Wildlife and People

Polar Bear Follies

The latest chapter in the Global Warming Hoax is the “endangered” polar bear. GW is not happening; global temps dropped to the coldest levels in 100 years this Winter. Obviously, AGW (anthropogenic or human-caused global warming) isn’t happening either, since the former is conditioned on the latter and the latter is kaput.

Nor is the polar bear endangered; populations have been growing for two decades. That didn’t stop the eco-nazis from demanding the polar bear be listed as a T&E species, however. And get this — 670,000 hysterical ninnies sent comments to the USFWS demanding the listing. Apparently rationality is going extinct, if not the polar bear.

We present two great discussions on all this. First, in the Wildlife Sciences Colloquium we have posted: Armstrong, J. Scott, Kesten C. Green, Willie Soon. 2008. Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit Working Paper Version 68: March 28, 2008 [here]. This paper is great science. Dr. J. Scott Armstrong is the World’s Foremost Authority on forecasting, i.e. the science of making predictions.

Second, we link to a delightful essay at Townhall.com by Hugh Hewitt, famous natural resources lawyer, below. Be sure to read the comments at the end of his article. Some are quite amusing.

PBIP: The Approach and Outbreak of Polar Bear-Induced Paralysis

By Hugh Hewitt, Townhall.com, March 27, 2008 [here]

In January of 2007, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service published a proposed rule in the Federal Register intending to notify the public and seek their comments on the idea of adding the polar bear to the list of threatened and endangered species.

A raft of comments came in, and the government’s biologists went off to consider them.

The Service returned to the Federal Register a second time, in October of 2007, and requested more comments. The window closed again.

More than 670,000 comments have been received urging that the polar bear be listed as a “threatened species.”

Ask yourself why there was such an outpouring of comments for such an obscure issue.

A variety of environmental groups orchestrated the tsunami of testimonials to the desperate condition of the polar bear because they understand—as much of the public and Congress does not—that a listing of the polar bear will have vast implications, and may in fact be a backdoor to implementation of the Kyoto protocol. …

The proposed listing states that the polar bear may be threatened because it is losing the ice it needs to live on due to climate change. If the government agrees with the models that project a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice over the next few decades, and further agrees that this loss would imperil the polar bear’s survivability, the bear gets listed.

Once listed, the Federal Endangered Species Act is very clear: Any federal action that might impact the polar bear must be reviewed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service under Section 7 of the Act.

What sort of federal actions? The most obvious would be any activity on or near Arctic ice, but that’s not the gold ring the environmentalists are reaching for.

They will argue that every federal permit that allows directly or indirectly for increased emissions of hydrocarbons is a federal act that might impact the polar bear -every port expansion, every refinery opening or repair, every Army Corps of Engineers permit that allows for more homes or office buildings to rise. … [more]