Palin's Environmental Record

Rick Steiner, a professor of biology at the University of Alaska and a conservation specialist, summarizes Governor Palin's record on the environment during her governorship:

A particularly worrisome aspect of the Palin candidacy is her abysmal record on the environment during her two years as Alaska governor...

• Climate change. Although Alaska is ground zero in the crisis of global warming, Palin has done virtually nothing to address the problem except hold meetings and appoint a "climate sub-cabinet" that likewise has done little... Palin apparently does not believe [climate change] is human-induced or cause for alarm...



• Polar bears. This summer, Palin filed suit against the Bush administration over the federal listing of polar bears as threatened, saying that her opposition was based on a "comprehensive scientific review." But when asked to release the scientific review, she refused. The document, later obtained by the public (from the federal government), clearly shows that, contrary to Palin's assertions, the state of Alaska's marine mammal scientists agreed with the federal conclusions that the polar bears are in serious trouble because of global warming and loss of their sea ice habitat, and that they would be gone from Alaska by 2050.
  
  Palin clearly decided to oppose the listing in order to protect Arctic oil and gas development, then publicly misrepresented the basis for her decision, and then tried to conceal all of that. Having run for office on a platform of honesty and transparency, this behavior was neither. Her extreme position here puts her to the political right of the Bush/Cheney administration.



• Endangered species. Earlier this year, Palin approved a $2 million state appropriation for a conference on the "economic impacts" of the Endangered Species Act, designed to persuade the public that ESA listings were too costly and unwarranted. Recently she agreed to use the money instead to fund the state's lawsuit against the Bush administration over the polar bear listing -- a likely violation of the state constitutional provisions on appropriation. She opposes additional species listings and other protections in Alaska, where many species are at risk because of climate change and other threats.



• Predator control. Palin approved and expanded the state's aerial predator control program, where wolves are shot from aircraft and bears hunted from aircraft and killed upon landing... Hundreds of wolves are killed each year by this antiquated state program that has no scientific justification whatsoever, but rather is designed to appease Palin's urban sport hunter supporters.



• Pebble mine. Palin aggressively opposed [a] "clean water initiative"... favoring instead foreign mining company desires for fewer government regulations controlling their toxic effluent into salmon streams. She has supported virtually any and all mining proposals that have come her way, even likely the enormous Pebble gold and silver mine proposed in the Bristol Bay watershed. That plan put at risk the largest runs of sockeye salmon in the world, where this summer fishermen caught more than 27 million salmon.



• Oil and gas drilling. Palin has supported oil and gas drilling plans anywhere in Alaska, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the central Arctic, the entire Arctic Ocean, and in fish-rich Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. On her watch, regulation and government oversight of Alaska oil facilities is terribly lacking, and she has declined to establish a citizens' advisory council to provide more effective public oversight of the expanding oil and gas operations in Arctic Alaska....


The pattern is clear... At a time when the nation and world urgently need strong environmental leadership from the United States, it is important to look beyond charisma and carefully consider the environmental implications of our vote in November.

|Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal (Op-Ed) - Seattle Post Intelligencer (emphasis added)|

Considering that even the Bush administration has finally been forced to admit that climate change is a real and significant threat to human civilization, it's astounding to me that Palin refuses to acknowledge this threat. Plain has brazenly ignored the evidence presented by the scientists employed by the state of Alaska to help guide her administration.

Failing to manage the ecology of a region can lead to the total loss of hunting and fishing as recently occurred in the Black Sea as a result of decades of overfishing.

Climate change, environmental degradation, and the scarcity of fresh water are the greatest threats facing human civilization in this century and Governor Palin's record on the environment makes me wonder if she is up to the challenge.

Via the Conservation Report.