The Bush administration has proposed listing polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. And it's not just the Arctic that will feel the consequences. Sam Eaton explains.
I cannot believe that nobody has replied to this post yet! This story finally points out the moral bankruptcy of the Bush environmental policy, which up to this point has stonewalled on global climate change in every imaginable way, even undermining the accuracy of the climatology reports that they paid for. I really do not understand the change. Is this going to be yanked away at the last minute, like Christie Todd Whitman's proposals back in 2001? Or is Bush trying to create a legacy as an environmentalist, despite having served as Exxon's boy for the past six years? Too late for that, my friends. Or is it perhaps somewhere between the two things? Have the oil companies realized that they need to cut a deal, and do they figure that George will probably give them a better deal than the next guy is likely to? Stay tuned. This is going to get interesting.
I've been curious about the listing myself. I imagine he's (the administration) has lost grip on some of the agencies to a degree, but more I'd imagine it is more of an attempt to garner some public support (in a time where it is eroded from all sides) with a reaching out toward the charismatic polar bear (after all what would Coca Cola do for it's winter adds if there were no more polar bears...?). There truly is no more room to hedge around the increasing temperatures and the degrading arctic and sub arctic with the reality that is here now already (with the recent report of a chunk of ice shelf having broken off Canada last year the size of Manhatten and expectations of ice free Arctic Sea by 2040). Alternatively, he's been so focused on 'deciding' what to do about Iraq that somebody snuck the polar bear thing past his censors....
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Comments: 2
Alternatively, he's been so focused on 'deciding' what to do about Iraq that somebody snuck the polar bear thing past his censors....