Who’d a thunk it? Those gun lobbyist hunters are actually putting pressure on the U.S. Senate to pass the climate change bill.
Twenty national hunting and fishing groups sent a letter to senators last month urging them to support the reduction of greenhouse gases and protect the country’s natural resources, reports Reuters. But don’t think they’re going soft. They fear that climate change will mess up their sport and they won’t have it.
“If you go out and hunt at the same time in the same season and the same place every year, then you understand the changes that are happening,” Jeremy Symons, senior vice president for conservation at the National Wildlife Federation told Reuters. Those changes include earlier spring run-offs in rivers from melting snow and changes in bird migrations.
It’s hard to know where to stand on their cause. One of their worries, for example, is that the fowl they hunt might not migrate south of the Canadian border if the northern states become warmer. So basically, they want to fend off global warming so that the birds will fly south in the winter, where the hunters will promptly shoot them dead. Hmmmm…
But wait, the irony doesn’t stop there! These groups are actually pitting themselves against former bedfellows in the coal and oil industries, who really don’t want anyone to consider alterate energey sources. This must be a tough time for former President George W. Bush, who we all know is a hunter and an oil man. Of course he has questioned the link between carbon emissions and climate change, so, perhaps he’s sticking with the oil men on this one?
Hunters and anglers, who generally tend to lean to the right, make up a significant portion of the Heartland, not to mention tens of millions of votes. The National Wildlife Federation estimates that 42 million Americans hunt or fish and that those sports and other wildlife-related activities contribute around $172 billion to the economy.
Could this be the beginning of a long, protracted civil war in the Republican Party? Hard to say. But we’re happy to know that such a huge constituency is supporting action on the environment.
Photo courtesy of vlod007 via Flickr.