The protected polar bear

In the past few weeks, the American public has seen an intense debate about the future of our energy policy, with New Mexico's two senators leading the debate at the national level. Spurred by an energy crisis in which American consumers may see gasoline hit $4 a gallon very soon, the U.S. Senate proposed two bills in the last couple of weeks with a wide range of remedies, from increased oil and gas exploration at home, to a windfall profits tax on oil companies, to reining in the oil futures market through increased regulation.

Then, in a moment of perfect if inadvertent timing, the Bush administration gave the American public a potent symbol of what's really at stake in the energy debate when it put the polar bear on the endangered species list last week. Polar bear habitat is shrinking to the point that the bears future in the wild is uncertain, and we're all to blame. In his statement about the new designation, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne used dramatic slides to demonstrate the loss of polar bear habitat over the last thirty years, seen in this video put together by CBS news:

As the video showed, Kempthorne asserted that the endangered species act was not the appropriate mechanism through which to legislate climate change policy, but his remarks later in the press conference made it clear that climate change is the culprit in the loss of polar bear habitat:

In many ways, the polar bear poses a unique conservation challenge. With most threatened and endangered species, we can identify a localized threat that we can seek to address. The threat to the polar bear, however, comes from global influences and their effect on sea ice.

 

While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting. Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective. That’s why I’m taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isn’t abused to make global warming policies.

The need to solve the problem of global warming is now almost universally acknowledged, if these remarks by the Bush Administration Interior Secretary are any indication. George Bush, after all, has been the most reluctant of politicians to acknowledge the reality of global warming as an outcome of human energy consumption.

New Mexico's Senators have each made a passionate case for increased energy production as a solution to spiraling energy prices in the here and now. But Kempthorne's remarks support the equally passionate case being made by many that the only real long-term solution is a shift to alternative energy sources and conservation measures. That is, if we want to address not only our future ability to drive, but also potentially our own ability to survive as a species.

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