The Endangered Species Act has a 99 percent success rate at protecting rare and endangered species from extinction. It's the most powerful species-conservation tool there is -- yet it comes under constant attack from right-wing politicians who claim it's a failure.
To celebrate Endangered Species Day, the Center for Biological Diversity has released a detailed scientific report analyzing the effectiveness of the Act. The study is an in-depth review of more than 100 animals and plants from all 50 states, which clearly shows that the Act's powerful protections have put our nation's most imperiled species on the road to recovery.
The study compares the actual recovery rates of 110 species with the recovery rates laid out in their federal recovery plans. It concludes that 90 percent of these species are on schedule for success. Species like the California least tern, San Miguel Island fox, black-footed ferret, El Segundo blue butterfly and Atlantic green sea turtle have seen their populations increase by more than 2,000 percent since they were granted protection under the Act.
The report is called On Time, On Target: How the Endangered Species Act Is Saving America's Wildlife. We need your help sending its message to decision makers.
Please take a moment to ask your senators to become strong supporters of the Endangered Species Act. Tell them to save the Act so it can continue to save our most endangered wildlife.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now accepting comments on proposed critical habitat for mountain caribou; this is our opportunity to win the animals their best chance to reclaim their former homelands.
With giant, snowshoe-like hooves, caribou are uniquely adapted to the deep snows of the northern Rocky Mountains. During the winter months they feed only on arboreal lichens found on old-growth cedar and hemlock trees.
These beautiful animals have been thinned and marginalized by a combination of logging, poaching, road construction and the growing intrusion of snowmobiles into their high-elevation habitats.
Today the southern Selkirk herd, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border, contains just 46 animals. Critical habitat will help protect these caribou and ensure their survival in the lower 48.
Please write to tell the Service you support designating this critical habitat and expanding it beyond the 375,000 proposed acres.
The San Joaquin kit fox:
victim of reckless rodenticide.
We all know rat poisons kill; what's less known is that rat poisons often harm or kill unintended victims like wildlife, pets or even children.
In 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency instructed rodenticide manufacturers to take common-sense steps to prevent unintended poisonings: The EPA banned the most super-toxic rat poisons from residential use and required tamper-resistant bait stations to avoid accidental exposure from "loose" poison pellets to wildlife, pets and children.
For more than 20 years the EPA has collected a wealth of evidence that products sold under the labels "d-CON" and "Hot Shot" also pose an unnecessary risk to a range of wildlife, including, for instance, endangered San Joaquin kit foxes, bobcats and eagles.
Most companies complied with the EPA's instructions and pulled their most dangerous products -- but three companies are fighting to keep their reckless rat poisons on the market.
Tell the EPA to stand firm in the face of threats from these rat poison manufacturers and get these lethal poisons off the shelves.
Cleaning up harmful carbon pollution from power plants -- the largest single source of CO2 emissions in the United States -- would make a huge difference in the increasingly critical fight to slow global warming.
A new Clean Air Act rule by the EPA requires most new power plants to produce no more CO2 than a typical new natural gas plant. The proposal may help discourage construction of new coal-fired power plants in the future.
This is a good thing -- but we need to do much more, much sooner.
We must reduce emissions from existing power plants and insist that the rule apply to plants that burn trees or other "biomass" -- which were inexplicably afforded an exemption -- before every chance to stop the worst fallout from climate change is gone.
Please take a moment to tell the EPA that we need a strong rule that actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions now for all power plants, without exception.
Since 2005 every national forest, by law, has been required to draft management plans to deal with the explosion of damaging ORV use in the United States. Currently ORVs are permitted across nearly all of Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, including sensitive wetlands and meadows.
But the Forest Service caved to political pressure from ORV interests and ditched the management plan -- we have to get the plan back on track.
The U.S. Forest Service spent six years collecting more than 4,000 comments, holding public meetings and analyzing the condition of forest roads to create a plan that protects natural resources and quiet places in Wallowa-Whitman.
But Rep. Greg Walden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) added their voices to those advocating for unrestrained ORV use, putting pressure on the Forest Service to abandon this long-overdue plan. Despite years of hard work -- and after spending thousands of taxpayer dollars -- the Forest Service abandon the plan, and now we're back to square one.
