Ever since Al Gore's lie-fest misrepresented this it has continued to grow until the face of the cute majestic polar bear has become the face of the Eco Alarmists.

Every day I see Tv commercials bemoaning the plight of the mighty creatures, sad music plays while a momma bear leaves her cubs on the melting ice and swims off into the sea.

What they don't tell you is that is normal behavior, and has nothing to do with climate change at all.

While Al Gore scares you into believing the bears lead a doomed existence, the reality is the populatoin of the bears is about 4 times what it was 60 years ago.

Rather than being threatened, the bears are flourishing.

So what prompted the US to declare them threatened?  A fraud by the Eco Warriors.  Nothign more.

As Michelle Malking notes:

It’s been in the works for quite some time, but now the decision is official. Polar bears have been listed by the Bush Interior Department as a “threatened” species. This is the first listing attributed to global warming.

What’s really going on here?

Kenneth Green at AEI exposes the politics behind the eco-radicals’ polar bear campaign and the consequences:

Listing the polar bear as a threatened species would have significant public policy consequences. It would set a new precedent, representing the first linkage of species endangerment with global warming. Such a listing would basically wall off the entire Arctic region to exploration, resource extraction, and development–at least by U.S. companies–and a threatened species listing would give environmental groups the ability to sue future U.S. governments to force them to reverse climate change by whatever means necessary.

There is little doubt that such lawsuits would be filed quickly. According to the NRDC:

Listing the polar bear guarantees federal agencies will be obligated to ensure that any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not jeopardize the polar bears’ continued existence or adversely modify their critical habitat, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be required to prepare a recovery plan for the polar bear, specifying measures necessary for its protection.
…

The bottom line for rational cost-benefit analysts:

At present, polar bear populations are robust and, according to native people, are considerably larger than they were in previous decades. Predictions of polar bear endangerment are based on two sets of computer models: one set predicts how much Arctic sea ice will melt as a result of global warming, and the other predicts how polar bear populations will respond. But computer models of climate are known to be fraught with problems, and the ecological models used to predict polar bear response are equally limited.

Proving again that our Government is useless, while the Interior Department listed them as Threatened, some in the Senate were studying a report that firmly debunked it, using peer reviewed material.

 The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes.
 
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s.  A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”  The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.

Scientists Debunk Fears of Global Warming Related Polar Bear Endangerment:

Canadian biologist Dr. Mitchell Taylor, the director of wildlife research with the Arctic government of Nunavut: “Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present,” Taylor said. “It is just silly to predict the demise of polar bears in 25 years based on media-assisted hysteria.”

Evolutionary Biologist and Paleozoologist Dr. Susan Crockford of University of Victoria in Canada has published a number of papers in peer-reviewed academic journals. “Polar bears, for example, survived several episodes of much warmer climate over the last 10,000 years than exists today,” Crockford wrote. “There is no evidence to suggest that the polar bear or its food supply is in danger of disappearing entirely with increased Arctic warming, regardless of the dire fairy-tale scenarios predicted by computer models. 

Cooler heads in Canada however prevailed:

Condemnation came swiftly from Canada's North to Wednesday's decision by the U.S. government to list polar bears as a threatened species, as Inuit groups and northern politicians denounced the bears' new status.

While environmental activists applauded the move, people in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories say it runs contrary to observations by Inuit that polar bear populations are on the rise in some areas.

The decision will also effectively kill the American sport hunt that brings more than $3 million a year to the Canadian Arctic.

In a news release, the Nunavut government said the U.S. decision is based on "misinformed public opinion which disregarded sound science and Inuit traditional knowledge."

"Our scientists in the field as well as Inuit elders have observed an overall increase in the polar bear population," Premier Paul Okalik said in the release.

"It is unfortunate the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] has decided to disregard facts collected by those who have the greatest contact and longest history with polar bears. The truth is that polar bear populations are at near record levels."

As usual, the US Government folded against the environmental lobby, and the liberals are one step closer to declaring humans the real enemy.

This is just more feel good legislation about a problem that doesn't exist.

Hot Air brings this to a close with this comment:

Your quote of the day comes from Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who notes with great nuance that “this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting.” It also won’t stop China from continuing to belch out greenhouse gases at such an amazing rate that in two years it’ll have singlehandedly wiped out all of the reductions from the left’s beloved Kyoto. What it will do in theory is give greens the right to use the Endangered Species Act to challenge economic development all over the country, on grounds that carbon emissions anywhere are a threat to polar bears everywhere. Remember, NASA’s not even sure yet that it’s global warming that’s causing the ice caps to melt; in fact, it’s Canada that’s best positioned to address the needs of the bears since they host two-thirds of the global population. Are the Canadians freaked out about the bears’ endangerment? No: They haven’t even listed the species as threatened, and according to this fact site about polar bears, Canadian hunters actually believe the population’s increasing. Some biologists think that’s untrue, that the bears are simply moving inland as the ice melts. Other biologists disagree, claiming that there are more bears today than there were 35 years ago.

Ah well. It’s an election year and “change” is in the air, my friends. Exit question: The Goracle warned us, didn’t he?

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