White House vs White Bear: Judge Says Bush Must Decide Whether To Save The Polar Bear As The Ice Melts
It’s a classic stand-off between one of the world’s best loved animals and one of its most unpopular leaders, between the planet’s largest bear and its most powerful man. And it comes to a head this week.
On Thursday, by order of a federal judge, George W Bush must stop stalling on whether to designate the polar bear as a species endangered by global warming. The designation could have huge consequences for his climate-change policies; his administration would, by law, have to avoid doing anything that would “jeopardise the continued existence” of the mammal whose habitat is melting away.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the administration has sought to avoid the decision. It has delayed it for months, and was seeking to put it off for months more. But two weeks ago Claudia Wilken, the judge, ruled it had long been “in violation of the law”, and ordered it to act by 15 May.
Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, mating and moving around. Last summer, 200,000 square miles of ice - more than twice the size of Britain - melted for the first time, shrinking the frozen sea to an extent that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted would not occur until 2050. More and more scientists believe the Arctic could be ice-free in summer in little more than 20 years.
In February 2005, US conservation groups petitioned their government to list the polar bear as the first species to be endangered by global warming, starting a long battle with the White House. The conservationists have won the argument. A study commissioned by the Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, from the US Geological Survey concluded that two-thirds of the world’s 20,000-25,000 polar bears would vanish by 2050.
In December 2006, the administration was forced by court action to propose designating the bear. This was meant to be finalised in January 2008, but has been delayed until now. In the meantime the administration has sold oil companies 448 rights to drill in prime polar bear habitat for a staggering $2.6bn (£1.3bn).
Kassie Siegel, of the Center for Biological Diversity - which has led the fight - says: “Polar bears need our help now, not whenever the Bush administration feels like getting round to it.”
© 2008 The Independent
When California Governor Ronny Reagan was questioned about allowing expanded Redwood logging during the 1960s he replied: “if you have seen one Redwood, you have seen them all”.
Do you believe that the Bush Regime cares if polar bears survive, except in zoos ?
The Bush Administration will go extinct before the bear. That’s the good news. We have to fight for everything that is good and that includes the Polar Bear. So be it. This criminal administration would put off another decision they deem difficult and let the next fool take the heat. No drilling and more bears. Funny to fight for something that would kill me but the bear seems friendlier than the Bush administration.
Amused: ” funny to fight for something that could kill me “. The chances of your getting killed by a Polar Bear are non existent; your chances of getting killed by a human animal are very high. Human animals are the most dangerous animals in the world!
The people of Churchill, Manitoba don’t take the Polar Bear lightly but I agree that the human animal is one of the deadliest around.
Yeah and the indians of Churchill Manitoba like to capture beluga whales and sell them to aquariums. I recall one of these noble people, in response to those who said that it was wrong to brutalize whales for human amusement, said that his people were given the whales by his creator and he had the right to slaughter them all if he wanted to.
Put Bush and a polar bear together and let’s see who comes out.
Actually I worry about the bear.
Might get food poisoning, or die from alcoholism.
No bears and warmer. Great. Better conditions to finish exploiting the petroleum on the North Slope. By the time we get finished with that, we should have enough technology to move everyone, and our malls, to a new planet.
ALL ABOARDDDDDD!
It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that cheney already got to this judge and they won’t have to make a decision until they are out of office. Or, you’ll see some kind of decision that will say the bears are listed in some areas but not in others where they want to drill. These bastards won’t give an inch without a fight, nor should we.
andersdl,
Good point! I might add another question,
“If you’ve seen one Washington bureaucrat, haven’t you seen them all?”
“If you’ve seen one Washington bureaucrat, haven’t you seen them all?”
No, you’ve seen too many.
I need fuel to get to work so I can earn money to feed my family. Very simple choice. Shoot the stupid bear and drill for oil! Remember, support your local Nuclear Power Plant.
I’ll support nuclear energy when you show me how you’re going to safely store nuclear waste for a few hundred thousand years.
For whomever at CD added that cute Showdown Alaska leader to the frontpage title of this article by The Independent/UK, please be advised that the “White Bear” population is not confined within US state borders. Nor, for that matter, is the human population affected by global climate change that “Bush must decide whether to save”.
US parochialism runs rampant, as usual.
Kelmer, you might be interest to know that many Native Americans “gave thanks” to the spirit of an animal, such as a bear or deer, before they killed it for food and other survival needs. This was a recognition that all life is sacred and has a place in the world–albeit for food or shelter. It was only with the arrival of Europeans that the Indian began the practice of slaughter animals for money and trade.
Nope, sorry. We cannot stop global warming, we cannot prevent the Polar Bear’s demise in its natural environment. With man’s appearance and intervention on this planet, mass extinction is the only legacy we will ever leave.
This isn’t just about the polar bear vs George Bush and the oil companies. Instead, it’s about all of us vs George Bush and the oil companies. If the polar bear becomes extinct it will be because its habitat has disappeared. And if the polar bear’s habitat disappears, the arctic tundra will melt, and if the arctic tundra melts, global warming will get much, much worse, and maybe all of us will die, including George Bush and his children and future grandchildren. And if that happens, who cares whether any of us can afford to drive to work or not?
These monsters in the White house enjoy every
thing that they helped to create. They don’t care if these Bears live or die. They sold their souls along time ago.
They truly do survive and love to bring “CHAOS”
where ever they go, this is what they love, they thrive on. Who else would be trying to legalize
anyone going to visit a State park be packing a hidden pistol. Bastards.
They thrive on Chaos. Someone Help us, please!
The whole story can be resumed by the phrase :’…..the administration has sold oil companies 448 rights to drill in prime polar bear habitat for a staggering $2.6bn…..”