While the Forest Service is legally required to develop a plan to minimize the damage done by ORVs and failing logging roads, there is intense political pressure to ignore the cost of ORVs to clean water, wildlife and the U.S. taxpayer.
Please take a moment to write to the Forest Service and -- if you are an Oregon resident -- your elected officials today. Tell them you support responsible ORV planning in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest and oppose efforts to bypass the law and the public's will.
Since an underhanded congressional rider stripped northern Rocky Mountain wolves of their Endangered Species Act protections one year ago, state-permitted hunters have shot 166 wolves in Montana.
Hunters in neighboring Idaho have shot an additional 254 wolves and trapped or snared 124.
Along with wolves killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this recreational killing will lead -- and is intended to lead -- to a near-collapse in wolf numbers. But, until now, recreational trapping and snaring has not been allowed in Montana. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission will soon decide whether or not to allow the cruel practice.
Trapping and snaring Montana's wolves would further undermine this ecologically vital animal, expose other wildlife to unintended injury and death and unleash a wave of wolf hatred that would only increase with their sport-killing.
Please use the form below to contact the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission and Governor Schweitzer: Tell them sport trapping and snaring will decimate Montana's wolf population and must be prevented.
Shrinking sea ice poses an immediate, lethal threat to polar bears. Researchers have tracked a female bear swimming for nine days without rest through the Beaufort Sea before she found a sea-ice platform; she survived, but her cub drowned.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced plans to reissue a Bush-era regulation that sharply limits protections for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act. We need to speak out against it.
Industrial greenhouse gas emissions from outside of the polar bears' range will be disqualified from regulation under this "special rule." It also reduces the protections the bears would otherwise receive from the fallout of oil development in its Alaska habitat.
Polar bears were the first mammals added to the endangered and threatened species list solely because of threats from global warming. A conservation rule that blocks the very actions needed to limit carbon emissions and save polar bears is no conservation plan at all. It's an extinction plan.
Please use the form below to ask the Fish and Wildlife Service to create a real polar bear conservation rule that addresses the most pressing threat to its survival: global warming.
The United States is home to more varieties of turtle than any other country in the world. But unregulated global trade is rapidly depleting our native turtles. Millions of wild-caught freshwater turtles are exported to Asian food and medicinal markets each year.
Given the vastness of this market, the United States has a duty to take the lead in promoting responsible commercial turtle trade. Listing these turtles under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is a critical step toward ensuring such trade does not threaten their survival.
In response to a petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it may propose 17 species of U.S. freshwater turtles for CITES protection at the next meeting in Thailand.
Please use the form below to request that the Service propose and actively lobby to list these U.S. freshwater turtles under CITES.
Oil and gas companies presently don't have to report when, where or what chemicals they use when they frack wells in California. It's impossible for regulators to adequately protect the state's water, air and environment when they don't even have the facts.
Fracking involves pumping highly pressurized water, mixed with industrial chemicals and sand, deep into the earth to break up rocks and extract the fossil fuels trapped within. Recent reports show fracking has resulted in more than 1,000 documented cases of groundwater contamination around the country, either through the leaking of fracking fluids or methane into groundwater or via surface spills of contaminated wastewater.
Assembly Bill 591 would lay the groundwork for protecting Californians by requiring disclosure of the chemicals and amounts of water companies are using to frack wells. As written, however, the bill contains a huge loophole for industry that would allow the withholding of important information on the grounds that such information constitutes a "trade secret."
Please take a moment to ask the state legislature to close the industry loopholes in A.B. 591 and require full public disclosure of the chemicals injected into our environment.
Please use the form below to send a message to your state senator.
Adding to the polar bear's bleak prospects under climate change, risky offshore drilling and toxic contamination, the international trade in endangered species parts is booming. The price for polar bear fur reached a record high this year as the bears' numbers shrink along with their sea-ice habitat.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering pushing for additional protections under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. At the last CITES negotiations, the Service led the charge to ban all commercial trade in polar bear parts, but Canada blocked the move. The agency is now "undecided" on its position for the upcoming round.
The United States granted the polar bear Endangered Species Act protections in 2008, but Canada refused to extend similar protections to its bears last year and remains the world leader in polar bear sport-hunting and commercial trade. The Center for Biological Diversity is pressing Canada to stop its egregious overharvest.
