The former unknown Alaskan Governor who is now running mate with John McCain and, maybe, soon even Vice President of the USA has been awarded the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award.

It is the Center for Biological Diversity that this year gives their unflattering Dodo Award to Sarah Palin. Why? Because she “has sought to remove endangered species act protection for the polar bear, suppressed and lied about state global warming studies, and denied that global warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions.”

“Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.”

“All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different,” said Suckling. “To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science.”

“Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff,” said Suckling. “It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.”

You can read more about the award and why the Center for Biological Diversity gave the award to Sarah Palin here.

The Guardian has even more shocking news about Sarah Palin and her fight against polar bears. They reveal that Sarah Palin got help from known climate change deniers and the oil company ExxonMobil “to back efforts to stop polar bears being protected as an endangered species.”

“In official submissions to the US government’s consultation on the status of the polar bear, Palin and her team referred to at least six scientists who have questioned either the existence of warming as a largely man-made phenomenon or its severity. One paper was partly funded by the US oil company ExxonMobil.”

Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace US, says that this “shows that she is completely out of touch with the urgency of the climate crisis.”

Tonight is Sarah Palin’s big debate night against the Democratic Vice President candidate Joe Biden. If you want to know more about the two candidates’s stances when it comes to the environment we got all you need to know: Sarah Palin’s awful environmental record and why the League of Conservation Voters Hails Joe Biden.