Middle River Dispatches

A gumbo of fly-fishing, conservation, politics and days afield, for what it is worth....

Mojo | The Week That Is: 30 X 30: Biden’s Bureaucratic Bogeyman Or A Real Plan To Curb Climate Change?

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Mountain Journal founder Todd Wilkinson and I join forces for our “The Week That Is,” column where we discuss topical events relating to the nation’s capital city and the public land West.

Our conversation this time centers around the Biden Administration’s 30 x 30 plan for addressing climate change, the first of its kind in US history. What could it mean for the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and public land West?

Read it here > 30 X 30: Biden’s Bureaucratic Bogeyman Or A Real Plan To Curb Climate Change?

MoJo | The Week That Is: Situational Truth-Telling in Wyoming And Beyond

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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.

Read it here > Situational Truth-Telling in Wyoming And Beyond

MFCN | Biden EO takes inclusive approach on 30×30

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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.

Read> Executive Order on Climate Change Takes Inclusive Approach to 30×30 Initiative

Heads in the Sand

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Thinking about the future

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.
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New Conservation Group Takes Wing

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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