An Inconvenient Truth: Palin Doesn’t Believe Global Warming is Our Fault

August 31, 2008 2:30 pm     Posted in News  Jess - NYU g+ page

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By Jess

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As I continue to try and wrap my head around Sarah Palin, the GOP’s newest Vice Presidential pick (“a woman making strides toward the white house, good!”, “a woman who thinks the government has the right to tell her what her reproductive rights are, bad!”), a few wayward comments flying around the internet and media have gotten me really confused.  According to sources, Palin is on record stating that global warming is not man made, and that polar bears aren’t endangered

…What?

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location.” Palin stated as early as a few weeks ago to a conservative magazine for it’s September issue. “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

As a moderate liberal, I can often support Republicans and Independents, as long as I believe their brain is in the right place. The thing is…denying humans have anything to do with global warming, and working to keep polar bears off the endangered list goes beyond politics and veers into …well…complete and utter wrongness.

“The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state’s northern and northwestern coasts.”

“Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.”

Alaskan oil is more important than protecting wildlife?  Wildlife that has met the unfortunate conclusion time and time  and time again of drastic decrease or even full extinction in the next 50 years?

How is McCain and crew (not to mention Palin herself) going to twist her statements into sounding even remotely with the times?  You know who else thinks global warming is propaganda, and could give a rat’s ass about the polar bears?  My next door neighbor.  Who’s 85.  And who thinks the birds on the telephone wires are communicating directly with NASA.

Even though I’m proud of the fact that old white dudes are finally taking women seriously, I’ve been wary of Plain from the beginning, and this new information has done nothing to assuage my fears. Palin may be a powerful woman, but she ain’t no Hillary, and she certainly ain’t no environmentalist.

13 Comments on "An Inconvenient Truth: Palin Doesn’t Believe Global Warming is Our Fault"

  1. heather says:
    Sun, 31st Aug 200812:56 pm 

    palin is far too motivated by dollar signs. she is also going against scientific consensus by stating that global warming isnt man-made. last i checked, she wasnt a scientist.

  2. Sam says:
    Sun, 31st Aug 20083:05 pm 

    Her views are pretty typical for not just conservatives but also Alaskans in general – a little Twilight Zone-y, yes, considering how much we see changing temperatures affecting us (ever seen a house sunk in melted permafrost? a village that one day just falls into the adjacent river?), but those views have a lot to do with the paranoia we've collectively developed from years of being a sort of dumping ground for the 48. It's hard to be an environmentalist when your economy's dying and most of your usable land is tied up in national reserves. We're an oil state with the highest gas prices in the nation, and it seems like every day we're being edged a bit closer to being one big national park. (Also, ALL YOUR CRAZIES come up here to commune with nature, which is a little trying on the nerves.)

    I'm not siding with her, by any means. I think most Alaskans know that the 'myth of Global Warming' view is crayzay, but I also think we're sick of getting the cosmic shaft and are possibly willing to say anything to keep from sliding off the map completely. Just, ah, something to think about.

  3. snarktastic says:
    Mon, 1st Sep 20085:29 am 

    a lot of well educated, well informed individuals believe that humans aren't causing global warming to the extent of al gore's comments. i'm not necessarily saying i agree with them, i just think it's important not to refer to people who disagree with you as "wrong". and of course she's not like hillary clinton – she's a REPUBLICAN.

    additionally, haranguing her for not supporting abortion and curtailing reproductive rights is not fair. she's not pro-choice because she firmly believes abortion is murder rather than it being an issue of what women can do with their bodies. it's not an issue of keeping women down, it's an issue of the baby to her.

    i don't necessarily agree with her on everything, but i think you have it wrong sometimes. but hey, at least you aren't linking to huffington post, that distorted piece of shit. thanks.

  4. Olivia says:
    Mon, 1st Sep 200810:16 am 

    If she doesn’t think Polar Bears are endangered now, they will be once she drills in the wildlife reserve. Her ideals disgust me.

  5. molly says:
    Mon, 1st Sep 200810:09 am 

    Sam, although I can place myself in your shoes, the fact is, all of the people of Alaska could move to any state in the U.S., or anywhere in the world for that matter, and be just fine. The polar bears can only survive in one tiny area of the world, which is shrinking every day. I for one think we SHOULD turn all of Alaska into a giant nat'l park…. What is a 50 rise in gas prices when hundreds of these animals are drowning or starving to death every year?

  6. snarktastic says:
    Mon, 1st Sep 200810:43 am 

    molly, that's easy for you to say, you're probably not having to decide between gas to get to work and medicine or food. the world isn't black and white.

  7. Stephanie says:
    Tue, 2nd Sep 20086:15 am 

    "What is a 50 rise in gas prices when hundreds of these animals are drowning or starving to death every year?"

    I'm assuming you meant to say percent or cent or something in there.

