Polar bears

Once again, Newsweek manages to make my blood boil.

I am getting real sick and tired of polar bears. Yes they're cute and cuddly-when they're Knut sized- but they are becoming a political pawn in the global warming discussion. Now they are on the "threatened" - not endangered- species list, and Bush's admin is getting flack for it.

So we admit too many greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and are melting the ice. Just call the US the proverbial hairdryer of all things arctic. But let me just quote a few things:

Polar bears, all 20,000 to 25,000 of them—a population that would fit inside some basketball arenas—have joined the 1,985 species of plants and animals listed as either "endangered" (in imminent danger of going extinct) or "threatened" (not quite endangered, but heading there), under the terms of the ESA. That requires the government to designate and preserve their "critical habitat"—the area necessary for their survival—and develop a "recovery plan" to keep them alive.

20-25 thousand? They gray wolf was endangered, and now there are 9,000 (1,500 in the US) and they've been taken off the list. Hmm, how many polar bears is enough polar bears?

And why is the US solely responsible? Let's talk to Canada where they kill them for sport if we're so damn concerned.

I'm not trying to be so insensitive to the point you all want to put me in a zoo and let the polar bears in captivity eat me. However, I'm trying to shed light on the fact that they are being used as a political pawn. Go ahead, someone write a story about global warming to make all the conservatives in their big SUVs feel like they are destroying the earth. Then slap a picture of a mama polar bear and her cub, or Knut on the front, and tug at the heartstrings. People will surely trade in their Explorers for hybrids and quit running the AC.

I understand that as a dominant species, it is a responsibility to care for those who share our planet and resources. I agree our government should protect life at all costs- even animal life. But we sometimes overthink the whole endangered species list and blaming the government for what they're supposedly not doing.

Kempthorne and Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, agree that they've been slow to add listings, but blame environmental groups for monopolizing their time with endless petitions and lawsuits. (Other administrations also faced this crush of paperwork, of course, but changes in the law made the bureaucratic end of things much more onerous after 1997.) In any case, Kempthorne tells NEWSWEEK, his priority has been to study and manage the species already listed: monitoring population size, defining their critical habitats and drawing up recovery plans. "Of the species that are listed, we now have recovery plans for 80 percent of them," he says. "That's significant."

Moreover, he says, the logjam has now been broken. By Sept. 30, he promised, the department will determine the fate of 71 species now on the waiting list, nearly a quarter of the total. It's likely that most of these will win designation as either endangered or threatened. Anyone eager to learn the fate of the sheepnose mussel or the interrupted rocksnail will know in a few months—although a quick scan of the list suggests that most of the species constitute a group of plants from Hawaii so obscure they have only a scientific, rather than a common, name. It would not be surprising if much of their critical habitat was relatively small, overlapping and probably not of much interest to the oil industry.

So we built a damn in Tennessee and killed all the endangered fish. Doesn't look good. But you know what else? They found a way. In the words of Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way."

Can we just discount natural selection? (Yes, libs, that was a catalyst for "Is humans abusing their powers and resources to kill the planet natural selection?" Blah blah blah.) I just am sick of this argument.

Authorities on environmental law don't necessarily agree with the government's interpretation, either. The whole point of the act, they say, is to protect critical ecosystems, not just species in isolation. "It's lawful, and Congress was well aware of that when it enacted the law in 1973," says Patrick Parenteau, a professor at the Vermont Law School. "You can't artificially decide what has an effect on the species. If it's being listed because of climate change, you can't turn around and say, 'We're not going to take climate change into account'."

Siegel was disappointed, although hardly surprised, by Kempthorne's position. At least in the short term, the main impact of listing the polar bear will be on American hunters who shoot bears in Canada; they will now be prevented from bringing their trophies back into the United States.

"I suppose we're doing what they're accusing us of doing," Siegel says, meaning using the polar bear to achieve a broader environmental goal, "but [the administration] just frames it in this weird, misleading way. They oppose regulation on behalf of industries concerned about short-term profits, not about the future of our children and grandchildren and the world they live in."

HA! He admits they are using the polar bear to achieve an environmental goal. But whose future are we talking about now? We've changed the debate in the matter of one sentence. Polar bears.... or PEOPLE?

So why not use the artic seabird or staghorn coral? Doesn't tug on the heartstrings quite like a fluffy white bear you could stuff and tuck into bed with Billy and Janie at night. In the meantime, if your problem is really about the effects of global warming on the future of earth's resources and our children's living situation, then let's take the polar bear off the front cover. Change the subject -let's talk about how many empty plastic water bottles are filling our landfills, and how our babies may have to clean it up alone.