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Tag: national park service
This Week In Crazy: Ilhan Omar, Steve King, Climate Denial, And Much More

This Week In Crazy: Ilhan Omar, Steve King, Climate Denial, And Much More

Park Rangers start a green-spiracy, suicide bombers are in the government, and Steve King leads a community circle jerk–er, prayer. It’s This Week in Crazy!

5. National Park Service
The continuously defunded government department went above and beyond to silence environmental scientist Dr. Maria Caffrey. Dr. Caffrey worked tirelessly on a report outlining the sea levels rising (SLR) in national parks. You know, keeping an eye out for the sole reason this department was founded?

Like any sensible person, Dr. Caffrey stated numerous times that SLR increases were due to human-caused climate change. True guardians of the globe, the National Park Service bullied Dr. Caffrey to redact all such statements. They even went so far as threatening to remove her name from the paper — but she stood her ground.

Unbeknownst to Dr. Caffrey, the National Park Service quietly released the report…just in time for Christmas break!

Despite her stance, the NPS promised Dr. Cafrrey job security. Yet, when her contract expired the department told her there was no funding for another project. The scientist was let go, forced to take another job at one-third her original pay. The case with Dr. Caffrey is one of 194 known attempts to remove mentions of human-made climate change from government reports. Welcome to 1984.

4. Chris McDonald
Old McDonald better head back to his farm because the right-wing commentator sounds crazy as a loon. The host of MC Files (No relation to Hammer), went on a racist rampage over the white right’s latest obsession: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

White Evangelicals are on a witch hunt for the newly elected Muslim representative of Minnesota’s 5th District. As McDonald eloquently put it, “It would not be surprising to me if this lady don’t strap on a bomb and do something dastardly, that’s how radical she is.” Anyone else feel uncomfortable with the whole strap-on reference?

The host finished up, showing his true prejudices. “That’s what they do … That’s what their religion does, and yet we’re sitting here, letting her make laws and have a voice in Congress.” Yeah, about that whole crazy democracy and separation of church and state thing…

3. Louise Mensch
Louise Mensch, whose resume boasts British Blogger, Conservative Member of the British Parliament, and “chick-lit” author, tried her hand as a Tweet-Out comedian.

The Career Girls author responded to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign announcement with a tweet and delete:

That joke fell as flat as the Twin Towers. Yeah…doesn’t feel right, Louise. Maybe I should try my hand in chick-lit instead.

2. Steve King
Speaking of hands, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) stuck his out for support from his local Iowa community. The racist Congressman went back to his roots…and no, not the VHS copy of his favorite movie. He visited the  Forster Community Center and asked the elderly to pray he gets his job back.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy removed King from his committee assignments when numerous videos depicting the Iowa politician as a racist continued to surface. In hopes of appealing to those who helped make him into the madman he is today, King pleaded with the Forster Community Center audience.

King told those in attendance they need to pray that McCarthy will “separate his ego from this issue and look at it objectively.” Sure, God will get to it…once He’s done curing cancer and breaking up Ariana Grande’s relationships.

1. William Happer
The war on climate just keeps heating up. In the wake of President Trump declaring an unnecessary “National Emergency” to build a border barrier, his administration is attempting to downplay the real threat of climate change. Trump is readying a panel headed by physicist William Happer to debunk global warming warnings.

Happer accused climate scientists of using fear rhetoric to declare a planetary crisis. The physicist stated that releasing data about the impact of carbon dioxide on the environment, “really differs little from the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the Soviet extermination of class enemies, or ISIL’s slaughter of infidels.”

If that wasn’t enough, Happer concluded that there was a War on Carbon going on. Phew, I’m glad we’ve diverted our attention because the War on Christmas was just going in circles. With that being said, can’t wait to see who else we’re at war with, in next week’s This Week in Crazy!

