The polar bear was recently put on the endangered species list.  H. J. Hebert of the AP writes, “It’s not about saving the polar bear as much as the polar bear saving us.  The Arctic bear - facing extinction because of global warming - is bringing home the consequences of cheap energy and - until recently - the need for little sacrifice.

Soon, and according to T. Boone Pickens of Mesa Petroleum it may be very soon, the West is going to have to start making severe changes in its behavior toward energy.  It may entail rationing, even severe rationing.  Higher electricity and transportation costs, which includes the shipping costs of nearly everything, are going to really impact the average person.  The Bush administration, which has mostly ignored the threat of global warming, just listed the polar bear as endangered, but with a list of provisions according to Hebert:

“’This listing should not open the door... to regulating greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources.’  There is a reason for that.  Business fears the polar bear.”  The administration doesn’t want to connect any business activity with the listing of the polar bear as endangered.  It apparently became endangered on its own - after hundreds of thousands of years of just doing fine.

But no Texas power plant, or melting sea ice, or oil drilling, has anything to do with it.  Environmentalists are going to file lawsuits against all the business-favoring aspects of the listing of the bear.  All three of the candidates running for the presidency agree that mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases are essential.  

Here’s the interesting part of the polar bear being listed as endangered according to Hebert: “The massive and powerful furry creature that lumbers across the Arctic ice may accomplish what 20 years of environmental activism has not done: force the issue that global warming already is having an effect and there is a price for both action and inaction.

“This ‘puts a face on it, a polar bear face,’ said Bob Corell, director of the global change program at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.”  While prominent scientists have talked about the visible damage from global warming, etc., the face of the polar bear and its possible extinction - when tied to the issue of global warming - creates a whole new public dynamic.

Hebert quotes Steven E. Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, “’The animal is big, it’s charismatic, and it’s powerful.  It’s beautiful and it (perhaps most importantly) generates sympathy.  If it blinks out, you’ll notice.’”

I have a picture of a polar bear on the Home Page of this site.  The polar bear and the gorilla are my favorite animals on the planet.  Now both are endangered.  Both may become extinct - like the dinosaurs of old.  The estimate is that there are only about 25,000 polar bears left.  There are no polar bears in Antarctica.  They roam from Alaska to Greenland only, and there’s already a great deal of inertia built into the warming changes taking place across the continent.  Let’s hope their face on the issue of global warming will force leaders toward a truly serious dialogue about it - and that some serious action steps will be taken in an attempt to stall its overall effects on the Earth and all the creatures who live here.

In my next post i’ll write about the endangered polar bear and tourism.  Now that the polar bear is on the endangered list, tourism to see them - perhaps before they’re gone forever - is on the rise.  Man is surely a strange creature.