Most students have seen, or at least heard, the current ravings about the BBC series Planet Earth. But who can claim to have watched it on the big screen of Barnum 008? Not many, I presume.
I am ecstatic to inform you that your chance has finally come.
In honor of RecycleMania - the national competition in which schools battle for the fame, glory and the much-desired title of best recycler in the nation - Tufts Recycles! will be showing the Planet Earth series every Sunday night at 9 p.m. in Barnum 008. On Jan. 27, the series began with "From Pole to Pole," an overview of the Earth's diverse habitats. This Sunday's episode, "Caves," focused on cave ecosystems across the world.
Each episode shows extremely precise footage that was difficult to obtain and took over five years to collect. But there is more to the series than just showing beauty for beauty's sake. Planet Earth shows a closer look at some of the animals and habitats that are entangled in contemporary controversial debates.
One extremely current example is the debate concerning oil drilling in Alaska. In early January, the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) released the decision to sell oil leases for about 29.7 million acres of polar bear habitat in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast. Bidding opened last Wednesday, Feb. 6, with Royal Dutch Shell proposing the highest bid - $105,304,581 - among competitors such as ConocoPhillips, StatoilHydro, NACRA, Repsol, ENI and Iona Energy.
The opposition to drilling argues that our current situation leaves us with the absolute necessity to aid the recovery of the polar bear instead of permitting oil drilling that would further harm it and quite possibly end in its extinction. With global warming an already rampant threat to the polar bear - as increasing temperatures melt ice necessary for hunting seals and creating dens for childbirth - the U.S. Geological Survey projects a loss of 2/3 of the world's polar bear population by the middle of the century; by then, Alaska will be essentially polar bear-less.
Before writing this off as just another empty, whiny cause, consider the following: Don't you ever want to see a polar bear? Or if you don't care, don't you want your children to have the option of seeing them? Don't you like polar bears at all?
There are many other species of Alaskan wildlife that will be harmed by the drilling, not to mention the possible drastic disturbance to the ecosystem that is a consequence of the polar bear population being completely obliterated.
Environmentalists and members of the House and Senate, in opposition to the decision, requested a three-year postponement of the lease sales, during which scientific study could further exemplify the dangerous situation of the quickly diminishing polar bear species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced a mysterious deference concerning its decision on listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. "We believe that any further commitments to fossil fuel development in polar bear habitats should be put on hold until the Fish and Wildlife Service has issued a final listing determination for the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act," Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) wrote in a recent letter to the final decision-holder, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne.
All requests to postpone the lease sales in favor of research exploring the potential impact on Arctic wildlife and habitats have thus far been ignored. But the case isn't closed and, after all, drilling won't begin for a decade.
Last summer, Shell had planned to drill in Sivulliq but was stopped by a court challenge to its environmental permits. Alaskans and environmentalists have begun fighting Shell's plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea.
You can help in this extremely critical situation by e-mailing Secretary Kempthorne at exsec@ios.doi.gov today. Voice your concern, urge the addition of polar bears to the Endangered Species Act, and the drilling decision will necessarily be withdrawn.
Although Planet Earth doesn't directly address the controversies in the series - but rather saves the debating for the later series called "Planet Earth: The Future" - merely watching the many complex and astonishing ecosystems of the world can awaken interest and inspiration in such issues as species conservation and humanity's impact on the environment.
In the series, narrator David Attenborough says, "This new series is more a celebration of our planet, not a lament about the state of it. It shows what is still there. In some areas, there is no doubt that we are doing damage to our world, but, at the same time, there is a vast amount of uncharted and untouched wilderness."
We can hope that a series like Planet Earth will encourage people to take initiative to emphasize the importance of the wilderness and, with all optimism, to expand and not diminish its vastness.
So, I urge you, students of varying Planet Earth experience - if you saw them all but need a refresher, if you are too broke to buy the DVD, if you just need your weekly ecological fix or, most importantly, if you missed the craze and have never seen an episode - come one, come all, to rejoice in the breathtakingly captivating beauty that is our planet. There may or may not be popcorn.
Lucy McKeon is a sophomore who has not yet declared a major.
