these topics could arise to

submit a statement of assurance that the employee understands " the

administration's position on these issues, " and will not be speaking on, or

responding to, questions about them.

 

" This is positively Orwellian, " said Kieran Suckling, policy director with the

Center for Biological Diversity. " Only the worst cynic could admit the polar

bear is being driven extinct by global warming, then issue a gag order to stop

government scientists from talking about it. "

 

On December 27, 2006, the administration was forced to propose listing the polar

bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act due to a petition

and subsequent lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, NRDC, and

Greenpeace. The proposal authored by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists

concluded that the Arctic is rapidly warming, causing the polar bear's sea-ice

habitat to melt away. Scientific models predict that in a matter of decades, all

summer ice could be gone.

 

A 90-day public comment period on the proposal is open until April 9, 2007. The

third of three scheduled public hearings is occurring this evening in Barrow,

Alaska. A final listing decision is due by January 9, 2008.

 

" The administration should be embarrassed by public discussion of global

warming, sea ice, and polar bears, since its own do-nothing approach to the

climate crisis is the single-greatest threat to the survival of the polar bear, "

said Kassie Siegel, climate program director with the Center for Biological

Diversity. " Instead of censoring government scientists, however, the

administration should start doing something about greenhouse gas pollution. "

 

Leading climate scientists warn that just ten more years of continued greenhouse

gas emissions trajectories will make it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid

rapid warming that would raise sea level by 20 feet or more and result in the

extinction of up to one third of the planet's species, including the polar bear.

The Bush-Cheney administration has blocked readily available solutions such as

improved energy efficiency, increased automotive fuel economy, and increased use

of renewable energy that would protect the world's climate and species like the

polar bear as well as benefit the economy.

 

The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization

with over 35,000 members dedicated to the protection of imperiled species and

their habitat.

 

Contact Info:

 

Kieran Suckling

Tel : 520-275-5960

 

Kassie Siegel

Tel : 760-366-2232 x 302

Cell : 951-961-7972

 

Website : the Center for Biological Diversity

 

 

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to

tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of war, corporations have been

enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money

power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the

prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and

the republic is destroyed. I feel, at this moment, more anxiety for the safety

of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my

suspicions may prove groundless. " Lincoln in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins

on November 21, 1864