By Nancy Jo Tubbs
There's bad news, good news and bad news about polar bears. The bad news is that recent research documents a 22 percent decrease in their population in Hudson Bay, Canada, where the loss of sea ice due to global warming is profound.
The good news is that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has proposed putting the polar bear on the endangered species list.
If in a year the bears are officially protected, if this act indicates a change in the Bush administration's denial of the existence of global warming, and if new environmental policies are put in place, we may still be too late to save the bears. Bad news.
Americans' profound ambivalence about the reality and consequences of global warming was illustrated in fascinating detail recently when a bunch of Ely folks got together to watch "An Inconvenient Truth," former Vice President Al Gore's movie about the effects of greenhouse gases and other causes of global warming. Gore sets forth the riveting detail of worldwide problems caused by climate change and suggests practical solutions. He believes that we are not necessarily facing a disastrous fate on planet Earth, but we need to get serious about making changes now.
The get together was a December house party, one of 2,000 organized by the political action group MoveOn.org, involving more than 10,000 people around the U.S. one December night. Laura and Joey Kenig and daughter Zane hosted the event in Ely, and a dozen or so friends came to potluck and watch Gore's blockbuster documentary. Through a computer hook up we saw dots on a map representing the other house parties across the U.S. and viewed the questions that each group sent out to Gore. Via conference call he talked with participants in real time. No, he doesn't plan to run for president again. He's got his mission, which is to show us the reality of global warming and bring us to the point where we're willing to face this environmental crisis and take action.
Gore effectively challenges the misconceptions that have kept us from dealing with the issue. For example, those who deny the existence of global warming profess a variety of alternate scenarios: the cities are just heating up with no effect on the overall warming of the planet. Or maybe, we're experiencing a temporary climate change because of a meteor that crashed in Siberia in the early 20th century.
Back to reality: Gore tells of a study published in the authoritative Science magazine that analyzed 928 randomly selected peer-reviewed science journal articles on global warming over the last 10 years. The percentage of those articles that expressed doubt about the cause of global warming: 0 percent.
Another significant study analyzed all of the articles on global warming over the past 14 years in four major US newspapers. Of the 636 articles in the popular press, the percentage of those in doubt about the cause of global warming: 53 percent. The disconnect between science and the popular press is extraordinary.
As Mark Twain said, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
Thank goodness for the individuals, communities and corporations that are awakening to the immediacy of the problem and taking action. In 2005 Minnesotan Lonnie Dupre undertook the first summer crossing of the Arctic Ocean, while collecting scientific data and reporting back on global climate change.
Lee Frelich, founder and director of the University of Minnesota Center for Hardwood Ecology, has spoken in Ely and around the state on the effects of global warming, earthworm invasion and fire on the northern forests. Over the next 100 years, he predicts northeastern Minnesota could become warmer and either wetter or dryer than it is now. Will the BWCAW trade in the cold-loving black spruce for an oak savannah?
A year ago Will Steger, Ely's own Arctic explorer, created a foundation and the Global Warming 101 initiative through which he educates, empowers and informs the public and influences state and federal policy on climate issues.
The folks at the Ely house party are donating copies of the book and video of "An Inconvenient Truth" to libraries in downtown Ely, the high school and at Vermilion Community College.
I'd encourage you to check out the book or video. The good news is that we can work to begin turning around the disastrous climate changes that otherwise await us and the generations to follow. The bad news is that they're already upon us—as evident as the warming ocean and a polar bear that likely won't survive the 40-mile swim to the next ice floe.
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