Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice

The Tundra Drums - Polar bear in Yukon River may have hitched ride on melting ice:

Published on July 22nd, 2010

By ALEX DEMARBAN

"...Residents in a lower Yukon River village far from typical polar bear habitat say they've seen plenty of bears, but nothing like the big, white beast that floated in the river on Tuesday.

Isaiah Charles, a state Department of Fish and Game technician, said he didn't believe the rumors that a polar bear had arrived near town, until his sister called from downriver and said she was watching it.

Charles, with his aunt and nephew in tow, jumped in a boat and traveled for 20 minutes from Emmonak. They saw the bear's head in the water.

'Sure enough it was a real polar bear,' he said. 'It was just hanging out on a sandbar, like, in the water just hanging out. It got maybe 40 yards away.'"

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Penance -- Then and Now

In the Middle Ages, there was no buying and selling of carbon indulgences. Now it's a booming business. "The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church's sale of indulgences back before the Reformation," said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. "Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins." The New York Times, 4/29/07

The 12 Steps of Carbon Awareness

1. We admit that we are selfish users of the earth's limited resources. Standing alone, we feel powerless to stop our wasteful ways. We resolve to manage our lifestyles more effectively, to address the rapidly mounting ecological crisis.

2. We believe that through increased social awareness we can reduce our individual and collective carbon footprint.

3. We have decided to step up our social activism until such time that global warming is effectively stabilized and reversed.

4. We will conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and our behavior together on this planet.

5. We will reveal the exact nature of our wrongs to the natural and social world.

6. We resolve to overcome the persistent defects of character that result in our imposing an excessive carbon burden on the planet and other human beings.

7. We invite other conscious consumers and natural beings to help us overcome our personal and collective shortcomings.

8. We will engage in a regular program of study and inquiry to understand all the persons, natural beings and planetary processes we may have harmed and disrupted, and to the extent possible, we commit to making amends to them all.

9. We will make direct amends to nature and other people injured by reckless use of resources wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We will continue to take personal inventory, and when we are wrong, we will promptly admit it.

11. We will look within ourselves and our communities to mobilize a collective response that is fully commensurate with global warming and other pending ecological threats.

12. Having achieved profound clarification and inspiration through these steps, we will also carry this message to other compulsive consumers. By our example and leadership in increasing our social activism and changing our destructive lifestyles, we will encourage them to practice these principles in their affairs as well.

Common Carbon Sins

- Driving a gas guzzler
- Taking unnecessary personal car trips
- Failing to car pool
- Failing to take mass transit
- Using too much heat or air conditioning
- Buying a house that is too large
- Failing to us a programmable thermostat
- Overconsumption of clothes and footwear, when you already have plenty to wear
- Leaving lights on all over the house
- Using the dryer when you could use a clothesline
- Using disposable paper OR plastic bags, when you could have used a reusable canvas bag
- Printing large documents on only one side of the paper
- Using virgin paper when you could have used recycled paper
- Flying or driving a long way to meetings where little or nothing is accomplished
- Throwing away recyclables
- Using incandescent bulbs when you could use compact fluorescent bulbs

Confess Your Carbon Sins - CarbonConfession.org

Saturday, July 24, 2010