Monday, February 6, 2017

                                   EXISTENTIAL  THREATS :
              THE  CRISIS  OF  DIMINISHING  EXPECTATIONS

The belle epoque of environmental paranoia arrives in earnest as an expert witness aged five challenges  PBS refusal to extend the Panda Climate Angst  franchise to our friend, the Giant  Weasel  of Sikkim:

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THE STATE OF THE UNIVERSE.
FEB. 6 2017 12:09 PM

Kids’ TV Is Ignoring Climate Change

Shows like Nature Cat and Sid the Science Kid teach children everything about wildlife and the environment—with one glaring exception.

The green Wikipedia  grinches  beg to differ :
The red panda has been classified as Endangered by the IUCN because its wild population is estimated at less than 10,000 mature individuals and continues to decline due to habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and inbreeding depression, ... the results of phylogenetic analysis provide strong support for its taxonomic classification in its own family Ailuridae, which, along with the weasel, raccoon and skunk families is part of the superfamily Musteloidea
Though no one could mistake this mighty mustelid for  the giant panda of  National Zoo, WWF-logo & Kung Fu fame, a local name has made the browsing creature famous.   Behold the Firefox!
The NY Times reports one of the existenially threatened cratures  roams the suburbs of D.C.  having escaped a Virginia zoo; while others are on the loose and in active competition with the fauna of Britain & New Zealand.
Heaven help the coyote who runs into one.