    Either way I think you're quite deluded. . gas IS a problem for a lot of people..apparently not you as snarktastic said. But you know, you could always make that argument with the family that has to choose who goes to work and who stays home to save gas money ..or has to decide.. " hmm do we buy gas.. or pay the light/phone/gas bill?" ..or "What's it gonna be this week..food or gas?" .

    It's not as far fetched as a lot of people seem to think. This IS a reality.

  8. anonymous coward says:
    Tue, 2nd Sep 20081:34 pm 

    another reason to not vote republican.

  9. Joe says:
    Tue, 2nd Sep 20082:33 pm 

    Ok, so gas prices are a problem. No news there. So maybe instead of killing off polar bears and continuing our rapid pace toward becoming a global sauna, our government could finally commit to alternative energy solutions for a change.

    Oil is going to run out eventually up there too -and by then we’ll have killed off even more species of life. It might work as a short term solution, but those same problems are going to keep coming back to haunt us.

    While McCain’s energy policy favors tax credits to encourage marketing of wind, hydro and solar power, McCain has not shown up for ANY OF EIGHT Senate votes last year and this year to extend those tax credits, which expire at the end of this year.

    Apparently we care more about saving a few bucks now instead of making sure our children’s children have a healthy, clean world to live in.

  10. joe says:
    Tue, 2nd Sep 20085:53 pm 

    Hate to break it to you but there have been many reports and studies that completely contradict and refute the studies relied on by Owl Gore and the Global Warming groups. The fact is the earth has actually COOLED over the last decade, arctic ice levels have actually become thicker and scientists are expecting a colder than average winter this year.

    Plus the area in ANWAR that is being sought for drilling is tiny compared to the entire reserve. It equates to a postage stamp (area targeted for drilling) on a football field (all of ANWAR).

    The reason that she fought against listing polar bears as endangered species is because, get this, THEY ARE NOT ENDANGERED! The only reason liberals want to classify them as endangered is because they want to create more barriers to drilling in Alaska to satisfy the extreme environmentalists.

    And no one has made an intelligent argument how drilling for oil will “kill off” polar bears.

    Take a minute and do some research and don’t just believe what the Obamassiah has to say off his teleprompter.

  11. Joe says:
    Thu, 4th Sep 20082:07 pm 

    So by “research”, I suppose you mean Fox News? Maybe some O’Reilly talking points? One can go out and do plenty of research on non-profit, non-politically affliated well reputed environmental sites and find evidence to disprove nearly everything you just wrote.

    Let me spell it out for you. The ice cap is shrinking. That’s something we like to call SCIENCE. If you don’t believe it, look at the satellite pictures. While the causes may be debatable (I mean, please feel free to continue pretending that current carbon levels aren’t responsible. Let’s see how that works out for us in 100 years), the fact that the polar ice cap has shrunk significantly in the past century is NOT.

    Less ice = less habitat for polar bears. Five different species of polar bears have declined drastically in the past few decades. Numbers don’t lie. Fewer bears = greater chance that they will become endangered and eventually die out.

    Now I’m no expert on polar bear migration patterns and habitats, but I would imagine that if someone decided to drill for oil in my own neighborhood, my standard of living would probably decrease. Not to mention the hundreds of other species who call it home.

    At what point do we decide enough is enough and invest in energy solutions that don’t force us to choose between giving billions of dollars to Middle Eastern countries and destroying one of the few remaining natural habitats in North America? It’s a win-win situation, people. We get energy, animals live, we drop our dependency on foreign oil.

    So don’t even try and pit it as a “liberal” issue. Last time I checked, we’re all affected by the environment we live in and we all benefit by biodiversity, so to paint it as a “liberal” issue is just partisan bullshit.

    P.s. if you want to talk about doing RESEARCH maybe you should LEARN HOW TO SPELL “ANWR”. It’s an abbreviation for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

  12. anna says:
    Wed, 10th Sep 200812:55 pm 

    The studies that state global warming is just a natural phenomenon are ones that George Bush and his cronies altered or made up. Pay attention and you'll see the arctic ice gone, the polar bears swimming for miles with no place to rest and drowning in search of food. read this and tell me if you still think there will be minimal impact to ANWR http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statement…

  13. K Alongi says:
    Mon, 14th Dec 20099:58 am 

    there is still the debate out there – and finer minds than mine have called it "fake science" – but the ice caps are not shrinking – the Northern ice CAP MIGHT be (they ALWAYS slough off in spring/summer & remake through winter) but the SOUTH POLE is the coldest its ever been and GROWING – there is a LOT of science the g.warmers are IGNORING to keep us all scared & ready to TAX away every right we have left (ok, exaggerated)but until more research is PROPERLY done, we have NO real concensus. (look up Lord Monkton, as well as Mike Thompson for starters .. real facts .. not politicized hype – the IPCC? was created by the UN with the premature presumption that global warming was fact – which it is NOT…

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