Is it Getting Warm in Here?

Over the holiday news break a rather interesting twist in the discussion over global warming occurred. The US Environmental Protection Agency is investigating the listing of polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Why? Because the polar bears natural habitat - frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle is steadily eroding.

Normally the potential listing of a species is not newsworthy. But the polar bears present an interesting quandry for the Bush Administration.

For years it has been Bush administration policy that while there is data to suggest that the ice caps are slowly eroding and each year the frozen tundra polar bears and other native Arctic species depend upon forms later and melts earlier each year, there is no conclusive evidence to demonstrate that the global climate is changing. Even if such evidence is suggested, the administration maintains that there is no demonstration that human activities have had anything to do with the changes. Even if human activities have had anything to do with the changes, there is nothing the US can do about it without crippling the economy. Even if there is something the US could do about it, well, so the line goes, why should we? Other countries produce greenhouse gases as a result of their business activities.

Here's the twist: if polar bears are considered threatened or endangered, then the federal government has a duty to refrain from any action that might threaten or endanger the species and its critical habitat. That's not to say listing polar bears would mean the end of any Arctic exploration, or even Arctic oil drilling for instance. Only that any such activity would have to be examined so it could take place in the least harmful way to the bears or their habitat.

What I found entertaining - when I'm not horrified - is this Fox News story. John Gibson writes, "Turns out the polar bear is being used by environmental groups to force the Bush administration to cave on global warming."

To which I say, well, duh...of course that's what environmentalists are trying to do.

Why shouldn't the consequences of climate change have a face? I mean, the Bush Administration hasn't put a face on anything except the oil industry. Time to let the other guys force their way to the bargaining table.

Gibson claims that this will ultimately lead to a halt of all human activity - logging, fishing, etc. - that might in some way harm a cute little critter. Now, the Endangered Species Act hasn't eliminated logging or fishing at all in the thirty years it has been in existence (two years I drove behind logging trucks along the Carolina coast through areas designated as "wildlife preserves").

What it is designed for is forcing precisely kind of long-term policy evaluations that Bush's EPA has refused to engage in. If the Bush Administration had at least opened the door to the many groups concerned not about polar bears but about how to balance economic expansion with environmental stewardship, there would be no need to pursue, let's see... a statutory remedy created by Congress specifically to allow citizens to petition the EPA to address environmental concerns. I suppose if the Sierra Club had a K-street brunch with the chairmen of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee that would be a much more acceptable form of persuasion.

The issue of how to balance demands for our natural resources, production of energy, and the protection of our environment is one that is demands more than doomsday pronouncements from any side. The natural world is changing, and the US has the technological and financial resources to take a closer look at why - so that we don't have to choose between preserving our environment and building our future.