UnBEARable: Bush regime forbids mention of polar bears

[rec_report]

UnBEARable: Bush regime forbids mention of polar bears

Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate 08 Mar 2007 Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.

Under the heading "Foreign Travel — New Requirement — Please Review and Comply, Importance: High," the cover note said: "Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175 requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears."

Banned by the Bush dictatorship!

[Fresh_Start]

1. No need to mention, just show pictures

but stay mum.

[Danieljay]

3. exactly, what you hear, you forget, what you SEE, you remember! n/t

[The Cleaner]

2. I thought Bush was considering putting Polar Bears on the Endangered Species List?

:wtf:

[rec_report]

8. Here's an update on the listing of polar bears as threatened:

In December, the Bush administration, facing a deadline under a suit by environmental groups, proposed listing polar bears throughout their range as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because the warming climate is causing a summertime retreat of sea ice that the bears use for seal hunting.

Environmentalists are trying to use such a listing to force the United States to restrict heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to global warming as a way of limiting risks to the 22,000 or so bears in the far north.

It remains unclear whether such a listing will be issued. The Fish and Wildlife Service this week held the first of several hearings in Alaska and Washington on the question.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/washington/08polar.html


Here's a snip and link from the article from December 2006:

December 28, 2006
Agency Proposes to List Polar Bears as Threatened

WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 — The Interior Department proposed Wednesday to designate polar bears as a threatened species, saying that the accelerating loss of the Arctic ice that is the bears’ hunting platform has led biologists to believe that bear populations will decline, perhaps sharply, in the coming decades.

Many experts on the Arctic say that global warming is causing the ice to melt and that the warming is at least partly the result of the atmospheric buildup of heat-trapping gases from tailpipes and smokestacks. The plight of the polar bear has been held up by environmentalists as a symbol of global warming caused by humans.

But in a conference call with reporters, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said that although his decision to seek protection for polar bears acknowledged the melting of the Arctic ice, his department was not taking a position on why the ice was melting or what to do about it.

<snip>

More at the source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/28/science/28polar.html?ei=5070&en=c3a61205784b6d45&ex=1173502800&pagewanted=print

[Richard Steele]

4. Are we the 1960's Soviet Union yet?

[Hand]

5. Nope, still stuck in 1940s Germany.nt

[rec_report]

9. LOL!! n/t

[rec_report]

6. In the article, that's actually a quote in response to the directive:

Electronic copies of the memorandums and cover note were forwarded to The New York Times by Deborah Williams, an environmental campaigner in Alaska and a former Interior Department official in the Clinton administration.

"This sure sounds like a Soviet-style directive to me," Ms. Williams said.

[Cabcere]

17. Welcome to DU, rec_report!

:hi: Good to have you here. :)

...And yes, it does sound rather Soviet... :scared:

[Kelly Rupert]

7. Now that's just silly n/t

[City Lights]

10. Yeah, that'll solve things. Fer sure.

:eyes:

Assholes! :mad:

[rec_report]

11. And I thought the Greek dictatorship banning the letter 'Z' was bad!

n/t

[Beaverhausen]

12. Jesus christ on a trailer hitch

WTF?

[rec_report]

13. "Don't discuss polar bears": memo to scientists

"Don't discuss polar bears": memo to scientists 08 Mar 2007 Polar bears, sea ice and global warming are taboo subjects, at least in public, for some U.S. scientists attending meetings abroad, environmental groups and a top federal wildlife official said on Thursday.

Environmental activists called this scientific censorship, which they said was in line with the Bush administration's history of muzzling dissent over global climate change.

<snip>

The matter came to light in e-mails from the Fish and Wildlife Service that were distributed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, both environmental groups.

[Morgana LaFey]

14. "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it ....."

suddenly makes a little more sense than it used to, doeesn't it?

[kineneb]

15. ok, so we don't mention polar bears...

but from now on, everyone show up to functions carrying a stuffed animal polar bear gently tucked under one arm... won't need to say a thing!

:evilgrin:


I got my polar bear stuffies, do you have yours?

[rec_report]

23. When members of the Bush regime speak at college graduations,

the students should drown them out by yelling 'polar bear.' The media would have to report that protest. :)

[Lisa]

16. I hope Stephen Colbert will be all over this! (n/t)

[Cabcere]

18. LOL! Oh, I'm sure he will...

what with bears being "godless killing machines" and all. :rofl: Excellent!

[Cabcere]

19. K&R, for the...

wait for it...

wait for it...

........................

POLAR BEARS!!!11!1!!!!1!!11!

Yeah, that's right, BushCo. I went there. :P

[rec_report]

21. Awe, that's so sweet! My Avatar image thanks you. :) n/t

[SalmonChantedEvening]

20. This redefines the term Gag Order

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

New memo: "Never mention sunscreen while in Ecuador"


Eeeee Yeeeee yeeeeeeeesh.

[robinlynne]

22. deleted, because I was being childish.