Melting Ice Pack Displaces Alaska Walrus

[RestoreGore]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071007/ap_on_sc/sea_ice_walrus

Melting ice pack displaces Alaska walrus By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer
Sun Oct 7, 2:18 AM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Thousands of walrus have appeared on Alaska's northwest coast in what conservationists are calling a dramatic consequence of global warming melting the Arctic sea ice.

Alaska's walrus, especially breeding females, in summer and fall are usually found on the Arctic ice pack. But the lowest summer ice cap on record put sea ice far north of the outer continental shelf, the shallow, life-rich shelf of ocean bottom in the Bering and Chukchi seas.

Walrus feed on clams, snails and other bottom dwellers. Given the choice between an ice platform over water beyond their 630-foot diving range or gathering spots on shore, thousands of walrus picked Alaska's rocky beaches.

"It looks to me like animals are shifting their distribution to find prey," said Tim Ragen, executive director of the federal Marine Mammal Commission. "The big question is whether they will be able to find sufficient prey in areas where they are looking."

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, September sea ice was 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979 to 2000. Sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return, with a possible ice-free Arctic Ocean by summer 2030, senior scientist Mark Serreze said.

Starting in July, several thousand walrus abandoned the ice pack for gathering spots known as haulouts between Barrow and Cape Lisburne, a remote, 300-mile stretch of Alaska coastline.

snip

Deborah Williams — who was an Interior Department special assistant for Alaska under former President Bill Clinton, and who is now president of the nonprofit Alaska Conservation Solutions — said melting of sea ice and its effects on wildlife were never even discussed during her federal service from 1995 to 2000.

"That's what so breathtaking about this," she said. "This has all happened faster than anyone could have predicted. That's why it's so urgent action must be taken."

Walrus observers on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea have also reported more walrus at haulouts and alerted Alaska wildlife officials to the problems with the animals being spooked and stampeded.

If lack of sea ice is at the heart of upcoming problems for walrus, Ragen said, there's no solution likely available other than prevention.

"The primary problem of maintaining ice habitat, that's something way, way, way beyond us," he said. "To reverse things will require an effort on virtually everyone's part."

___

"Deborah Williams — who was an Interior Department special assistant for Alaska under former President Bill Clinton, and who is now president of the nonprofit Alaska Conservation Solutions — said melting of sea ice and its effects on wildlife were never even discussed during her federal service from 1995 to 2000."

I just had to quote that again, because I find it absolutely unbelievable considering that Al Gore has been talking about this for thirty years and was also in the White House in the same time period. Is it that those he spoke to just weren't listening or just didn't care? I suppose not since no one, not even Democrats cared about Kyoto, which DID discuss it. And she thinks somehow it absolves what has happened by now saying, oh my it has all happened so fast? It's been in the making for DECADES.

[tom_paine]

1. Yes, that is astonishing. Did they just tune out Gore or wasn't he talking about it?

It is a legitimate question.

[RestoreGore]

2. Yes, something is amiss here

[frogcycle]

4. is is my impression

certainly only an impression, not first-hand knowledge, but drawn from various things he has said and written, that he felt somewhat of an 'odd man out' on the climate crisis. The inability to get Kyoto approved was only the (you should pardon the expression) tip of an iceberg.

I think it was probably a combination of many in power treating him like chicken little on the subject, and his wearying of being so treated and just concentrating on other matters.

I think there is more to his turning away from Clinton when he ran than just Clinton's peccadilloes.

While he has always been passionate and knowledgeable on the subject, I expect the additional research he did after leaving office probably shocked him with what had transpired over the past eight years of limited attention.

[RestoreGore]

6. I wholeheartedly agree with you

Which is why he now states he has fallen out of love with politics... look at what it has done to our planet.

[frogcycle]

11. yep

and I think the reason he still does not issue the "Sherman" statement is that he truly is torn between finally rejecting "the system" in favor of Reason, and feeling that maybe, just maybe, it can or should be righted. I suspect it is somewhat like the "battered wife syndrome."

That is why I agree with you in disapproving of the constant demands that he "must" run - or more broadly, must re-enter politics.

I happen to think that if he were to find himself back in the WH, but in Bill's chair rather than the VP one, he would be able to be more influential on the climate issues, and that his insight and intelligence just might be our last hope for salvaging the Great Experiment as well. So I retain a glimmer of wishful thinking that somehow he decides to give it a go, because I think it would turn out well for the world and for him. But I don't think demanding, or begging, is appropriate for such a profound personal decision.

I feel like we are at the beginning of the first Star Wars movie, with Princess Leia imploring Obiwan Kenobi "please, you're our only hope."

The simple fact is that the issue of abuse of the planet by human activities and the issue of the future of democracy vs oligarchy are so tightly couple as to be indistinguishable. Those who wish to maintain perpetual war for their own enrichment are the same subset of humanity who are knowingly destroying the planet's long-term habitability. They DON'T CARE!

No amount of public awareness, hand-wringing over displaced walruses and polar bears, will have any affect. They DON'T CARE!

Much as Edwards says, rightly, that you can't negotiate with the special interests who are making fortunes by skimming obscene profits from the healthcare system, you can't negotiate with any of the cabal destroying the planet. Negotiations require that you have something to offer the other guy in exchange for concessions. Those who do care about the future of the planet have nothing to offer those who don't. Asking them to sacrifice anything now for the greater good of mankind, future generations, the planet, polar bears, or anything else is like whistling in the wind. They DON'T CARE!

