Hollow Protection For Polar Bears

Last week, the Bush administration officially acknowledged the polar bear’s plight – listing it as a “threatened species” under the Endangered Species Act.
Don’t celebrate yet. This is protection-in-name-only. The administration refuses to take any steps that might actually increase survival odds for the polar bear, which faces a grim future as its sea ice home melts away due to global warming.
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne made the administration’s position crystal clear. The strictures of the Endangered Species Act forced the listing, but the administration will not allow the polar bear to interfere with unfettered commerce.
More to the point, the administration obdurately refuses to allow the fate of the furry, white bears to exert one paw of influence over decisions about new coal-fired power plants, automobiles or any other known contributors to global warming. Similarly, the bear’s status will have no effect on arctic oil exploration or production.
Kempthorne was adamant that the bears not stand in the way of business as usual. He seemed quite perturbed that he was required to yield to the recommendations of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey scientists on the matter and put the bears on the ESA list.
“Listing the polar bear as threatened ... should not open the door to use of the [Endangered Species Act] to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources,” Kempthorne said. “That would be a wholly inappropriate use of the ESA law.”
He expressed similar concern for the polar bears in the context of oil and natural gas exploration and production. He’s committed to protecting the bears as long as it requires not one scintilla of change in behavior.
Kempthorne, it should be noted, has no scientific background. He’s a former Idaho governor and a career politician, who received a zero rating on the League of Conservation Voters’ scorecard while serving a six-year stint in the U.S. Senate. In his two-year tenure as secretary of the interior, Kempthorne had listed no animals as threatened or endangered prior to the polar bear.
If there is a silver lining, it is that Kempthorne’s days at the helm of the Interior Department are numbered. The Bush administration has a mere 7½ months to go. Kempthorne and company won’t be the ones setting the policies that determine whether the polar bears have a chance at survival.
The U.S. Geological Survey – not a fringe environmental group – predicts that polar bears will be well on the way to extinction by mid-century if nothing is done to halt the ice melt. Some environmental groups believe the situation is much worse, and the last polar bear in the wild might be gone by 2020 or 2030.
“Projected changes in future sea ice conditions, if realized, will result in loss of approximately 2/3 of the world’s current polar bear population by the mid 21st century,” the USGS noted last year. “Because the observed trajectory of Arctic sea ice decline appears to be underestimated by currently available models, this assessment of future polar bear status may be conservative.”
Americans must decide whether the polar bear is worth saving. If polar bears matter, then the nation must take steps now to curb greenhouse gas emissions, rather than continuing to add to the problem by building new coal-fired power plants and requiring little in the way of increased fuel standards for automobiles. Business as usual won’t fix this problem.
Our lifestyle is threatening the polar bears. We must act before it is too late, or explain to our grandchildren why we did nothing.