Please ask the Fish and Wildlife Service to take a stand for polar bears and champion these urgently needed trade restrictions.
A new bill, H.R. 872, would allow unregulated pesticide applications and has already passed in the right-wing-dominated House of Representatives. Today their counterparts in the Senate are making a last-minute attempt to attach this poisonous legislation to the farm bill, hoping it will slip through unnoticed.
You can help turn back this toxic tide.
Many pesticides are linked to higher cancer rates and other serious health risks in people. Fish and amphibian populations have been devastated by these toxins, which can be the last straw for endangered species already in crisis.
Please take five minutes to call your senators and tell them to protect our waterways and wildlife from unregulated pesticide pollution.
Your personal phone call today will make a big impact. We've provided some talking points for your call. Click here to find the numbers for your senators, and, after you've called, let us know you were able to get through by clicking here.
Please, take a few minutes today to speak out for clean water and a healthy environment; or, if for some reason that is not possible, you can also contact your senators by filling out the form below.
Sample Call:
Hello, my name is _________, and I'm from [City].
I'm calling to ask Senator ______________ to defend the Clean Water Act and its protections for our waterways from any bill that would limit or bypass it, like H.R. 872. I support the EPA's safeguards against pesticides through the "pesticide general permit" process. This protects our environment and public health fairly and effectively.
I strongly urge Senator _______________ to reject any measure that weakens the Clean Water Act. H.R. 872, and any companion bill in the Senate, is a hazard to all life in the United States. This controversial legislation should not be added to the unrelated farm bill.
[Please feel free to let the senator know how you are personally affected by pesticides in our waters.]
The Center for Biological Diversity needs your help to convince Congress to ban atrazine, a commonly used weed-killer and toxic chemical that threatens imperiled frogs, other wildlife and people across the United States.
Atrazine is a powerful endocrine disruptor. It interferes with natural hormone functions, inhibiting the reproduction, development and growth of wildlife and humans.
Researchers have proven that atrazine chemically castrates and feminizes male frogs at concentrations 120 times lower than the levels allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. This dangerous chemical has also been linked to reproductive defects in fish and prostate and breast cancer in laboratory rodents.
In people it causes an increased risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer and decreased sperm count.
Atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide contaminant of ground, surface and drinking water. It's also extremely persistent in the environment: Atrazine is still being detected in France 15 years after its last application.
This is our chance to free our waters of atrazine for good. Please use the form below to tell your representative to ban atrazine -- save our frogs from a persistent poison.
The coastal plain wilderness of the Western Arctic Reserve in Alaska is a globally recognized ecological resource, supporting high densities of breeding birds, imperiled polar bears, caribou and wolverines. Whales, walruses and seals also call its shores and lagoons home.
Although a significant amount of land in the western Arctic has been leased for oil and gas exploration in the past, there's no permanent infrastructure or oil production and the highest-value areas haven't been disturbed, yet.
But now the Bureau of Land Management is making plans to change that.
Its new reserve planning process is our key opportunity to keep these exceptional ecological and wilderness values intact. Even the most environmentally protective alternative would allow half the wilderness to be leased for oil and gas development -- more than 11 million acres.
The BLM's proposal would also allow construction of a pipeline to facilitate offshore-oil development in the Chukchi Sea, a critical habitat for polar bears, and it fails to fully consider the dire ramifications of oil and gas development on climate change.
Help save this incredible wilderness by telling the bureau you want the priceless wildlife of the Western Arctic Reserve protected, not sold to the highest bidder.
Following the recent removal of Great Lakes wolves' Endangered Species Act protection, responsibility for their well-being is in the hands of state managers. Dead set on using this authority to kill wolves, livestock producers and other special interests in Minnesota are pushing legislation to authorize sport hunting and trapping of wolves.
If this language is signed into law, sport hunting and trapping of wolves will begin this fall. Across the state, these intelligent and beautiful creatures will suffer and die in cruel snares and traps.
Sport hunting and trapping will not reduce conflicts between wolves and domestic animals. In fact, hunting and trapping may actually make these problems worse by disrupting pack dynamics and creating more lone, dispersing wolves that are more apt to target livestock or pets out of desperation.
