Who Needs Polar Bears?

Alaska most defiantly does not need Polar Bears. They don’t tap dance on the ice like our penguin friends. Following the recent decision by the United States to list the polar bear as an endangered species, Alaska has decided to sue the decision. This lunacy was out of fear that the Department of Fish and Wildlife could possibly declare “critical habitat” on behalf of the polar bear, preventing all those Alaskan Republicans from raking in bags of cash from those big bad oil companies that want to drill into the Alaskan pot of gold. “I’m done sick of thems damned polared bears!” Alaska’s Governor Sarah Palin told me in an exclusive phone interview, followed by the sound of her cocking a rifle.

Florida sure as hell doesn’t need polar bears either, as writes John Herbert of Hernando Today, a publication of the Tampa Tribune:

“After roaming abandoned Arctic shacks and North Polar ice floes from the North Slope of Alaska to the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen since the 1960s, and some close encounters with stray polar bears, I long ago concluded that we humans need continued protection from the aggressive, speedy and very carnivorous one-ton hairballs. Polar bears can take care of themselves just fine — and scare the wits out of us in the process. They don't need any federal intervention or protection; thank you very much.”

You’re very welcome.

So it appears that here we go, yet again. A divided country will now be forced to face global warming in the name of the polar bear. As endless lawsuits inevitably blame the federal government for protecting the polar bear against global warming while not directly addressing it, Congress will at some point be forced to fix this oxymoron. On one side will stand those who believe in the rational and right while on the other will stand those who fear it may cost them a buck or two. Sound familiar?

Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” A math equation is either correct or incorrect. Without shifting the numbers or calculations it would be impossible to find a solution. This suggests, if not proclaims, that a life without calculation is merely a life without truly rational humanity. To do the same thing twice may actually be a mathematical impossibility, let alone as many times as “over and over again” may suggest. Though it may be possible to miscalculate consistently, if not constantly, when seeking some sort of conclusion. In this sense, Einstein’s insanity is merely a state of mind.

I once had a teacher who informed me that when someone is learning new information “the brain pulses and throbs and ripples and lines begin to form! It’s incredible!” Yes that is, and the thought still horrifies me. My throbbing brain was growing weary of new information and at times I thought my skull might crack. “Feel that! You feel that? Feel that pulse! LET’S LEARN!” So one by one we’d all get our turn to walk up to the dry-erase board and present conclusions from our pre-algebra homework the night before. Numbers divided, added or subtracted. Most of us were wrong, our brains exhausted from their stimulated workouts, but she gladly corrected us and taught us how to do it all correctly. She called teaching “the passing of the throbbing pulse!”

One thing has become clear up to this point. We are a species that learns, uses that knowledge and focuses the latter two tasks toward the goal of accuracy. We’re not the only beings to remain helplessly driven by our associations. In fact we probably have it easier than most living things, a great majority of which end up dead at the hands of their own ignorance to the great lessons of life meant to ensure their survival. Birds don’t just step out of a nest and say “Dude, let’s just like fuckin fly and shit.” Actually, they usually fall on their asses and get up and try again. Or they make like the poor baby duckling my parents spotted off the Columbia River. A blue Herron snatched him from the river water, away from the pack and high into the air. Then, out of nowhere, a bald eagle intercepted and knocked the poor baby duck from the clutches of the Herron. As the duckling fell helplessly toward the water, a second eagle swooped from below and caught the squaking feather-ball in mid-descent. Surely, a meal for their own offspring.

What a fucked up circle of life! Even when we’ve been unfairly handed the wrong cards our ignorance still manages to fuck us over. “No Ashley! How many times do I have to show you?” Our math teacher was slightly impatient but to her credit Ashley never really got it. Every time she was told to add she would merely divide. Subtraction was indivisible. When told to multiply she’d stupefy. Mind you, Ashley didn’t give a shit. Ashley was a cool eighth grader, sporting bright red hair and an orange racecar jumpsuit. She had an iPod. Ashley wasn’t passing the throbbing pulse.

So why should she? “I get math, but what does it all mean?” I asked. Teacher merely smiled, “Neither you, nor I will ever know.” I still think that a stupid answer to a very obvious opportunity for that profound “teacher” moment that every educator looks forward to. We’ve all been fed that bullshit paragraph of overtly profound, sweeping sentences that avert the reality of uncertainty. Instead she stuck with the obvious, and probably true, sentiment that neither of us really knew quite what to do with this stimulating yet seemingly arbitrary tapestry of second-hand knowledge.

When a subduction earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia in December 2004, an aftershock of tsunamis leveled coastlines throughout the region. Nearly a quarter of a million people were killed in what has been logged as the deadliest natural disaster in human history. Few saw it coming. Despite the magnitude 9.2 earthquake hours before, business continued. Despite nearly a mile of previously unexposed beach, many wandered toward the receding waves with ignorant curiosity. Even as the waves began crashing past their usual shorelines many still failed to heed the now obvious warning. In one video of the tragic event a camcorder captures the moment a dubious tourist pulls his digital camera out to take a close-up photo of the incoming wave. As he waits for the flash on his camera to charge a wave engulfs him and every other visible structure so close to the point of impact.

