(After this post, I've made a vow to not post anything specifically Sarah Palin-related for one week. Let's see how good my willpower is! Read and forward this piece, and watch this brutal wolf-killing video.)
This is an editorial by Rick Steiner, a Professor in the Marine Advisory Program at the University of Alaska.
Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal
While I disagree with many of Sen. John McCain's policies, I was
willing to concede that he may at least make a wise, rational president
and represent a step in the right direction for the nation. No longer.
With his pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, he has
shown a spectacular, even dangerous lack of judgment.
In addition to her frightening lack of qualification to be vice
president (much less president) of the United States, Palin is an
evangelical, anti-choice, pro-gun, right-wing conservative who wants
creationism taught in schools. She is currently under investigation by
the Alaska Legislature for alleged abuse of office. Many of us in
Alaska simply cannot imagine Palin having anything to do with U.S.
foreign policy, domestic policy, national defense or the countless
other affairs of federal governance.
A particularly worrisome aspect of the Palin candidacy is her
abysmal record on the environment during her two years as Alaska
governor, and how that would translate into national environmental
policy if she became vice president. Her environmental record as
governor of the nation's "last frontier" deserves close examination.
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. Lots of talk, no action. Although in the past
two years the Arctic summer sea ice shrunk to the lowest levels ever
recorded, Palin apparently does not believe it is human-induced or
cause for alarm. She was asked to establish an Alaska Office on Climate
Change, an Alaska Climate Response Fund (based on a tax on Alaska oil
production) and emissions reduction targets for Alaska, but has taken
no action on those requests.
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.
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