The Center for Biological Diversity is handing out tens of thousands of ‘endangered species’ condoms to help promote its message that there are too many of us and we must stop breeding. Amongst the free condoms being handed out to kids everywhere was one featuring the polar bear, with the slogan on the condoms stating “Wrap with care – save a polar bear”. The message presumably being, if you care about polar bears and other animals, don’t have kids.
The website linked to in the press release gave further details:
The international icon of global warming, the polar bear is going extinct as the Arctic sea ice melts beneath its feet due to the greenhouse gas emissions of 6.8 billion people, especially those in high-consumption nations like the United States. The bear was put on the endangered species list in 2008.
The problem is that this claim is simply not true. Rather than “going extinct” polar bears are not even endangered, a fact attested to by the decision of the Obama administration not to include the bear on the endangered species list.
So what we have is a chain of increasingly tenuous and unprovable assumptions:
- Overpopulation is a prime cause of global warming
- Global warming is (as of now) melting the Arctic to such a degree it will melt all the ice polar bears live on.
- Polar Bears are drowning as the “Arctic sea ice melts beneath its feet”
The press release claims that overpopulation is “overwhelming the planet’s finite resources”. We are, apparently, producing too much stuff that’s designed to be used once and then simply thrown away. In an effort to highlight this fact, the Center for Biological Diversity is . . . producing 50,000 condoms designed to be used once then thrown away.
The contact name given on the press release offers more light relief, with the man to contact about overpopulation concerns going by the slightly unfortunate name of ‘Randy Seraglio’! You couldn’t make it up . . .
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2010/condoms-12-29-2010.html
hauntingthelibrary 
I wonder if Josh (the cartoonist) has seen this.
Good luck with your new venture, humour and irony are a good combination to bring wry smiles to your followers.
… and the US a few days ago classified the polar bear as “threatened” but not “endangered”!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/22/AR2010122206411.html
Came here via Bish, will visit regularly, nice content.
I had really decided to kick my blog habit between Christmas and New Year but this is simply too good. Absolutely love it! Totally hilarious. Not sure who would buy the “snail packet” if you can be a bear or a jaguar though. The post coitum information about endangered species sounds irresistible and I really like that this is not just a luxury for rich people looking for that special “extra” as you can enter a competition and win the condoms! You are totally right, the Polar Bear is not endangered. In fact a girlfriend of mine got a dead Polar Bear for Christmas (seriously) from her husband (well, it is different, I guess) and since he had bought it in Denmark they called pretty much everybody to ensure that there wouldn’t be any problems bringing it into the UK. Bottom line, not endangered, nobody cared at all unless caught by a particular nasty sort of trap and when told that my friend had absolutely no idea as bought through an auction house they just went “fine then”. Your new blog is definitely on my 2011 blog roll. Best of luck! Hannah
Thank you! Happy new year!
Can you send a packet to my eco-friend Meg. She and her partner have decided to make a better world for their children by …. not having children.
I’m quite confident those were all 100% non-petrolium based condoms.
“We are, apparently, producing too much stuff that’s designed to be used once and then simply thrown away.”
What, like condoms?
Oh, you already pointed out that irony. Sorry.