US says polar bear is threatened, but plans no protection

Science News

May 15, 2008, 0:05 GMT

Washington - Under the pressure of a court-ordered deadline, the United States Wednesday classified the polar bear as a threatened species because of global warming and rapidly melting Arctic ice. In the surprise decision, US Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne said at a press conference in Washington DC that the move was dictated under law by the prospect that within 45 years, the polar bear could become endangered - the most serious category of danger which means a species faces extinction. But Kempthorne warned that he would make sure the decision would not be used as a back door to regulate US policy on climate change, saying it would be carried out in such a way 'to protect the polar bear while preventing unintended harm to society and the economy of the United States.' 'The sea ice is vital to the polar bear's survival,' Kempthorne said. 'The polar bears' sea ice habitat has dramatically melted.' He said that computer projections, which he hoped would turn out wrong, currently anticipated further rapid melting around the Arctic polar cap. Environmentalists who had sought the listing through a series of court cases were not happy. 'Greenpeace is really disappointed because the Interior Department on the one hand acknowledges that polar bears are threatened by the continued loss of sea ice, but on the other hand they are unwilling to take any action to deal with the cause, which is global warming,' said Melanie Duchin, a veteran Greenpeace global warming and energy planner. Ultimately listing the polar bear as threatened under the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA) was a political decision. Kempthorne had been expected to toe the line of President George W Bush, who only recently conceded there was a connection between carbon emissions and global warming and who opposes mandated controls on greenhouse gasses. Bush's beliefs, onlookers believed, would have compelled Kempthorne to rule against protecting the polar bear. But Kempthorne provided large caveats against protecting the bear, insisting that Arctic drilling for oil and gas would continue and that there would be no effect on electric power generation and other sources of carbon emissions in the US. Several times during the hour-long news conference, he emphasized that the endangered species act would not be used to direct US climate policy. 'I would say that this decision has neutered any protection that the polar bear could have gotten under the endangered species act,' Duchin said. 'Polar bears are not being protected from global warming. Until they are, we will not rest.' The Bush administration was ordered by a federal court earlier this year to make the decision by Thursday, in a ruling in favour of the environmental groups. Had the polar bear been listed as endangered, the US Fish and Wildlife Service would have had to begin efforts to restore habitat, the polar ice pack, wildlife officials said. While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting,' Kempthorne said. 'There is a right way and a wrong way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,' said the secretary, adding that the American people 'deserve the benefit' of public discourse. Kempthorne indicated that the real decisions about global warming had to be made by the international community, with action 'by all major economies,' and by elected officials. 'That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isnt abused to make global warming policies,' Kempthorne said. 'Discussions of such far-reaching impacts should not be left up to unelected officials and judges.' The interior secretary side-stepped questions about what sort of positive actions the government might take, saying that the bears were already protected by the stringent Marine Mammal Protection Act that has allowed only negligible impact to wildlife from mining of oil, gas and other resources. Kempthorne noted that the polar bear has in fact made somewhat of a comeback since the early 1960s, when it was numbered at 12,000 individuals, populations depressed by overhunting. There are currently an estimated 25,000 polar bears living in the circumpolar region that includes Canada and Russia, a comeback credited to the marine mammal protection law. Scott Schliebe, the lead polar bear biologist for Fish and Wildlife, said such 'comparisons should be avoided since they over- simplify the picture and misrepresent it.' Polar bears need sea ice and ice floes for hunting, and the increasingly long swims are exhausting and sometimes drowning them, scientists say. The polar bear, fighting tooth and nail to maintain a slippery toehold, is the so-called canary in the mine - a symbol of alarm among environmentalists and scientists about the planet's rapidly increasing temperature. Last year, a UN panel of thousands of global experts agreed in more drastic terms than ever that unless the world reduces emissions of carbon dioxide under a strict schedule, there would be huge social and environmental upheavals.

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Zyskandar A JaimotMay 15th, 2008 - 01:12:17

The POLAR BEAR as a species is the most ferocious mammal on this planet. I believe that the POLAR BEAR has never been trained as other 'bears' have been to perform. Whether it is or is not a 'threatened species' - only time will tell - that is if AL'fat-fuck'GORE does not eat them all!!!

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IncredulousMay 15th, 2008 - 02:24:35

'That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isnt abused to make global warming policies,' Kempthorne said. 'Discussions of such far-reaching impacts should not be left up to unelected officials and judges.'

In other words, what Kempthorne is REALLY saying is 'Discussions of such far-reaching impacts should be left up to politicians NOT scientists.'

He acknowledges that the sea ice is rapidly disappearing, but to cow-tow to a bunch of rabid red-neck right-wingers he has to add that he's going to personally make sure that nothing is done to fix the problem. How schizophrenic.

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tonny from belgiumMay 17th, 2008 - 07:37:10

A very brief recapitulation of the neocon and republican policies proposed is very interesting to help voters for the presidential electionsdecide how to care for their children in the future in a rapidly changing world .
First;Al Gore is a moron,climate change is a hoax
second no need to take any measures,they hurt the economy
Third :blame it on the sun,there is no manprovoked climate change,it is ccaused by suncycles,ad Gore is a moron,the IPCC are incompetent because my local weather station said so,right now it is cold oustide,I even see snow

Fourth
Oh well ,if there is aproblemwith climatechange leave it to the captainsof industry to solve it,no need to doanything,capping emissions could hurt the economy,Gore is still a crook,the IPCC are a bunch of weenies.
fifth,countdown to elections hasbegun...SILENCE ...and of course Al Gore is still a crook,like a previous poster carefully explained .
Some how I beg to disagree.

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SP4: How about Science?May 17th, 2008 - 14:48:16

Polar bear populations have risen fivefold since 1975, in Canada and the USA, when we made hunting them illegal. There is no reliable data on bear populations in Siberia, so there is no scientific evidence to conclude thier numbers, worldwide, are dropping.

They have existed for thousands of years, through numerous warming and cooling cycles.

The earth is warming. If this is going to make the bear extinct, there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it.

There is no conclusive evidence that c02 emissions are driving localized warming, or that there can be any effect on bear populations by trying to curb them, in any attempt to save the bears.

The southern ice cap is not melting, even if it is calving more ice. This being the case, we can hardly attribute localized phenomena to a global condition.

Al Gore is, simply, not a scientist.

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Zyskandar A JaimotMay 28th, 2008 - 18:46:44

Ah Tony the 'BELGIQUE' tired of grabbing your ankles and getting bung-holed are youse??? TELL US MORE TONY ABOUT AL'fat-f^ck'GORE WILL YA??? WHAT BRILLIANCE YOUSE CARE TO SHED ON US MORTALS??? TONY GET F^CKED!!! The sole reason the POLAR BEARS WERE DECLARED TO BE ENDANGERED was so we would not drill for oil in ANWAR!!! HAVE FUN RIDING YOUR BICYCLETTE!!!

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