Polar Bears

For the past several weeks, Sarah Palin has aggressively harvested Alaska’s mythic cultural status on a national political stage. In addition to her near-daily odes to guns, hockey and mooseburger, Palin has also reinforced the perception of Alaska as a vast frontier land where environmental concerns and resource extraction converge harmoniously. By explaining, as she did to the right wing throwbacks at Newsmax, that Alaska would experience the consequences of climate change in unique ways, she has repeatedly implied that her leadership on climate change has been cautious and realistic.

It hasn’t.

NYT, August 5: “The state [of Alaska] has sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, seeking to reverse his decision to give polar bears protection under the Endangered Species Act. Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican, and other state officials say that by listing the bear as threatened, the government will cripple offshore oil and gas development.”

Stephen Colbert has an ongoing joke in which he describes bears as the single greatest threat to America today. The bit might have made a good keynote address earlier this month at the Heartland Institute’s “International Conference on Climate Change” in New York. The gathering brought together global warming skeptics and deniers from around the [...]