All the while the ancient tribes inhabiting the islands of the Indian Ocean near the epicenter of the massive quake saw things differently. Long before the waves crashed unto their beaches the tribes had fled to higher ground in fear of the massive destruction. The warnings found on these islands were reiterated in responses throughout Southeast Asia and as far away as East Africa. Few land roaming animals faced casualties or seemed caught off guard at the approach of the killer waves. There are many theories as to why this primal phenomenon occurs with animals, the most popular being their heightened sense of hearing and smell that may react to the vibrations and electromagnetic changes in the atmosphere. This hypothesis has never been successfully recreated while many scientists have brushed the theory away as purely a collection of “anecdotes.” In 2005, National Geograpahic reported a flood of eyewitness accounts regarding animals fleeing inland, refusing to leave their private zoo enclosures or heading toward higher ground. It was also hard to deny that the clean up efforts in much of the region faced very few if any animal carcasses.

Let’s not forget those damn pandas! Just weeks ago, British tourists exploring the Woo-Long National Reserve in China started noticing strange behavior amongst the pandas. The pandas “had been really lazy and just eaten a little bit of bamboo, and all of a sudden they were parading around their pen,” told a very jolly and animate Diane Etkins to the Associated Press. Witnesses recounted agitated Pandas huddling together or pacing the grounds of the reserve. The birds were no longer heard chirping. Somewhere, possibly beyond human senses, a mosaic of displaced nature may possibly have been warning of some sort of imminence.

Maybe it’s something only these animals can sense. Maybe it’s not. God knows that if we had the opportunity to predict earthquakes, some idiot somewhere would surely show up to film it or, dare I suggest such lunacy, take a photo. Have we lost our sense of being? Tidal waves! Still he must take a picture, trying a stupid thing in the name of human existence and expecting a different response? We are insane!

I must admit that some of us are more prepared than others. “Store your heavy keepsakes on lower shelves. Save the top shelves for something you don’t mind being hit with,” Reminds Mary Anderson of the Redwood Times in an article titled “Getting Ready for the Big One.” The “Big One” she is referring to is the inevitable subduction quake along the Juan De Fuca, which runs the length of the United State’s west coast and up past British Columbia. The fault erupts in a megaquake once every 300-600 years. The last in 1700 was so large it sent tsunamis jettisoning across the Pacific Ocean and eventually striking Japan. The quake, when it does hit, is likely to cause mass destruction from San Francisco through Portland, Seattle and as far north as Vancouver B.C. At this rate it will be an unpredictable act of nature.

Ms. Anderson recently participated in the Red Cross workshop “Living on the Fault Line.” The seminar, which is hardly paranoid, reminds you, “Think about what you will need if you’re stuck somewhere away from home because the bridges are out and there are landslides everywhere.” Good plan. Well, what do I need? “Pack a change of clothes, a blanket or sleeping bag, a hand-crank radio that gets the emergency alert channel.” Oh, well of course! So when the big one hits I’ll just jump in my jimmies and hunker down in the rubble in my warm sleeping bag and hand crank my radio, all of which I somehow found in this mass destruction. We’re also reminded, “Be sure and carry a whistle and a small flashlight with you.” It’s impossible to own a whistle without being tempted to blow it constantly. I’m not sure who really wants to be “whistle mom” but now is your chance. “Remember the banks won’t be open and you may not have access to your money.” Finally some real reason for concern.

Yellowstone National Park will eventually destroy the mid west. Thank you somebody. The tragedy that will ensue will ravish many lives and much of North America. The eruptions appear to happen approximately once every million years, the last about 640,000 years ago. What is slightly ironic is that the eruptions of this supervolcano are believed to be reactions to other major shifts of nature. Magnitude 7 earthquakes in Alaska and California have caused disruptions of water flows and earthquakes throughout Yellowstone in the last century.

Long story short, the world is going to end. The real question remains; do we deserve to be warned? In order to know when something will happen we must always know why it’s happening. We’ve got to know what is happening to create such a reaction. Eventually everything is somewhat interconnected, every piece of the puzzle holding some other reaction at bay. Or maybe that thing is actually just inducing that reaction itself by its very existence. If understood correctly, we could term that ignorant existence “life.” So do we really deserve to feel so alive?

Maybe when the world is about to end we’ll get some subtle warning from our friends, the polar bears. They’ll all stop, huddle together and wait for that crashing boom. Maybe we’ll spend our last moments just watching their bizarre behavior, maybe we’ll take a photo or maybe we’ll get the message. Does it matter? Anyway you draw it; we don’t have to be so god damned alone and absolutely to blame when Mother Nature puts us in our place.