‘Proud Partners’ Corporatize Our Parks

‘Proud Partners’ Corporatize Our Parks

Our presidents are good at praising America’s magnificent national park system, but they’re lousy at maintaining it. Bill Clinton-the-candidate, for example, spoke of how lucky he was to have Hot Springs National Park as a childhood playground. Yet Clinton-the-president sat idle as that park’s natural wonders and facilities deteriorated — and as the National Park Service’s maintenance backlog soared to $5 billion.

Likewise, in his 2000 campaign, a khaki-clad George W. posed in the majestic Cascade Range. He wailed that parks were “at the breaking point” and vowed to eliminate Clinton’s backlog. Instead, he slashed the Park Service budget (including a 40 percent cut in needed repair funds for the Cascade parklands he’d used as a political prop). The maintenance backlog ballooned to nearly $9 billion under his presidency.

Ranger George did make one fix, however — a PR fix. Bush operatives instructed park superintendents to make budget cuts in “areas that won’t cause public or political controversy.” When discussing park deterioration, they were to avoid the phrase “budget cutbacks” and say instead that parks were undergoing “service level adjustments.”

Under Obama, who speaks movingly of a childhood Greyhound bus trip with his family to see some of our parks, another 12 percent has been chopped from the Park Service budget — bumping the deferred maintenance bill to a staggering $11.5 billion!

To his credit, Obama has proposed a 2016 “Centennial Budget” for the Park Service, mitigating years of destructive underfunding and calling for $1 billion to address the backlog. Good for him. But that still leaves a $10 billion shortfall, and the sour duo of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Speaker John Boehner will oppose even that increase for the maintenance of these invaluable public assets. Hidebound by their twisted corporate ideology, they dismiss public parks as government intrusion into the private realms of Disneyland and SeaWorld.

So, while we Americans celebrate the 100th anniversary of our National Park Service, Washington is literally stripping “service” out of the National Park Service. And, by refusing to fund essential upkeep year after year, America’s so-called “leaders” are guaranteeing that this invaluable national asset — deemed America’s “best idea” by novelist and historian Wallace Stegner — will fall into acute disrepair. The only solution, they say, is to commercialize, industrialize, and privatize our parks, converting these jewels of the common good into just another corporate cash cow.

The corporatization process started with “co-branding” agreements, rationalized by Park Service officials as “aligning the economic and historical legacies” of parks with advertisers. In other words, they’re selling the Park Service’s proud public brand — as well as its soul.

First in line was Coca-Cola. In 2007, the multibillion-dollar colossus became a “Proud Partner” of the Park Service by donating a mere $2.5 million (tax-deductible, meaning we taxpayers subsidized the deal) to the Park Service fundraising arm. In return, not only did Coke get exclusive rights to use park logos in its ads, but it was allowed to veto a Park Service plan to ban sales of bottled water in the Grand Canyon park. Disposable plastic bottles are that park’s biggest source of trash, but Coke owns Dasani, the top-selling water, so bye-bye, ban. Public outrage forced officials to reverse this crass move, but the Park Service’s integrity has yet to recover.

Then this April, the Park Service abandoned its longstanding policy of disallowing any links to alcohol or tobacco products when it entered a partnership with Anheuser-Busch after the company donated a $2.5 million tax-deductible “gift.” In turn, its Budweiser brand was given the Statue of Liberty. Not literally, but symbolically — Bud now has the right to plaster Lady Liberty, the iconic symbol of the USA itself, on its cans.

Never mind that Busch is now Belgian owned; the real hypocrisy is the claim that such co-branding is a philanthropic service to the commons. Creeping commercialization of our public parks no longer creeps: it’s running rampant, with brands such as Disney, L.L. Bean, and Subaru buying their pieces of Park Service integrity.

And get a whiff of this: Air Wick has also paid to become a Park Service partner, so it’s now marketing a new fragrance collection that’s advertised as being “uniquely inspired by America’s national parks.”

