Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Our friends over at PEER, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, have released internal e-mails from the Department of Interior exposing more of the Bush administration’s shenanigans.
On January 24, Peer told us the Interior Department “Purged Scientific Concerns” about the introduction of invasive species into Arctic waters that would be brought in if offshore drilling was allowed to take place.
On January 29, The United States Department of Interior’s Office of the Solicitor requested PEER “immediately cease your unauthorized publication of [these] privileged communications and return them to MMS, along with any other MMS communications or documents in your possession that MMS has not authorized for disclosure.”
According to the Office of the Solicitor “MMS has a vital interest in protecting internal communications, the release of which would stifle the full and frank internal debate that fosters good government decision making.”
Protecting internal communications appears to be a euphemism for the outright ban on informing the public of the truth. The tax payers of the U.S. pay the wages of all federal employees from the President down to the local dog catchers. To ban from the public information they have, in fact, paid to have compiled is unscrupulous.
January 21, PEER’s news release, “INTERIOR STIFLES POLAR BEAR PROTECTIONS FROM ARCTIC DRILLING”, exposes the truth behind the delay in listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
Bush’s energy policy may be failing the Arctic, its waters and its inhabitants, but it could be a resounding success for the energy industries. Oil drilling, liquefied natural gas facilities, year-round tanker traffic and the employment of ice breakers to keep it all moving year round flies in the face of environmental responsibility.
These things and the entire accompaniment required to accomplish them are paving the way for untold tons of pollution to be spewed into the air and waters of the Arctic.
The most invasive of species being brought into the region is man and everything he needs to sustain himself. How long before housing, fast food chains and drive thru auto-lube garages begin to litter the landscape?
PEER is the point of the spear.
Photo thanks: MSNBC/John Tidwell
Labels: Arctic, Department of Interior, Oil Drilling, PEER, Polar Bear
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Public Getting Hosed While Bush Administration Attempts to Grease Polar Bears!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
When you care enough to give the very best, don’t call on Hallmark, call Willie Soon.
Senators John D. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe have written a scathing letter to Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil. Reading Tillerson the riot act, Rockefeller and Snowe are point blank accusing ExxonMobil of ‘longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics’.
Hot words to be sure the letter goes on to say, …’ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind…’
The Senators call ExxonMobil’s support of the global warming ‘deniers’, dangerous.
Clearly the old saying, if you can dazzle them with your brilliance baffle them with your bullsh**, requires more than one astrophysicist ‘in pocket’.
So where is this all leading? It’s leading straight to the Hudson Bay in Canada and the Polar Bears that are skating on thin ice.
Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) has sent a letter to ExxonMobil requesting ‘all records since 2002 related to their support for scientists working on polar bears and other Arctic animals.’
Miller, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and oversight is demanding that ExxonMobil explain just how it came to be that ExxonMobil funded an astrophysicist to research on polar bears!
“The subcommittee wants to understand how ExxonMobil decided to fund an astrophysicist to do research on polar bears,”
In 2006 Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would begin gathering information and undertaking analyses before making a decision whether to add polar bears to the list of endangered species. In his announcement, Kempthorne, used the words ‘melting’, ‘receding sea ice’, loss of ice, decline of ice, thinning ice, reduction of ice and reduced ice. He pointed out analysis of what may be causing melting,receding, thinning etc. beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act review process, and these things are discussed in ‘other’ analyses undertaken by the Bush Administration.
Kempthorne stated “our goal ultimately is to combine the best science available with the power of working hand in hand with states, tribes, foreign countries, industry, and other partners to minimize the threats to polar bears and conserve this great icon of the Arctic for future generations”.
The best science available, or in any case the best science ExxonMobil can buy from an astrophysicist.
In Miller’s letter to Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO he points out that Willie Soon’s articles published in Ecological Complexity is a ‘viewpoint’ not a peer-reviewed scientific article. “To the lay person, this “viewpoint” is indistinguishable from a peer-reviewed journal article.
Miller asserts ExxonMobil should come clean, “If the Governor of Alaska and the Commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game cannot tell whether this paper is science or an elaborate editorial, what would a less sophisticated audience think?” “This essay, funded in part with ExxonMobil money is now a key exhibit for those who oppose a listing of the polar bear as threatened and deny that climate change is eroding the Bear’s habitat.”
Miller’s request has a due date of November 6, 2007…
Read the entire letter written by Sens. Snowe and Rockefeller to Tillerson at http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9acba744-802a-23ad-47be-2683985c724e
Read the Department of the interior’s Dec.27,2006 press release at http://www.doi.gov/news/06_News_Releases/061227.html
Read Congressman Miller’s letter to Tillerson at http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/ForReleases/miller_exxonmobil_response_01jun07.pdf
Photo Thanks pb-scott-schilebe-usfws.
Labels: Brad Miller, DOI, ExxonMobil, Global Warming, John D. Rockefeller, Olympia Snowe, Polar Bear, Polar Bear Memo, Willie Soon
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Global Warming and Polar Bear Reports: You get what you pay for after all!
Monday, November 5, 2007
When you care enough to give the very best, don’t call on Hallmark, call Willie Soon.
Senators John D. Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe have written a scathing letter to Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil. Reading Tillerson the riot act, Rockefeller and Snowe are point blank accusing ExxonMobil of ‘longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics’.
Hot words to be sure the letter goes on to say, …’ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind…’
The Senators call ExxonMobil’s support of the global warming ‘deniers’, dangerous.
Clearly the old saying, if you can dazzle them with your brilliance baffle them with your bullsh**, requires more than one astrophysicist ‘in pocket’.
So where is this all leading? It’s leading straight to the Hudson Bay in Canada and the Polar Bears that are skating on thin ice.
Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC) has sent a letter to ExxonMobil requesting ‘all records since 2002 related to their support for scientists working on polar bears and other Arctic animals.’
Miller, chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and oversight is demanding that ExxonMobil explain just how it came to be that ExxonMobil funded an astrophysicist to research on polar bears!
“The subcommittee wants to understand how ExxonMobil decided to fund an astrophysicist to do research on polar bears,”
In 2006 Interior Secretary, Dirk Kempthorne announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would begin gathering information and undertaking analyses before making a decision whether to add polar bears to the list of endangered species. In his announcement, Kempthorne, used the words ‘melting’, ‘receding sea ice’, loss of ice, decline of ice, thinning ice, reduction of ice and reduced ice. He pointed out analysis of what may be causing melting,receding, thinning etc. beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act review process, and these things are discussed in ‘other’ analyses undertaken by the Bush Administration.
Kempthorne stated “our goal ultimately is to combine the best science available with the power of working hand in hand with states, tribes, foreign countries, industry, and other partners to minimize the threats to polar bears and conserve this great icon of the Arctic for future generations”.
The best science available, or in any case the best science ExxonMobil can buy from an astrophysicist.
In Miller’s letter to Tillerson, ExxonMobil CEO he points out that Willie Soon’s articles published in Ecological Complexity is a ‘viewpoint’ not a peer-reviewed scientific article. “To the lay person, this “viewpoint” is indistinguishable from a peer-reviewed journal article.
Miller asserts ExxonMobil should come clean, “If the Governor of Alaska and the Commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game cannot tell whether this paper is science or an elaborate editorial, what would a less sophisticated audience think?” “This essay, funded in part with ExxonMobil money is now a key exhibit for those who oppose a listing of the polar bear as threatened and deny that climate change is eroding the Bear’s habitat.”
Miller’s request has a due date of November 6, 2007…
Read the entire letter written by Sens. Snowe and Rockefeller to Tillerson at http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9acba744-802a-23ad-47be-2683985c724e
Read the Department of the interior’s Dec.27,2006 press release at http://www.doi.gov/news/06_News_Releases/061227.html
Read Congressman Miller’s letter to Tillerson at http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/ForReleases/miller_exxonmobil_response_01jun07.pdf
Photo Thanks pb-scott-schilebe-usfws
Labels: Brad Miller, ExxonMobil, Global Warming, John D. Rockefeller, Olympia Snowe, Polar Bear, Polar Bear Memo, Polar Bears, Willie Soon
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Polar Bears and ExxonMobil:You Get What You Pay For After All
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The old joke ‘if you want to feel like a real woman, then wash this shirt and get me a beer’ may actually have more truth to it than we previously thought.