There are tested, nonlethal options to safeguard livestock from wolves, including guard dogs, flagging and predator-proof fences. But now that wolves are under state management, people across the state can legally kill wolves to protect domestic animals.
Until state managers gauge whether the wolf population can cope with the killings that are already occurring under state management, it is too early to move forward with sport hunting and trapping.
Help us continue to defend wolves in the Great Lakes region by telling Gov. Mark Dayton and your state senator that it is too soon to allow sport hunting and trapping.
Fill out the form below and make an even bigger impact with a phone call. Then tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook to do the same.
Your beach may be more polluted than you think. Each hour we dump one ton of invisible pollution into the ocean; if it were a visible, tangible substance like oil, we would demand that the spill be halted. Even though you can't see it, this pollution threatens our sea life -- from the smallest of plankton to the greatest of whales.
The pollution is carbon dioxide, and it's making our oceans more acidic. Ocean acidification is linked to global warming in that both are caused by CO2 buildup and both threaten to cause unprecedented devastation to the planet's biome. The early effects are already here: Baby oysters cannot survive in waters off the Pacific Northwest, coral growth has been stunted in Florida, and polar waters have eroded the shells of prey that sustain Alaska's salmon and whales.
Sign the petition below and tell the President and EPA we must act now to end ocean acidification. The science is in, and there's no debate: Ocean acidification threatens our marine life and coastal communities. The EPA has the tools to prevent ocean acidification from hurting corals, sea otters, salmon and whales, but it must act swiftly.
We're in the middle of another disastrous year for North American bats: White-nose syndrome, the bat-killing fungal disease that's been sweeping the country, has reached Alabama and Missouri. It continues to spread throughout the heartland, the core range of two endangered bat species. Nearly 7 million bats have died since the white-nose outbreak in 2006.
Right now the bats' best champions in Congress, Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), have requested $8.5 million for white-nose syndrome research and management. Funding to fight this disease, the worst wildlife-health crisis in U.S. history, is urgently needed to support biologists working on treatments and ways to slow it.
The money will also go to federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to fund land management desperately needed to prevent human-caused transport of the deadly fungus, still absent in the West.
If bats continue to disappear, the number of insects will skyrocket, and scientists estimate the costs to farmers from crop loss and increased pesticide use could be between $3.7 billion and $53 billion a year. U.S. agriculture can't afford to lose bats -- nor can the rest of us. If left unchecked, white-nose syndrome will soon become a national disaster.
Please call or use the form below to ask your legislators to support this vital funding for the 2013 fiscal year. It's not a cure, but it's an excellent place to start.
Toxic lead was taken out of paint and gasoline years ago, but lead from hunting ammunition still kills millions of birds and other wildlife every year. Lead poisoning is taking a terrible toll on bald eagles, peregrine falcons, loons, condors, herons and even wolves, bears and panthers.
Now the National Rifle Association and its cronies in Congress are trying to stop us from protecting wildlife from lead poisoning. We need your help to make sure they don't get their way.
More than 150 groups representing conservationists, birders, hunters, scientists, veterinarians, American Indians and public employees joined the Center for Biological Diversity in calling to eliminate lead hunting ammunition. Making this change will protect millions of birds and other animals each year from suffering painful poisoning and even death
Predictably, the NRA is trying to roll back laws that could protect our wildlife from this poisoning epidemic even though effective, nontoxic alternatives are widely available and can be comparable in price to lead.
Use the form below to help us stop the NRA’s cruel and misguided Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012. Then help spread the word to your friends on Twitter and Facebook.
Shell Oil just sued the Center for Biological Diversity and 12 other groups.
It seems the oil giant thinks it can intimidate us with threats so that it can push through dangerous new drilling in the fragile Arctic ecosystem. Shell has big plans for offshore oil drilling in America's Arctic next summer, but it has no realistic plan to deal with a spill.
Please stand with the Center and help us defeat this obnoxious, anti-free-speech lawsuit.
Shell Oil is suing us because we've faught every offshore drilling proposal in the Arctic since 2007. Shell knows we're effective, so it's trying to take us out with its preemptive attack.
Add your name to the pledge below to stand up to Shell's strong-arm tactics.