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: Edward Stojakovic via Flickr

A Changing Climate On Saving Wolves

A Changing Climate On Saving Wolves

By Paresh Dave, Los Angeles Times

On an icy island wilderness near the tip of Minnesota, a female gray wolf’s demise has added to the debate about whether authorities should try to save the wolves of Isle Royale National Park.

Once, wolves could regularly move on and off the island along ice bridges to find fresh mates. Now, researchers say, climate change has made ice bridges rare on Lake Superior, and the increasingly isolated wolf population has grown weak through inbreeding. The death of the wolf nicknamed Isabelle, who had apparently crossed an ice bridge in search of a mate, reduced the known population to nine.

The researchers have called on the federal government to interfere with a wilderness area, a drastic break from tradition that they say is forced by climate change. They want the National Park Service to import fertile wolves from robust neighboring populations.

“To preserve a healthy ecosystem with climate change, we at times are going to have to intervene, and that’s a hard thing to wrap our heads around,” said Michael Nelson, an Oregon State University professor who specializes in environmental ethics and philosophy.

That proposal is controversial, and the National Park Service has not decided what to do.

The carcass of 5-year-old Isabelle, one of three potentially fertile Isle Royale wolves, was found Feb. 8 and announced late last month. An initial necropsy failed to determine a cause of death.

At least, researchers say, three of the island’s surviving wolves are less than a year old — a welcome development after a worrisome year without any pups.

Isle Royale is a rare place where predator and prey, wolves and moose, can fend for themselves without interfering predation by humans or bears. The matchup has been closely tracked since 1959. The park gets fewer visitors in a year than Yosemite National Park sees in two days, but thanks in part to scientists, Isle Royale has more repeat visitors than anywhere else.

Moose migrated to Isle Royale around World War I, and wolves after World War II. Two decades ago, the wolf population dipped from 50 to about a dozen. Researchers won approval to install tracking devices on some of the wolves and draw their blood.

Researchers discovered that the wolves had been ravaged by a disease brought to the island by visitors’ pet dogs. But the population rebounded, reaching 30 before falling again about five years ago.

Now, climate change is further stressing the wolves. Once, solid ice bridges to Minnesota happened seven out of 10 winters. Now, it’s more like once a decade, including in 2008 and two weeks this winter.

By 2040, ice bridges won’t exist, said John Vucetich, a Michigan Tech University population biologist who studies the wolves and moose of Isle Royale.

Inbreeding has led to genetic abnormalities, including deformed backs. Vucetich and his colleagues said that could be remedied by importing wolves from abundant packs in Minnesota or Ontario, Canada.

If the National Park Service decides to let nature take its course and the wolves die out, researchers warn, the moose population could boom and destroy the park’s ecosystem.

Vucetich said that he, Nelson, ecologist Rolf Peterson and others who say man should intervene have faced several critics.

One group insists on a hands-off policy toward wilderness areas, regardless of the consequences. They worry that intervening in Isle Royale would open the floodgates nationwide. And researchers such as the U.S. Geological Survey’s Dave Mech say they would lose the ability to study the island’s small gene pool if more wolves were introduced.

“We couldn’t continue to validly assess what goes on from here on out if we intervene,” Mech said. About 20 years ago, for example, researchers learned more about the wolves’ behavior when a wolf that immigrated to the island considerably changed the makeup of the population. “All the offspring for the next several years had his genes,” Mech said.

Vucetich says he prefers the activist approach because “there’s some things we can resist and hang on to and not let climate change take away.”

He says the cost of protection — moving some wolves to the island — is low and the benefit — preservation of the status quo despite climate change — is great. “Genetic rescues” have been successful, including with Florida’s panthers.

Phyllis Green, Isle Royale’s park superintendent, says officials are summarizing the more than 1,000 public and expert comments they’ve gathered in the last two years. She expects to release a report in late spring.

“We’re going to take our time and make the most right decision we can,” Green said. “Try as we might as humans to predict what’s going to happen, the more we know, sometimes the clearer the path — but sometimes it’s still a trade-off.”

Bob Hallinen/Anchorage Daily News/MCT