We recently received a packet in the mail from “The Natural Resources Defense Council”. This is another of these conservationist NIMBY groups that fight for foolish causes with the apparent intention of destroying our economy.

In this mailing, we were asked to protect the Alaskan Polar Bear from big bad oil and other corporate polluters. Those big bad polluters are so evil, so “The Natural Resources Defense Council” wants to make sure they only pollute and kill wildlife in Canada, not Alaska, so we can import our oil instead. In reality, big oil is less of a threat to the Polar Bear than the paper this nonsense charity printed their solicitation on.

We decided to determine if there was any justification to the argument that “big oil” was indeed somehow threatening the Alaskan Polar Bear.

First, we wanted to see if there is a difference between an “Alaskan Polar Bear” and any other. From what we can find, there is not, a polar bear, as it turns out, is a polar bear regardless of where it roams. Polar bears are distributed throughout the arctic region in 19 sub-populations, Alaska, Canada, Russia, Greenland and Norway. They are distributed over a very wide geographic region, and we don’t think they know their borders very well or take pride in their nationality.

So, then we thought we would research what is currently endangering the Polar Bear. As it turns out, the primary threats are:

1. Diminishing sea ice which makes it more difficult to hunt leading to a higher mortality rate of cubs.
2. Poaching.
3. Human Mortality due to the fact that Polar Bears, like other species of Bear like our garbage and discarded animal carcasses. Confrontations with the bears in public areas as a result, can lead to the death of the bear.

OK, these are the primary reasons. There is some debate that 1 above is due to global warming, but that is highly debatable and has nothing to do with Big Oil drilling in Alaska.

Now for the misleading pathetic solicitation itself. The quote on the front of the envelope says, “Say NO to Shell’s oil drilling off the coast of the Arctic Refuge… because oil-covered polar bears have almost NO chance of survival.” They show a picture of a polar bear in a picture strolling towards an oil drum obviously overlaid into the picture using Adobe Photoshop.

How many polar bears have died by being doused in Oil? Apparently, the number of such occurrences is a dire threat to the polar bear’s existence. That number is zero. We could not find any evidence of its ever having occurred despite a long term history of oil drilling in Alaska. Further, the polar bear’s habitat extends well beyond Alaska into Canada, and the big bad oil companies of Canada export more oil to the United States than any other nation. Maybe the Polar Bears work with them?

The picture of the bear on the front of their mailer makes it look like its face is dark and covered with oil. This is so comical if you know anything about polar bears. Their fur is often stained by oil from seal blubber, their primary diet, but even considering that fact, the likelihood this picture was not fabricated is slim. The image has oil drums lining the shoreline, and this particular polar bear is pictured on a sandy beach with no ice; guess that global warming is really bad folks.

This photoshop nonsense is designed to make us believe that this nice Polar Bear was out to get a tan when this nasty oil company came along and started dumping oil drums on the beach. Alaska is very keen to pollution of their environment since the Exxon Valdez nearly 20 years ago. If there were any dumping of oil barrels on Alaska shoreline, which doesn’t have too many sandy beaches, the companies would pay dearly for their oversight, and it would be plastered all over the pages of America’s liberal media outlets.

Of course, if the recipients of this nonsense flier thought for a moment, oil is not transferred in barrels from Alaska, it is transferred over a pipeline and in tankers. So were the barrels exported from Saudi Arabia and placed on Alaskan beaches? These groups will just downright lie and fabricate anything to get you to contribute money to their farcical cause.

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