Will Global Warming Kill Off the Polar Bear?

16 Feb 2006, 07:20:59 AM

From:  Fred Krupp, Environmental Defense Action Fund" <TakeAction@environmentaldefense.org

Help save polar bears from global warming
 
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The beloved polar bear faces extinction in our lifetime unless you and I take immediate action.

Please support our Fight Global Warming Campaign to mobilize the public and our lawmakers on behalf of polar bears — and countless other potential victims of global warming.

The latest alarm was sounded last week when the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced it may list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The cause? Global warming, and its effect on the Arctic pack ice, which serves as polar bear hunting grounds.

The fate of polar bears is only one sign of global warming's ecological tremors:

  • From mid-1997 to mid-1998 — the hottest 12-month period on record — coral reef bleaching reached pandemic proportions — 16% of the planet's tropical reefs sustained severe damage. In a single year.

  • Scientists have identified thousands of plant and animal species who — like polar bears — are already facing measurable global warming hardships. Some of the luckiest species are finding ways to migrate to cooler climes. But many others face extinction.

  • Spring migrations of birds and butterflies are shifting by as many as five days, causing a cascade of ecological harms. Many migrations occur in delicate synchrony with plant flowering, tree leafing and other events which provide critical food and shelter for migrating flocks. A five-day shift in migration patterns could be the difference between food and no food for species in mid-migration.

You and I might be the last generation to share the planet with polar bears and thousands of other extraordinary creatures. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Your donation will help Environmental Defense Action Fund continue our work in these crucial areas:

  1. Continue Documenting Impacts – With your help, our scientists will track, document and report the growing wave of ecological disruption and keep policy makers informed of the serious global warming impacts on our natural world.

  2. Educate and Engage – We will soon launch a massive public education campaign on the mounting effects of global warming and offer practical steps each of us can take.

  3. Spur Government Action – We will work to pass the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act – the only bill that fights global warming in a meaningful way by capping America’s global warming pollution and offering credits for market-based innovation.

Time is running out for polar bears and for thousands of other species that global warming threatens with extinction. With your help, we will continue to fight global warming and force our political leaders in Washington to act. The future of the natural world as we now know it depends on us.

Please donate today.

Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,
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Fred Krupp
Environmental Defense Action Fund

  Environmental Defense Announces Its 2007 Global Warming Globie Awards                       
                           
  Based on the votes from more than 20,000 online supporters Environmental Defense has chosen the best and worst global warming performances - from public officials to corporate leaders.  Here is the short list.                        
                           
  Best Performance by a State or Local Official:  Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels for spearheading a national effort to organize America's cities to cut carbon dioxide pollution 7% below 1990 levels by 2012.                         
                           
  Best Performance in the Corporate World: US-CAP, Environmental Defense's  new partnership with 10 Fortune 500 companies and 3 other national environmental organizations which has called for immediate, effective global warming legislation in Congress.                        
                           
  Best Film, Documentary:  Inconvenient Truth, the blockbuster global warming documentary by former Vice President    Al Gore.                         
                           
                           
                           
  Worst Performance by a Corporation or Corporate Official:  ExxonMobil.  In spite of recent softening in its corporate rhetoric against global warming action, ExxonMobil wasn't able to obscure its decade-long and multi-million dollar public relations campaign to undermine the scientific consensus on global warming.                        
                           
  Most Egregious Contribution to Public Ignorance and Denial:  The senior senator from the state of Oklahoma, Senator James Inhofe, for calling global warming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humankind.