Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday announced that polar bears would be listed as a “threatened” species because of global warming.
Ever since Al Gore claimed that polar bears (which are so adept at swimming that biologists consider them a marine mammal) were drowning because of melting ice, environmentalists have been trying to use the Endangered Species Act as a hammer to help construct their global warming fantasy.
The bears’ supposedly melting habitat (the Arctic ice pack actually came back this past winter) was the excuse for listing.
The truth is, we don’t even know how many polar bears exist in the world, much less if they’ve declined. Some studies have found particular populations of the bear have declined in recent years, but other populations have grown, to the point that contacts with humans are increasing. (And the humans aren’t exactly happy about it. Imagine 1,200-pound possums.)
Also, there’s been no change recorded in the surface temperature of the Arctic. Unusual melting in past years has been attributed by most scientists to little-understood changes in deep ocean currents, not CO2 in the atmosphere.
Kempthorne in his announcement didn’t seem very clear about why the polar bear is threatened, other than melting Arctic ice, and it’s even less clear what this listing will do for the bears. Although, if similar protections of coyotes, wolves and cougars in several of the lower 48 states serve for precedent, it will probably mean human meddling will lead to an unnatural swelling in the population. Then somebody will be eaten — probably while jogging.
What will certainly happen, however, is environmentalists will now use this listing as another tool to block energy development, especially oil drilling. And it will further enforce the delusion that we know better than nature itself.
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