Debate On Polar Bear A Reflection Of Skewed Societal Priorities

A federal judge this past week told the Department of Interior it had until May 15, 2008 to make a decision on whether to list the polar bear as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. And the environmentalists went wild!!!

If you follow the link category to the right under “Endangered Species“, you’ll find plenty of articles and links to the ongoing debate about whether the polar bear is in danger, whether the world is in danger and if it’s all caused by anthropogenic (man-made) global warming from carbon dioxide.

I laughed out loud a few days ago, when Al Gore, during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes said that those of us who won’t jump on his flim-flam bandwagon, were like the Flat Earth Society people and that we believe the lunar landing was staged on a lot in Hollywood. What was hilarious about it was that the Flat Earth Society was made up of people like Al Gore, who refused to listen to any kind of reasoning whether logical or scientific, that showed the earth wasn’t flat. I know of hundreds of people personally that are not sold on Al Gore’s theory of man-made global warming but are open to listening to debate on both sides of the issue. So who’s a Flat Earther?

Without debate, media, politicians and American citizens are blindly plowing ahead, often times willy-nilly, to save the planet - in this case the polar bear. Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle provided readers with an editorial about the plight of the polar bear. 100% of the piece (and yes I realize it’s an editorial) was presented as fact that ice is melting everywhere in the arctic, that this is caused by man and that the polar bear is dying off. They even repeated projections from recently discovered to be faulty models that said the bears would be extinct by the year 2050. There is just as much scientific evidence, particularly the newest data, to refute everything the Chronicle repeats as climate change facts.

But what I find as the most disturbing part of the editorial is their position on what they deem to be more important to the American people; affordable energy and a healthy economy or swallowing a politician’s theory on global warming.

It’s unlikely that in its final year in office, the administration will reverse its policy of protecting business interests instead of the environment and endangered species. The courts should not have to tell the administration to enforce environmental statutes rather than undermine or ignore them.

Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act isn’t a simple matter of adding it to a list and then we hope it gets better. There has to be intelligent discourse among sane people in order to realistically determine the all-encompassing affects of making such a move.

I have worked some in my past articles that I hoped would, if nothing else, get readers to ask questions and think more about this issue other than how it is going to affect next Christmas’ Coke commercials. Huge Hewitt of Townhall has also covered more in depth as to what actually can happen to our economy, through the federal permitting process for growth and development. He offers more thoughts on that today.

The short version: If the polar bear is listed, every activity that emits a greenhouse gas of any sort in the lower 48 AND which receives a federal permit or requires federal agency action of any sort –even if that permit or action is unrelated to the emission of the gases– those activities will be subject to new review by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the approval may not be forthcoming, will certainly at least be delayed, and will almost certainly come with massive new costs attached.

Thus coastal building programs that require federal flood insurance or Army Corps of Engineers permits, highway construction that gets FHA funding, or joint NASA-private industry initiatives that result in launchings, all these and hundreds of thousands of additional federal permits and actions get gathered in under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

Hewitt practiced Endangered Species Act law for two decades and should have a pretty good understanding on how administering the Act works. In several of his articles about the polar bear listing, he refers to Section 7 of the ESA(pdf - scroll down to find Section 7) often. The first part of Section 7 I believe spells out quite clearly, even to those of us without a law degree.

SEC. 7. ø16 U.S.C. 1536¿ (a) FEDERAL AGENCY ACTIONS AND CONSULTATIONS.—(1) The Secretary shall review other programs administered by him and utilize such programs in furtherance of the purposes of this Act. All other Federal agencies shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes of this Act by carrying out programs for the conservation of endangered species and threatened species listed pursuant to section 4 of this Act.
(2) Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any action authorized,
funded, or carried out by such agency (hereinafter in this section referred to as an ‘‘agency action’’) is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat of such species which is determined by the Secretary, after consultation as appropriate with affected States, to be critical, unless such agency has been granted an exemption for such action by the Committee pursuant to subsection (h) of this section. In fulfilling the requirements of this paragraph each agency shall use the best scientific and commercial data available.
(3) Subject to such guidelines as the Secretary may establish, a Federal agency shall consult with the Secretary on any prospective agency action at the request of, and in cooperation with, the prospective permit or license applicant if the applicant has reason to believe that an endangered species or a threatened species may be present in the area affected by his project and that implementationof such action will likely affect such species.
(4) Each Federal agency shall confer with the Secretary on any agency action which is likely to jeopardize the continued existence
of any species proposed to be listed under section 4 or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat proposed to be designated for such species. This paragraph does not require a limitation on the commitment of resources as described in subsection (d).

The two biggest remaining questions which may never get answered are; Is the polar bear really threatened and to what degree should we as a society carry out the protection of an animal species while putting our own well being at risk?

I know of nobody who wants to see the polar bear disappear. Many scientists don’t believe it will nor that it is threatened. What the Houston Chronicle failed to reveal, as has many other media sources, is that only two areas of polar bear populations are decreasing somewhat in size. The remainder are holding steady or growing. It is my opinion that we have as yet to scientifically determine whether the bear is in danger.

Remember that should the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decide to list the bear, it will be because they think man-made climate change will destroy the bear down the road somewhere. This has never been done before. Hewitt, from a perspective of having been there and done that, clearly points out that we don’t know what we are in for. The courts can only make rulings that are based on the content of the Endangered Species Act.

Do we really know what we are doing?

Tom Remington