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Today's Top News
Bush Has 16 Days To Decide Whether Polar Bears Are Endangered
The Bush administration has 16 days to decide whether polar bears are now an endangered species because of climate change, a California judge ruled today.
The US court handed a victory to three environmental groups that sued to protect polar bears threatened by melting sea ice, rejecting a plea by the government to postpone its decision until June 30.
An agency of the US interior department was supposed to have ruled by January 9 on whether to designate the polar bear an endangered species. But the agency failed to act, angering green activists who attributed the delay to the Bush administration's sale of oil and gas drilling leases near polar bear habitats in Alaska.
The California judge handling the case, Claudia Wilken, ruled that the administration presented "no specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further delay".
Rising global temperatures have imperilled the bears by preventing them from hunting beneath the arctic sea ice. Some of the creatures have drowned without sufficient ice for refuge, while others have grown too weak to reproduce.
"These magnificent creatures are in peril, and this administration has no right to walk away from protecting them," Barbara Boxer, Democratic chairwoman of the Senate environment committee, said in a statement on the court decision.
The administration can still decline to list the polar bear as endangered by the May 16 deadline. California officials were forced to sue the Bush administration last year to secure a decision on its proposed carbon emissions caps, but the decision ultimately came down against the state.
If the interior department refuses to afford protections to the polar bear, environmental groups have said they would sue and campaign to force an endangered species listing. The World Wildlife Fund, an animal conservation group, has filmed a public service advert with a TV actor best known for his role on ER, Noah Wyle drawing attention to the polar bears' cause.
© 2008 The Guardian
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10 Comments so far
Show AllUnless the bears can sniff out oil deposits, Bush/Cheney Inc has no need for them. Current scientific thinking (yeah, I know this means it's anathema to BushCo) is that the loss of large predators in any ecosystem is an indicator that the system is upset. Being specialized eaters and existing at the top of the food chain may have something to do with it. As little problems and shortages occur lower down in the food chain, the shortages compound and multiply on up, affecting the large predators more acutely. What other mammals at the top of the food chain might be next, I wonder?
Naw, more likely this is really all just another attention grab by Al Gore.
George Bush only gets 16 days to make up his mind about the fate of polar bears?
It takes him longer than that to decide which tie to wear.
What will be first to do in the polar bears?
Global warming/climate change/starvation?
Oil development?
Or will we (humans) just eat them after all our other food is gone? After the livestock, horses, deer, fish, Canada geese, rabbits, wolves, squirrels, dolphins, pets... It could happen.
(The bears will last about two weeks.) Someone (and his army) in prehistory killed the last wooly mammoth. American settlers killed off the passenger pigeon and almost got the bison. The white rhino is near extinction because of superstition! We really are too stupid a race to be entrusted stewardship of this world.
wcdevins: Remember it works two ways. Predators keep the prey populations under control and healthy.
Thanks, bbr - so hard to remember everything!
Yes, the ecosystem balance is very delicate. From the point of view of Mother Earth, today's balance may not be "correct", as she has seen many prior ecosystems and populations come and go. Short-lived species (like ours) are subject to the minor whims of climate change. Today's biosystem is correct for us; minor changes will kill us off. The tragedy is that we are apparently the first species to understand and alter the natural world, but instead of doing it to our benefit we are destroying it. This is where I have said evolution, the long-term survival of the fittest, falls apart. Unfit humans are altering the earth's natural evolution, and she will not allow that.
I bet no. Any takers?
Hummm...Polar bears are a guardian spirit...
Bush is about imposing his will upon others. He will not protect the Polar bear.
Sucker bet, eze - no dice!
BTW, did you build a VariEze?
He wouldn't bother to decide, he don't give a shit.
I think KEM PATRICK's got the winner's bet. He won't bother.