A gumbo of fly-fishing, conservation, politics and days afield, for what it is worth....
Each week, I have the pleasure of joining Mountain Journal founder Todd Wilkinson in our “The Week That Is,” column where we discuss topical events relating to the nation’s capital city and the public land West. On Monday’s you can read the previous week’s column here.
In this edition we talk Biden’s climate plan, Cheney’s censure and dismissing science unless it serves one’s own political agenda.
The term “30×30” is rocketing around the conservation community. The goal is to protect 30 percent of the land and water in the U.S. by 2030. Clearly an ambitious goal. In this piece I wrote for the Marine Fish Conservation Network, I look at how the Biden administration’s climate change executive order handled it.
Thinking about the future
Monte Burke did us all a great favor when he gave Todd Tanner, chairman of Conservation Hawks a guest slot in Forbes.com.
Tanner didn’t disappoint.
His ironic Death by Polar Bear points out why making polar bears the symbol for climate change seriously undermines the effort to address the issue.
Here’s a news flash. Nobody in the Lower 48 has ever seen a polar bear in their backyard, or at the local baseball field, or on their way to work. Nobody has seen one frolicking in a meadow or swimming across a river. Which makes the big white bears one of the worst symbols we’ve ever picked for anything, anywhere, at any point in human history. Seriously, this is Marketing 101. If you want to convince Americans they’re in danger, you don’t point toward the North Pole and hand them a pair of binoculars.
Bravo to Tanner for calling bullshit. He nails it. But before you get all warm and fuzzy or outraged, his marketing lesson is just a part of a larger message.
[Read more…]
Tanner thinks before he acts
Todd Tanner doesn’t enter an arena lightly. He is a quiet man with the courage of his convictions. So when he launched Conservation Hawks this week it got my attention.
Tanner thinks sportsmen and women are ignoring climate change at our peril.
“Here’s the God’s honest truth. This is the single most important issue that any of us will ever face. It’s bigger than any threat to sportsmen that’s come down the pipe, and way, way harder to fix. And now we have to make a choice. Either we stand up for our hunting and fishing, and for our kids and grandkids, or we write off everything we’ve ever cared about. That’s the black & white of it, and if you’re reading this, you need to decide exactly where you stand.”
I think he is right. Were do you stand?
Learn more at ConservationHawks.org, on Facebook and on Twitter