Bats are dying of white-nose syndrome; amphibians are dying of chytrid fungus; and in an even more recent development, eastern rattlesnakes have been dying from a bizarre fungal disease that leaves grotesque lesions on their faces. Across the country and around the globe, incidents of new infectious diseases in wildlife are on the rise. These diseases threaten to drive an array of species extinct.
You can help turn much-needed federal attention on these devastating diseases and save millions of lives by filling out the form below. Tell your senators to pass the Wildlife Disease Emergency Act.
While emerging infectious diseases in humans (SARS, West Nile virus, etc.) are an urgent concern for public-health officials, far less attention has been given to this deepening threat to wildlife -- which also poses clear threats to people in the long run. The slow, stumbling response of state and federal wildlife agencies to white-nose syndrome when it first appeared in the Northeast five years ago is a perfect example. There is no system that rapidly addresses fast-moving wildlife emergencies like new infectious diseases.
In response to this need, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced the Wildlife Disease Emergency Act, Senate Bill 357, last year. The Act would establish a fund to coordinate a rapid response to wildlife disease emergencies and authorize the interior secretary to declare such emergencies as well as create a Wildlife Disease Committee to develop policy and procedures. Rapid-response Teams could also be established to address specific disease issues.
This lifesaving legislation is up for consideration again this year. Please send a letter to your senators today and let them know you support the Act.
Help stop the needless lead poisoning of bald eagles and other wildlife by asking the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic lead in hunting ammunition. Sign our petition -- join more than 150 organizations calling on the EPA to both end the widespread lead poisoning of wildlife and safeguard human health.
The only thing keeping toxic lead in bullets and shotgun pellets is misinformation from organizations like the National Rifle Association, that are devoted to perpetuating the use of lead ammo despite the mountain of scientific evidence that it causes lead poisoning in a variety of species and risks the health of 10 million hunters, their families and low-income venison donation beneficiaries. But many rational hunters disagree with the NRA and think getting the lead out for wildlife is consistent with traditional American conservation and hunting values.
Spent lead pellets and lead fragments in shot game are still widespread wildlife-killers, felling bald and golden eagles, trumpeter swans, endangered California condors and more than 75 other bird species. Lead bullets can also fragment into minute particles and spread throughout shot game, causing a health risk to humans who eat it.
Fortunately, nonlead bullets and shotgun pellets are widely available -- more than a dozen manufacturers market hundreds of varieties and calibers of nonlead ammunition made of steel, copper and metal alloys. Hunters in areas that have lead-ammo restrictions have transitioned to hunting with nontoxic bullets.
There is simply no excuse to use toxic lead for hunting. Please sign the petition today, and share it with your network on Twitter and Facebook.
The Gallinas-Creek watershed in Marin County is home to one of the largest populations of federally endangered California clapper rails in the north bay. Nestled between historic China Camp State Park and the Hamilton Field restoration site, the watershed is also home to the salt marsh harvest mouse, black rail and steelhead trout.
You can help protect this biologically rich marsh from a massive new development nearby. The project, a proposed two-story, Walmart-size indoor and outdoor sports complex, would bring light and noise pollution, toxic runoff, increased traffic and excessive disturbance to the marsh and creek.
The San Rafael Planning Department will hold one more public meeting on the merits of the project in the spring of 2012, but it seems intent on pushing it forward despite the poor location and inadequate environmental review -- and over the objections of numerous neighbors and conservation groups.
Tell San Rafael this facility should be located elsewhere: nearer to transportation and the kids who will use it and far from fragile wetlands.
This summer, exploratory drilling will begin in the Arctic Ocean unless we stop it. The Arctic must be off limits to oil drilling, for the simple reason that a spill would be impossible to clean up there. The Arctic is home to polar bears, walruses, bowhead whales and other endangered and highly sensitive wildlife; oil drilling in its remote, ice-choked waters would carry unacceptably high risks of environmental destruction and loss of life.
President Obama has given approval to Shell to drill for oil this summer in the vulnerable Arctic. In hopes of uncovering new sources of dirty fossil fuels, Arctic drilling could also unleash more than 11 billion tons of carbon pollution -- making it ever more difficult to stave off devastating climate change.
We have a powerful opportunity now to stop drilling before it spoils the Arctic and its wildlife. Take action now to help us send 1 million messages to Obama asking him to protect one of America's last, best wildernesses and stop Shell's reckless drilling plans.
