Polar bears to determine future of US economy

I wonder how many people understand that the purpose behind Big Green's incessant pushing for polar bears to be listed as an endangered species is because it will allow them to oppose anything businesses try to do to expand on the grounds that there will be a negative impact on the climate (expansion means more CO2 output), which will impact an endangered species.

No wonder socialist groups like Greenpeace "...rejoiced over yesterday's ruling" in the following report.

THE Bush administration must decide within a fortnight whether the polar bear deserves to be considered an endangered species because global warming is melting its icy domains.

A federal judge in California imposed the deadline yesterday after the US Interior Department missed its own January 9 deadline on making a decision, despite an internal departmental preliminary finding in 2006 that the bear's habitat is being destroyed by higher temperatures.

Three environmental groups, including Greenpeace, took the US Government to court over the stalling and rejoiced over yesterday's ruling by US District Court judge Claudia Wilkens.

"Today's decision is a huge victory for the polar bear," said Kassie Siegel, director of the climate program at the Centre for Biological Diversity.

And an even bigger victory for Big Green and its ongoing attack on freedom.

"By May 15, the polar bear should receive the protections it deserves under the Endangered Species Act, which is the first step toward saving the polar bear and the entire Arctic ecosystem from global warming."

The Bush administration claims environmental groups are using legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act to forward their climate change agenda and force the US into restricting its greenhouse gas emissions.

That's exactly what they're doing.

Critics of global warming say the polar bear measure would be used to take governments to court when they build new power plants.

Democrats on Capitol Hill say the Bush administration is stone-walling because it plans to sell a multi-billion-dollar oil and gas lease on the Chukchi Sea, off the Alaskan coast, a region rich with polar bears.

Although a spokesman for the Interior Department yesterday said the decision was being reviewed and "we will evaluate the legal options", Ms Siegel said the US could only make one decision.

"The science is perfectly clear; the polar bear is an endangered species," she said.

Summer sea-ice - which the bears need to hunt seals - shrank last year to a record low, about 4.3 million square kilometers in September, nearly 40per cent less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000.

Not reported is that Arctic winter sea ice rebounded back from its summer low to be significantly bigger than the previous year. I wonder why that hasn't been in the news?

Scientists report polar bears resorting to cannibalism and that their reproduction rates have fallen.

The fact is that polar bear populations are so huge (warming is good for life) that there have been a few examples of cannibalism.

The US Geological Survey has predicted that the world's population of polar bears may be cut by two-thirds by 2050 and that only a handful of the creatures will be left by the end of the century.

Last week, Canada - home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears - said it had a "special concern" for bears, but that animals in Canada were not threatened with extinction.

In other words, things are fine.

Make no mistake, if the Bush administration lists the polar bear as endangered then the consequences for US businesses will be dire indeed.

(Nothing Follows)