The individual who still has 251 days to reign has a heart-and-mind more frigid than the ice-cap . But his hubris and his greed know no bounds .
Http://www.energybulletin.net/3647.html
That three minute read tells it all.
The bears are coming south in search of food. When they start hanging around the garbage dumps, they get shot.
Something doesn’t add up. Here in Canada we believe that there are 30 000 polar bears (not counting the rest of the world). Hardly endangered. I wonder if you Yanks have been sucked in by those self-serving, phoney “wildlife” lovers who make a living molding public opinion. It’s a great job if you can get it, I suppose.
Looks like what you Canucks believe is off by about 5,000 ~Reality Seeker~. Besides they’re your bears not us Yanks.
Oops, forgot Alaska. Let’s share em Reality, fifty-fifty.
realityseeker: Are you “martha Stewart” of Canadian Globe&Mail fame? Your sneering post is redolent of this person’s noise.
Ever wondered why the IUCN has the polar bear on their red list?
May the Polar Bears win.
reality seeker:
it is becoming much easier to count the bears since they stand out more against the mud, marsh, rock, than the snow.
Don’t worry the judge will be eaten by a bear.
I will be camping in bear country in a couple months, just put your food away and sleep in the middle of the tent. Not unusual to see up to 5 or more bears a day.
You’re right, reality seeker, something doesn’t add up. What that something is, is you claiming to speak for all Canadians.
Club any baby seals to death lately?
Thanks for the link, KEM.
We don’t know for certain how bad global warming will get, but with a possible scenario as outlined in the article you linked to, you don’t exactly have to be a climate scientist to realize that we need to start doing something serious about it.
The white bears are our relatives.
The way educated people are misguided by such pseudo-environmental themes is indeed unbelievable. Polar bears have existed for millions of years and have survived many more warming/freezing climate cycles than civilized Mankind
(whose entire existence has occurred in the present inter-glacial period named the Holocene). So, let’s concentrate on the relevant challenge now facing the whole world, namely filling the historic gap of social justice deficit that has become unbearable and unsustainable.
Shoot the bear and drill for oil … yeehaa! What a putz… Have a dodo egg omelet while you’re at it… Always the lazy, easy way out for some. Pitiful specimens of higher evolution but evolution just the same… Yeehaa!!!
There is only one species that deserves extinction.
I like bears! Bush knows where he can go- and what he can do when he gets there!
Here are some interesting facts about polar bears, taken form Jacque Costeau’s wonderful book “The Ocean World”. They are very intelligent animals. ___ Unlike our president.
Polar bears are omnivorious and all are left pawed. Often an Arctic fox or two will travel with them for weeks at a time, __ at a respectable distance of course. At a seal, walrus, or beluga whale kill, the bear will flip scraps of flesh to the fox and they always use their left paw.
Polar bears have been seen covering their black nose with snow to hide it from view, as they slither, crawl and creep across the snow and ice towards a basking seal. They are considered by some scientists to be an aquatic mammal, as they have been seen hundreds of miles from land swimming back to shore.
We can always see stuffed polar bears at these new and huge Chinese stocked sporting goods stores. So if they are eventually ‘obliterated’, we will still always have some for our children to admire and wonder about.
We need to start a fast food chain that serves polar bear burgers. Once it becomes popular there’ll be polar bears everywhere. You don’t see cows on the endangered species list, do you?
No polar bear liver though. It’s so chock full of vitiman A, if you eat it you will die. They’d make great guard bears, better than a pair of pit bulls. They do not like humans at all. Polar bears just look cute, they are not cute. After humans, they’re one of the top predator animals on the planet, equivelant to the great white or bull sharks. They don’t however kill for diamonds, oil and gold.
hello presense
Good to see you…keep a good heart because living in this world can make it hurt…
Namaste
Hey bigshotgun. You are quite narrow-minded in your scope: “I need fuel to drive to work to feed my family. Shoot the bear…”
This is the A-typical lazy American way of thinking. What’s gonna happen when you can’t find gasoline anymore? Or it becomes so highly priced that you’ll be working to fill your tank without enough left over to feed your family?
Oh, that’s right. None of that will happen in your lifetime, huh? Why even bother taking care of your family now, if all you’re gonna leave your kids, and grandkids is a burning planet.
Wake up dude. Get off your ass, put your fu*%ing shotgun away, and find another way to get to work. Or find work closer to home. There are always alternatives. Just because they don’t come to you on a silver platter doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
Not sure what it’s going to take to make people realize how serious this whole thing is, and it’s not something that can be settled with a gun.
I think ~Bigshotgun~ was being sarcastic.
I really think it’s crazy that we would have to sit around and wait for monkey Bush to answer this tradegy. He doesn’t know what the heck is going on. My only opion for this is to do what’s best let them die in peace but their’ll be going to Polar Heaven.
“the greatest present one can give, is a future”….
presense
http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan1.html
“For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there I travel–looking, looking, breathlessly”
presence
Oh for sure you are welcome, you remind me of many things when I forget my inner light. Don Juan is speaking from a Yaqui perspective. One of the few tribal people that resisted the Spanish conquesadors and were never defeated or enslaved. They did however submit to the catholic religion to a degree and were punished severly as the Spanish are recorded killing 150 of them by burning them to death in a church. Still, I believe to be a warrior one should be impeccable lest we forget.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
“WASHINGTON - The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species Wednesday because of the loss of Arctic sea ice but also cautioned the decision should not be viewed as a path to address global warming.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the last three decades and projections of continued losses, meaning, he said, that the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future.
But Kempthorne said it would be “wholly inappropriate” to use the protection of the bear to reduce greenhouse gases, or to broadly address climate change.”
So we will standby on the drill ships and watch the bears struggle and drown…