This is an important time for Hawaiian monk seals. Overall the population is perilously close to extinction, declining from about 1,100 seals; however, as seal numbers decline on Hawaii's northwestern islands, populations on the main islands are growing, and these seals are healthier.
The main islands could be a refuge for the seals, and critical habitat protections can help ensure they have a place to call home -- but sadly Hawaii's officials are hearing vocal opposition to habitat protections and other recovery actions that could save our seals. These concerns are fueled by false statements that monk seals are not native to Hawaii and that the public will lose access to beaches if protections are granted.
To set the record straight: Protecting seals does not close beaches, but it could require limits on coastal development and pollution that would benefit seals and other beachgoers alike.
We have to make a strong show of support for monk seal recovery now. Fill out the form below to let Hawaii's officials know you care about monk seals and believe they must not be allowed to go extinct.
Each year thousands of rattlesnakes are removed from the wild and killed at "rattlesnake roundups." Rattlesnakes play a key role in the food web, maintaining balance in nature by preying on rodents, but hunting of snakes for roundups is pushing some species toward extinction.
Please sign this petition asking communities to change their roundups to festivals where snakes are not hunted or killed. Several communities have already changed their roundups to wildlife-appreciation festivals, which generate important income for the communities and educate the public about the importance of saving native species, not slaughtering them.
Overfishing is pushing Atlantic bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction. These magnificent animals are famous for their racecar-like speeds, but their population has been reduced by more than 80 percent since industrial fishing began.
The government ignored the danger to bluefin tuna and gave industry its way when it denied Endangered Species Act protection to the fish in June 2011. International efforts aren't helping either. And in November 2011 the international body that is supposed to watch out for the bluefin failed to ban tuna farms or reduce catch quotas.
So right now the best way to stop overfishing is to vote with your plate.
Bluefin tuna remains a prized menu item in some restaurants. Send the message that serving bluefin tuna is unacceptable by signing our pledge; then share this with your friends and local restaurants.
Already in the United States thousands of species – from elk and river otters to frogs and orchids – have been pushed toward extinction because the land and water they depend on has been polluted, paved over, or destroyed.
To save and recover these imperiled plants and animals, we have the strongest law in the world for protecting species: the Endangered Species Act. But it can only work if we use it. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has recently refused protections for more than 259 imperiled plants and animals in the United States that are critically close to extinction. Instead of taking action now, the administration put them on a waiting list, where they'll remain without protection for years or even decades.
We must take action today to tell the administration to do right by plants and animals that desperately need protection.
If we do nothing, species like these will go extinct in our lifetimes: the Pacific fisher, a fierce but imperiled carnivore that lives in fast-disappearing old-growth forests along the West Coast; Montana fluvial Arctic grayling, a near-extinct purple-silver fish; and the Black Warrior waterdog, a large, gilled salamander that's been waiting for protection since 1991.
We need to get them on the endangered species list immediately – because that's the only way that killing them becomes illegal and the only way to save their habitat from logging, bulldozing and other forms of destruction. Please fill in the form below to add your name to our petition to President Obama and then share with all your friends. Thank you for being part of the solution.
Although it has helped cause the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico, BP now has the audacity to propose testing new drilling technology in the fragile Arctic Ocean. This is an especially troubling proposition when we consider BP’s poor safety record in Alaska. BP has a history of flouting environmental and safety regulations in its Arctic operations. In 2006, BP’s failure to maintain its aging pipelines led to the worst oil spill ever on Alaska’s North Slope. BP has been the object of a number of investigations and enforcement actions in Alaska over the past decade. As recently as April 20, 2010 (the same day BP’s well in the Gulf exploded), the federal pipeline safety administration sent BP a warning letter about corrosion issues in the company’s Alaska pipelines.
If something were to go wrong in the Arctic, BP simply would not have the ability to deal with it. No one does. There is an utter lack of infrastructure and technology to deal with an oil spill in the Arctic. BP’s drilling location is extremely remote: The nearest Coast Guard station is more than 1,000 miles away. There is no technology for cleaning oil on ice, and the poor visibility and frequent storms of the Arctic would make responding to a spill extremely difficult.