I don’t mean to imply men don’t do laundry. But, the constant contact with household cleaners usually does fall upon the human female. So it’s remarkable to find a connection between a class of toxic chemicals widely used in household detergents and the feminization of male fish.
This development has been studied for about the last 10 years. Nonylphenol ethoxylates, (NPE) known as estrogenic, means contact with this chemical will actually stimulate the production of estrogen.
There’s some irony! Maybe washing shirts really does make me feel more like a woman.
I don’t know if the mature male fish that carry eggs in their testes exhibit female behavior, but eggs in the reproductive system is definitely a female trait.
Canada and Europe have tighter restrictions imposed on the use of NPEs than the US.
In the US the answer to the use of these toxic class chemicals appears to be awarding certificates, maybe bronze plaques to companies that voluntarily commit to the use of safer substitutes for NPEs. How’s that for feminization? Why not a nice scrapbook page for their memory book too?
Voluntarily reducing the use of toxic chemicals is a ‘good thing’ as Martha Stewart would say. Procter & Gamble and Unilever have voluntarily substituted NPE’s with other chemicals in their products. Wal-Mart is still trying to hop on the green-train by rewarding companies it does business with that find alternatives to NPEs.
The Sierra Club thinks it’s time the EPA takes action to restrict or ban the use of this class of chemical.
Feminized or intersex fish have been found nearly everywhere. This leads me to agree with the idea that more than on estrogen stimulating, endocrine blocking chemical is being introduced into the environment and in more than one way.
Meanwhile, male salmon are loosing their urge to swim up stream, and becoming more amiable to staying home with the kids and keeping house.
More tomorrow on Phthalates, Nonylphenol ethoxylates, the Feminization of Marine life and the Human Male.
Labels: Canada, FDA, Feminization, Nonylphenol ethoxylates, Ocean, Ocean Habitat, PVC, Phthalates, Plastic, Poison, Polar Bear, Polar Bears, Salmon, Testicular Dysgenesis Syndrome, USA, Wal-Mart, Whales
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Feminized Intersex Fish, Deformed Male Penis, Hermaphroditic Whales. Linking estorgen stimulating, endocrine blocking chemicals.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The Main Street Moms and Working Assets are urging people to “Step it Up”!
Labels: Polar Bear, Polar Bears
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
A Video Message from The Polar Bears!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Do not mention a word about climate change, sea ice or polar bears! That is, of course, if you are a biologist or other employee of the US Interior Departments Fish and Wildlife Service.
On March 2, a travel requirement memo was issued warning biologists and other employees not to mention these apparently ‘tricky’ subjects while traveling abroad.
Fish and Wildlife Service Officials say the ‘polar bear memos’ as they have become known as, are consistent with a longstanding policy to ensure a coherent position in foreign negotiations and to prevent employees from discussing topics not on event agendas. (Say that 3 times fast!)
In January the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held hearings on political interference with government climate-change scientists. The Union of Concerned Scientists, and advocacy group, cited a survey showing 500 scientists from 9 agencies said they had been barred from publishing new study results related to climate change.
Representatives Brad Miller, (D N.C.) and Bart Gordon, (D Tenn.) requested more information from interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. Miller and Gordon wrote that the memos appear to be the latest effort by the Bush administration to block a full and free discussion of issues relating to climate change by the scientific community.
Just one of the perils polar bears are facing is an ever-shrinking habitat due to melting ice. Ice on the Hudson Bay is melting an average of 3 weeks earlier than in the mid-70’s.
These unique bears fast for 6 to 8 months during hibernation and rely on winter hunting for survival. Longer periods without ice during the Arctic summer is leaving polar bears stranded onshore longer, cutting down on their fat reserves. This is affecting reproduction and milk production. There is already a documented 15 percent drop in birth rates.
Did you get the memo?
Labels: After the Downing, Memo, Polar Bear, Polar Bear Memo, Speak no Evil
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
After the Downing Street Memo Came the…
