Polar Bear Pawns of Environmentalists

Yesterday the Interior Department capitulated to radical environmentalists and rejected scientific evidence by adding the polar bear to the list of “endangered species.” This was enacted on the basis of presumed warming of the polar ice caps which theoretically may infringe upon the migratory range of the bear. This marks the first time that the Endangered Species Act has been used as a means to enforce reductions of green house gasses, i.e., carbon dioxide. The ramifications of this ruling are yet to be fully realized, but the wording and provisions of the ESA leave little doubt that the effect will be far-reaching. As habitat loss is the principal concern with declining species, the ESA may designate specific zones as protected habitat and enforce any and all activities that may impinge upon that protected habitat. By including polar bears, whose population today is UP 40% from 1974, as “threatened” or “endangered” because of some highly-disputed warming of the north pole, anything that can remotely contribute to the unproven theory of man-made global warming falls within the purview of the environmental regulatory agencies and is subject to enforcement up to and including heavy fines and imprisonment. Furthermore, the ESA also has a provision that allows citizens to sue the government over suspected violations. Every mining operation, lumber company, steel mill, airline, automotive manufacturer, power plant, and virtually anything and anybody that does or potentially can produce carbon dioxide is now under threat of lawsuit and enforcement by a bloated bureaucracy encouraged by ill-informed and malicious busy-bodies.

Those of us who have argued for development and exploitation of U.S. energy reserves, building of new refineries and nuclear power plants as a strategy for energy independence have effectively been trumped. To the list of things contributing to the rising cost of energy we can now add polar bears (and the environmentalists who seek to harm the United States)!

UPDATE: The Senate Committee on the Environment and Public works released a statement by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)that addresses this issue:

Inhofe Says Listing of Polar Bear Based on Politics, Not Science “With the number of polar bears substantially up over the past forty years, the decision announced today appears to be based entirely on unproven computer models.”