What’s at stake is an environment that is both singular and fragile. The Arctic is already reeling from the effects of global warming. Species such as polar bears and walruses are losing their sea-ice habitat at an alarming rate. BP’s Liberty project is in the heart of polar bear territory. If an oil spill were to happen at the wrong time it could be disastrous for the Beaufort Sea’s struggling polar bear population.
The Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups have called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to say no to BP’s Liberty project until proper environmental reviews can be completed. The decision about whether to risk destroying the Arctic as BP has destroyed the Gulf is in Secretary Salazar’s hands. Please tell the secretary not to let BP drill in the Arctic.
Prominent climate researchers have warned that we must reduce the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million (ppm) or below in order to stabilize climate change and avoid global catastrophe. The Center for Biological Diversity, along with Bill McKibben's group 350.org, is advocating strongly for this necessary standard.
While carbon dioxide isn’t the only global warming pollutant we need to control, it’s the number-one contributor to climate change.
Several lines of evidence show that allowing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to remain above 350 ppm for a sustained period of time will lead to dangerously acidic oceans, runaway global warming, and melting of the polar ice caps. Such a climate would be well outside anything experienced in the history of the human species, and would carry with it irreversible cascades of species extinctions and significant dangers for human civilization.
What's needed is an immediate reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with the goal of an overall concentration of 350 ppm or less to be achieved as quickly as possible. To accomplish that, the Center supports the rapid phasing out of all coal-fired power plants, the highest technologically feasible vehicle-mileage standards, and a moratorium on Arctic oil and gas drilling, among other critical measures.
Please take one minute to join us in moving toward a real solution the climate crisis by calling on the EPA to do its job as science, the law and common sense require. Sign the People's Petition to Cap Carbon at 350 parts per million today.
Okinawa is home to ecologically significant coral reefs that support more than 1,000 species of reef fish, marine mammals, and sea turtles. Creatures like the highly imperiled dugong, a critically endangered and culturally treasured animal, rely on these reefs for their survival.
But the U.S. government is planning to build a new American military base atop a healthy coral reef that will likely destroy the diverse array of animal life the reef supports, including at least nine species threatened with extinction. Okinawa's coral reefs are already threatened by global warming and pollution: More than half have disappeared over the past decade. We must protect the reef and its inhabitants.
American, Japanese, and international organizations have spoken out for this critical area and against the potential harm that the new military base would cause. Back in 1997, Japan's Mammalogical Society placed the mighty dugong, a distant relative of the manatee, on its "Red List of Mammals," estimating the population in Okinawa to be critically endangered. Our own Endangered Species Act lists the dugong and three sea turtles affected by the project as endangered. The U.S. government's Marine Mammals Commission is weighing in with fears that the project would be a serious threat to the dugong and other animals' survival, and the World Conservation Union's dugong specialists have expressed similar concerns.
Construction of the offshore facility will devastate the marine environment and have dramatic consequences for oceangoing birds and coastal species as well. In addition to destruction of the coral reef off the coast of Henoko village, the planned base will deplete essential freshwater supplies, increase the human population in sensitive areas, and encourage more environmentally harmful development -- causing irreversible ecological damage to one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. The U.S. government must abandon this plan.
Environmental groups from both sides of the Pacific Ocean -- the Center for Biological Diversity and the Turtle Island Restoration Network in the United States and Dugong Network Okinawa, Save the Dugong Foundation, Committee Against Heliport Construction/Save Life Society, and the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation in Japan -- have filed a lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco against the U.S. Department of Defense to stop the base.
We need your help to speak out. Please take a minute to send the letter below to President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador to Japan John Roos.
In May, the last known U.S. jaguar -- Macho B -- was unnecessarily, tragically killed by government agencies. This heartbreaking loss to the species, and to us, demands swift action to preserve habitat for Macho B’s majestic relatives.
If jaguars are to rebound, as wolves and grizzlies have, they need a federal recovery plan, reintroduction from Mexico into the United States, and protection for their essential living space.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit to stop the killing of jaguars has entered a critical phase. Earlier this year, the Center won a court case requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan and designate critical habitat for jaguars. But instead of complying with the law, the agency is delaying by appealing the ruling.
Jaguars don't have time to wait. Sign the petition urging the Service to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to save and recover the American jaguar.
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