The Endangered Species Act is Under Attack, Get Involved on Regulations.Gov, Contact Your Representatives, & Become an Environmental Voter

The Endangered Species Act is Under Attack. Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), over 99 percent of listed species have avoided extinction.

1.) Submit your Public Comment NOW until September 24th at the following link

REGULATIONS.GOV Endangered and Threatened Species: Listing Species and Designating Critical Habitat. Comments Due by Sep 24, 2018 11:59 PM ET at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=FWS-HQ-ES-2018-0006

We submitted the following Public Comment: I support The Endangered Species Act and am an Environmental Voter. I urge our representatives to act to increase protections for the environment and do not support the proposed changes or rollbacks on regulations which affect the health and beauty of our country. I am concerned about corporate and political interests motivating this action and deeply concerned that academics and experts in the field of science are not being consulted or their opinions being measured in the public decision-making of our current administration. The actions being proposed will have results which will not be able to properly be determined for generations, but it is obvious that they are being driven by a desire for immediate short term benefit sacrificing the future for the present. We must stop the regression of protection for the environment and reevaluate our treatment of the land we inhabit. I urge you to vote to uphold the protections of the Endangered Species Act for the future our of country and planet.

Polar Bears International has the following resource available with link to regulations.gov and to contact your representatives. Once you have completed your submission for public comment, please take the extra step and contact your representatives to have your voice heard and to speak for those who do not have a voice of their own.

2.) Don't sit around waiting, Contact Your Elected Representatives NOW. Go to https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials to locate the contact information for your federally elected officials today.

3.) When you are ready, Take the Pledge to Vote for the Environment hosted by The Years Project at Year's of Living Dangerously. Become an Environmental Voter at http://theyearsproject.com/learn/news/take-the-pledge-to-vote-for-the-environment/

Support Environmentally Conscious Representatives & the Green Party's rights to ballot access. Join the Green Party to help them receive the Ballot Access they need to field candidates for federal, state, and local offices at http://www.gp.org

The Green Party of the United States follows the ideals of green politics, which are based on the Four Pillars of the Green Party: ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy and nonviolence. The "Ten Key Values", which expand upon the four pillars, are as follows: Grassroots democracy, Social justice and equal opportunity, Ecological wisdom, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Community-based economics and economic justice, Feminism and gender equity, Respect for diversity, Personal and global responsibility, and a Future focus of sustainability. Learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States

Thank you getting involved and taking the time to post your public comment, contact your representative, and take the pledge to vote for the environment. To go above and beyond, the Sierra Club needs your signature on the following petitions...

Protect wildlife Petition LINK: https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/National?actionId=AR0124402

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Don’t abandon recovering wildlife! LINK: https://act.sierraclub.org/actions/National?actionId=AR0124598

We are using our artistic talents to contribute to #ArtforRise by releasing the images our latest work across social media today for the #RiseforClimate movement. With climate change as the inspiration and focusing on the arctic polar bear past, present, and future, our latest work is an experience of the plight of the Polar Bear to encourage thoughtful discussion and inspire action! We hope you appreciate our efforts for the environment as we aim to contribute with our talents. To learn more about our artwork, we invite you to visit our page on Patreon at www.patreon.com/designsthelimit

Title: Bear Market Futures (2018) by Richard and Tatiana
Statement: "Travel across our work from an arctic wonderland to a tropical environment without moving geographically. Imagine mankind in the place of the polar bear and invest in saving the planet and the life which inhabits our world before we consume ourselves and bring about a bare future."

We signed the Sierra Club petitions and included the following statement: I strongly oppose the current proposal to complicate the process for a species to earn Endangered Species Act Protections and limit the critical habitat they can inhabit when protections are granted. I also oppose proposed changes that would dramatically alter the amount of protected critical habitat a listed species have. The Endangered Species Act prohibits the consideration of economic impacts in determining whether a species should be listed and requires that such determinations be based solely on the best scientific data available about the status of the species. This concept forms the keystone of the Endangered Species Act and is in contradiction with the motivation behind proposals to change the act.

At this time wildlife around the globe which struggled to survive under natural conditions are being confronted with the additional challenges of surviving in the changing world of our time. Please reject any new rule that would make species wait longer for protection or limit the critical habitat they need to recover. I believe the protection of endangered species should be strengthened and greater effort put forward to protect our natural environment. I strongly oppose the administration's current proposals which are profit motivated in opposition to the nature of this act.

If any changes were to be proposed at this time, they should be to broaden the scope and scale of the foundation and implementation of this act for the future. For the first time since the Act was introduced over 40 years ago, Interior agencies want to build economic impacts into the decision on whether an animal needs protection. The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are seeking to make major changes that could mean less protection and longer applications. Proposing changes to an act intended to protect, without proper scientific consideration and motivated by financial concerns, is government representation of government and corporate legal entities in our country, not representation of the citizen or protection of their home.

Our elected officials are given the task of representing the people and life in the district from which they are elected. Protecting wildlife is the best way to serve future generations and environmental voters of conscious need your representation as much as the creatures who do not have a voice to raise their own objection. Representatives who do not take the best interests of the species which inhabit our land will show no more concern for the interests of their constituents.