- Polar Bear Mother and Cubs - Anonymous
In a move that may defy logic, The Discovery Company hired Sarah Palin to host an eight part series on TLC titled: "Sarah Palin's Alaska."
Discovery Company
The Discovery Company owns educational television channels such as the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel ("TLC"), Animal Planet and Science Planet. These channels have earned their reputation of airing informative, scientific and educational programs about the Earth, weather patterns, animal habitats and ecological issues, to name a few.
Mark Burnett worked with Discovery from 1996 to 1999 producing "Eco-Challenge," which was the predecessor of his wildly successful "Survivor" series. Burnett is teaming up with Discovery again to produce "Sarah Palin's Alaska."
Sarah Palin on Environmental Issues
Gazelle Emami at The Huffington Post .com refers to Palin as a "notorious anti-environmentalist" in her article dated March 25, 2010 ("Sarah Palin teams Up With Discovery Company") Emami chronicles Palin's most anti-environment policies, including:
- Palin fought the federal government's decision to include polar bears on the endangered species list.
- Palin pushed to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is home to unique and diverse arctic species. The protection and preservation of these areas is vital to the world as we know it.
- Sarah Palin continues to deny that human activities cause global warming and global climate change. She has gone so far as to write in the Washington Post Op-Ed section, "While we recognize the occurrence of these natural, cyclical environmental trends, we can't say with assurance that man's activities cause weather changes. We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs."
- Had Measure 2 in Alaska been passed, it would have banned the practice of gunning down wolves from aircraft. This method of wolf control is considered cruel and is extremely painful for the wolves. Palin spent $400,000 of Alaska's money fighting Measure 2.
- Palin also came out against Alaska's Measure 4. Measure 4 was a clean water initiative aimed at protecting Bristol Bay, which is one of the world's most productive salmon fisheries.
News Leak
It seems comical that the Discovery Company would hire someone with such an anti-environment track record to host a series about the wildlife and the environment in Alaska. Unfortunately for Discovery, their advertisers may agree that is is comical.
Sarah Palin's pay for the entire series will come to about $2 million. That does not include any of the other astronomical costs for putting on such a documentary. Discovery needs to sell big to advertisers.
A Discovery Company employee leaked to the Huffington Post that after the trailer was shown to a room full of ad buyers, they were laughing. Some were simply rolling their eyes, others were outright laughing.
Perhaps the Discovery Company can be forgiven this one gaff and continue to enjoy its reputation of producing informative pieces about science and the Earth. An environmentalist's Alaska and Sarah Palin's Alaska, however, are two very different things.
