Several years previous, a very good friend, much better than I deserve, said she was tired of all the rock-star causes, Save-the-Whales, Sea Turtles, California Condors, Spotted Owls, that they blind the public to the hundreds, even thousands, of species threatened, endangered, and rapidly becoming extinct.
Polar Bears get the headlines, the funds, while Oceanodroma homochroa, the Ashy Storm-Petrel, was denied protection by an Administration we thought would be more caring, more accessible.
The problem is the public wants warm and fuzzy, not small and slimy. Public backlash against the Endangered Species Act began in 1973, when construction on the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River was halted because the river was the only home to the Snail Darter.
When the Tennessee Valley Authority "let slip" the Snail Darter was, at most, 9cm, about 3", long, very many "new" environmental advocates were outraged, that a multi-million dollar project, to benefit hundreds of thousands of people, could be stopped by a useless damn minnow.
This fight lasted six years, included a Supreme Court ruling that The Endangered Species Act was not to be compromised for economic considerations, and ended in 1979, when Tennessee US Senator and uber-asshole Howard Baker pushed through a bill in the House and Senate, then signed by Carter, to exempt the Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act. Legislative trumps Judicial. Through the backdoor, which is how Baker operated, and how, despite charisma that launched his star in the Watergate proceedings, saw it burn out in the Senate.
But the damage to the ESA, in the jaundiced eye of our General Public, was huge.
Which is why, now, the Happy Feet movie may be the only reason we care that Antarctica is melting.
All the money we donated in the eight years of hell that was the maladministration of the Idiot Prince was spent defending our lands, air, water, wildlife, and resources from a group of insatiable gluttons who considered all the worth of earth theirs, and theirs only.
Further, inexplicably, Interior's Secretary Salazar seems of the same mold, and must be replaced, with anybody who cares.
We need Polar Bears, because, sadly, no one cares about the Ashy Storm-Petrel, least of all Ken Salazar, a lawyer and Colorado rancher, neither of which suggests any primary and abiding environmental, ecological concern, or any awareness of pressing issues like promoting species diversity or the imminent threat of local, global, climate change.
Know this: the ambient air temperature, what we feel, can rise or lower five, ten degrees, and mean nothing. The meaning lies in the change in temperature of the oceans, 6/7th's of the earth's surface.
And this: if the ocean temperature changes just a few degrees, very few, the planet will be changed, dramatically, and everything alive will be affected, from the Snail Darters, supposedly relocated to the Hiwassee River before Tellico Dam closed, and flooded miles and miles, to Ken Salazar, who is in a position to do something.