Sportsman Virtual Town Hall Draws Thousands

When the great-grandson of a former president and a respected former senator get together for a talk with a few thousand concerned citizens, people pay attention.
 
More than 13,000 hunters and anglers joined a national teleconference – a virtual town hall meeting dedicated to the discussion of global warming's effects on wildlife and the need for legislation to curb carbon pollution and safeguard natural resources.
 
The call was co-hosted by the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and American Hunters and Shooters, and included Ted Roosevelt IV, a noted conservationist, and former Sen. John Warner (R-VA).
 
The call generated "an unheard-of outpouring of interest and support from sportsmen and women for clean energy solutions to climate change," said Jim Lyon, National Wildlife Federation vice president for Conservation Policy, who moderated the event. "No collection of people has a better understanding of the impacts of climate change we are seeing and for the need to act."
 
Indeed, the teleconference represented the latest stage of a vocal movement by American sportsmen to move the issue of global warming to the fore. A recent NWF poll of hunters and anglers found that 66 percent of respondents believed the effects of global warming are already occurring, and many concerned sportsmen have taken to the nation's capital in recent months to lobby the U.S. Senate for comprehensive climate and energy legislation that would help protect the habitats and species they cherish.
 
"It's very important in my opinion that we do pass the climate change bill," said Roosevelt IV.