Articles by Todd Hymas Samkara

Arctic Refuge bears driven by global warming to eat people — really

The tragic story of two kayakers killed this summer by a hungry grizzly in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the focus of a captivating cautionary tale about global warming's effects on wildlife in the latest issue of National Geographic's Adventure Magazine -- like unto Grizzly Man, but without the intentional disregard for sensible caution. Scarce food's been getting scarcer for caribou in the refuge and making already-hungry tundra grizzlies more and more aggressive, sometimes fatally so.

According to a 2002 U.S. Geological Survey report, increased spring snow and ice [in the Arctic Refuge] -- a paradoxical result of global warming trends -- is burying the coastal plain plants essential to caribou and grizzly diets. The caribou are decreasing in number or seeking grazing land elsewhere, and the barren ground grizzlies, bereft of this supplemental protein, have been stalking the tundra for alternatives.

And in June, one bear found an alternative in the two seasoned backcountry travelers as they slept in their tent. "The freaky thing," says area police officer Richard Holschen, "is that they did most everything right" in terms of bear-related precautions, and were killed anyway.

National Geographic also touches on the possibility of more such incidents as the Arctic Refuge has gained increasing exposure in the news. As the refuge has come closer and closer to being drilled, more and more people have been inspired to visit.

Each time the specter of Alaska oil drilling is raised in Washington, D.C., the number of visitors goes up: from 679 prior to 2000 to an annual average of 1,010 in 2004, not counting frequent trips by local indigenous people.

But the bears aren't the only ones upset by all this. Apparently, a growing number of people think the end is more or less nigh.  

So it looks like you're not alone thinking the world's ills get overwhelming at times. Sort of makes one want to escape to a remote wilderness somewhere ...

French SUV-haters deflate gas-guzzling tires

Most every cyclist who's rolled alongside cars for any amount of time knows the feeling, the one that makes you pump your fist at that driver who nearly ran you over, or that one whose tailpipe is emptying its contents into your face, or the one who's emissions are melting that glacier you liked so much (anger rising, rising). It's this sort of frustration that makes regular bicycle commuters and eco-conscious citizens of all stripes regularly curse outright at aggressive, too-large-vehicle drivers: "you just wait. You'll get yours."

Now some activists in France are dishing out those just desserts to a growing number of SUV drivers in wealthy neighborhoods in the form of empty, but undamaged, tires. The Deflators (or Les Degonfles), a group of French SUV-dislikers tired of the massive vehicles clogging Paris' streets, have been quietly deflating SUV tires in the dark of night. Repeatedly.

And without damaging the vehicles, it's essentially just setting free the air within, they argue, but with amusing side effects.

It's not all late-night pranks, though. Their masked leader has braved a televised debate with the president of the French SUV-owners' association and is apparently working on some sort of a movement anthem, set to appear as both a children's song and a dance mix (oh, those savvy French).

Though The Deflators, who also often post fliers and smear mud on the targeted vehicles, have been in touch with sympathizers and potential deflators on this side of the Atlantic, it seems the mischievous Parisians have much less cultural inertia to overcome than their American counterparts in their quest to spread the message that SUVs sucketh throughout the land, what with openly SUV-hostile city officials and a national SUV-owner tax. Also, SUVs in France, according to the Los Angeles Times, make up only about five percent of the market, whereas Americans would be up to their eyeballs in potential deflationary targets, with SUVs comprising about one-quarter of its market.

Of course, that doesn't mean SUV deflations are a bad idea in America, just a lot of work ...

School vouchers won’t solve educational or environmental problems

Dan Akst contends that a program of school vouchers is what's needed to solve this country's sprawl problem by encouraging otherwise flight-prone would-be suburbanites to stay in the city, thereby easing the push to city outskirts. Well shucks. It's an interesting argument, for a minute at least. OK, less than a minute. After that, the argument can be seen for what it is: a vaguely environmental rationale to justify defunding public education, while perpetrating the rich-poor, class, and race divides in our society.

School vouchers would neither improve schools, decrease pollution, nor curb sprawl -- the essay's central contentions. Not in the world of "Hobsonia" and its supermarkets, and not in real-life America. What vouchers would do is defund the public schools that need the most help, keep the vast array of suburbanites right where they are, and leave pollution completely untouched.

An obvious first question for Akst is: If bad schools really are the reason most people flock to the suburbs from the city (an argument that selectively ignores factors like race, class, and cultural perceptions as embodied in the phenomenon of "white flight"), and that really is what's been fueling sprawl (not, say, poor growth-management policies, developer shortcuts, Wal-Marts, and the like), wouldn't policies to improve schools be the best prescription on all fronts, starting with the very basic but crucial reform of funding public schools more equally by changing the way they're funded (primarily through property taxes -- virtually assuring greater per-student expenditures in wealthier neighborhoods), and not by abandoning the very schools everyone is fleeing?

Well, no, Akst's essay asserts. Substantive solutions that try to address the real problems with ailing schools won't work, silly. And why not? Well, because Akst's friends who agree that meaningful change is needed have kids that mostly go to schools in the suburbs. (A convoluted argument, at best, but it's there nonetheless: "These views are held by most of the caring people I know, but I notice that hardly any of them send their kids to an inner-city school," which can only mean the arguments themselves are invalid ...) But stay tuned, kids. The essay's almost wholesale disregard of logic doesn't stop there.

NYC cops crack down on bike event; media misunderstands it

Critical Mass, the monthly parade/protest/ride/celebration/cycling phenomenon has for years been billed as "bicycling's defiant celebration," but recently in NYC, it's been getting more defiant and less celebratory.

Ever since last year's truly huge Critical Mass ride during the Republican National Convention -- which attracted thousands and thousands of cyclists and worldwide media attention -- snarled traffic and resulted in 250 arrests and scores of bicycle seizures, NYC cops have been increasingly arrest-happy at NYC Critical Mass events, throwing over 500 cyclists in the slammer in just one year.

At issue (aside from the flaws of the whole government apparatus and its endemic biases, of course) are permits. Critical Mass, being essentially a spontaneous (though roughly scheduled) event, is also simply a bunch of people on bikes riding around at the same time. The cops still insist it requires a permit. No permit results in arrests and scads of no-fun bike seizures.

As the Village Voice recently reported:

Assistant Chief Bruce H. Smolka, head of NYPD's South Manhattan Borough Command, has declared in court that he regards seven cyclists or more as a 'procession,' requiring a special permit.

So watch out, road racers: you and six friends make a ride; you and seven friends are going to need a permit.