This is the quandary I believe Gore faces. What is the best way to beat them? Is it by rallying so many people who DO care that they can be overwhelmed? Or is it by gaining political clout and just bullying them?

Personally, I have little hope for either tactic.

Let's face it - the sun will swell into a red giant and swallow the earth in a few billion years anyway. Nothing is forever. If humankind wishes to so foul its nest that the global economy crashes, and human population along with it, well, maybe the next dominant life form will look back at us as we do the dinosaurs and wonder why we failed so quickly when they lasted 190 million years.

And then they'll get burned to a crisp and that will be that.

[RestoreGore]

12. And the reality also is a president can only do with what they are given...

Unless of course, he or she is a dictator like Bush, which Al Gore would never wish to be. I suspect he saw much more in the beltway than we even know. So I respect his words and actually have seen that what he is now doing is beginning to make a difference. And believe me, I have no doubt as to his own abilities and qualifications, but again as I see it, a man as visionary as he is constrained by a system lacking vision is a man whose vision is wasted. And that is something we cannot afford now.

I also suspect he spent many years in that beltway and in the Clinton administration constrained on the issue of the climate crisis knowing what would come to pass. That is why I have lost all faith that any comprehensive evasive action is going to take place from that venue anytime soon. Therefore, having him out here unconstrained by that apparatus to do as he chooses is a breath of fresh air (pardon the pun.)

And as far as any "Sherman statement" goes, I have always thought it was ridiculous of anyone to even expect it in the first place. He is a private citizen now and shouldn't have to parse his words in order to please all of these groups who need to see it and hear it exactly as they wish to, or see it at all. If people don't know where his heart and soul is yet that is not his fault and he certainly retains the right to not give it, give it, or to just leave it as is. And now, thanks to the stonewalling of that political process, what we are now seeing playing out in the Arctic and globally is in my view coming quickly to a point where it will not matter who sits in that White House, and actually, that is truly a sad statement for the process.

[frogcycle]

15. "I suspect he saw much more in the beltway than we even know. "

undoubtedly

The "system" is corrupt beyond belief; "The Assault on Reason" describes the state of things well, but, in my opinion, neglects to tackle the fact that it is not something that "happened" because people stopped reading and started watching TV; it is something that was brought about by design: a massive campaign to turn us all into *Eloi so the *Morlocks can rule unfettered.

Anyone, regardless of political party, who smells power, who sees the opportunity to be a Morlock, can be corrupted, and most have been.

Just as H.G. Wells missed the mark by putting the divergence of humanity 800,700 years away, the most dire predictions of the climatologists also did not comprehend how fast the deterioration would snowball. Wells' other mistake was having the dominant Morlocks be descendants of the working class; the Eloi of the wealthy, leisure classes. That, of course, is the opposite of what is happening. We face something much more like Marx railed against.

I am coming rapidly to the conclusion that:

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing." - William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5)

* The Time Machine, H.G. Wells, 1895.

[RestoreGore]

16. Yes, Tv is not just a distraction...

It is the means to their ends.



And Washington DC is their Mordor.

[Benhurst]

3. What has always worried me was the possiblity Gore's take was too

too optimistic, which in no way is a criticism of his groundbreaking advocacy of confronting the global warming problem.

No one knows for certain; but given what has been happening this year, I fear that may be the case.

And BushAmerica is still dragging its feet.

[frogcycle]

5. it definitely appears it was

but there is no blame to be laid on him for that. He has championed the views of scientists in an uphill battle for attention and credibility with the public. That he got comprehension as far as he has is stunning, considering the organized opposition. His focus on rallying more people to the cause has been exactly the right strategy; credibility comes from the sheep-like understand by many that "everybody says so." Had he just focused on the most alarming data and aimed at those willing to listen, he'd have gotten nowhere. He got millions of formerly apathetic to be willing to see additional evidence and move forward in their understanding without having to continue to be the only messenger himself.

[RestoreGore]

7. Well, in this country you are damned if you do and damned if you don't...

meaning, that if he tries to be too hopeful he is accused of only doing this for political or economic aspirations, and if he is too realistic he is accused of being an alarmist. A defense mechanism I am sure of those making the accusations, bu tunfortunately I believe he has had to straddle the line between the two to not have people missing that step between awareness and despair.

[Benhurst]

14. Of course he may have been just giving his best guess. NOBODY

knew or, for that matter, knows the process well enough to make exact predictions. He was dead right in recognizing the problem -- I just fear it may have been worse than he originally thought it to be.

And I fear he is the only one on the national political scene with the moral authority on the issue to get this country moving in the right direction.

[ShaneGR]

8. I don't think anyone expected a sharp decline this fast...

In the 90s global warming was being talked about, but I don't think it was expected to have such a dramatic affect on the ice within a decade.Also, a special assistant for Alaska wouldn't just be handling wildlife issues.

[RestoreGore]

9. I can understand that

The ice melt in and of itself is shocking...But to say this was never discussed while she was in the Clinton administration is a bit hard to believe... unless of course as I stated, they just weren't paying attention?

[PCIntern]

10. To show you how nuts I am these days,

I read your subject line as :

MELTING ICE PACK DISPLACES BARBARA WALTERS

I need a drink and it's just after 10 AM here in the East...

[RestoreGore]

13. I know there 's a good joke in there somewhere...

:spray: