Climate Change Protest
image created by Grant Neufeld and subject to a Creative Commons license
U.S. Department of the Interior secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Wednesday that the polar bear will be considered a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The decision came just before a deadline imposed by a federal court, and three years after the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit to force the listing of the polar bear.
Dramatic decline in Arctic sea ice as a result of climate change poses a serious threat to the bears, who depend on the ice as their primary habitat. Scientists believe that sea ice loss will likely result in two-thirds of the polar bears disappearing by mid-century, a figure cited by Kempthorne in his press conference. The continued decline of the ice makes the bears likely to become endangered, resulting in the listing as a threatened species.
However, Kempthorne also added that “the loss of sea ice, not oil and gas development or subsistence activities, are the reason the polar bear is threatened” and that the decision “should not open the door to use the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources.” Solutions to the problem of global warming or the decline of sea ice will have to come from the world’s major economies, he said. These disclaimers contradict hopes of environmentalists that the listing could be used to curb greenhouse gas emissions and limit oil and gas development. Development activities will continue as long as companies abide by existing restrictions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
One new protection for the bears has been added as the listing eliminated a loophole that allowed American hunters to fly to Canada, shoot a polar bear, and return home with its head and hide.
You can read the full text of Kempthorne’s press conference in a post from the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog.
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Why Do We Care If Polar Bears Become Extinct?
This is not any sort of revelation: Polar bears declared a threatened species , but it does raise the question: Why do we care? By some estimates, 90% of all species that once existed are now extinct and new species are always taking their place. For the species that’s going to become extinct, for whatever reason, extinction is the end of it. However, for the species that remain, is the extinction of another species good or bad. When Europeans first colonized North America, there was an estimated five (5) billion Passenger Pigeons alive and well in North America. In 1914, they were extinct. Passenger Pigeons didn’t live in little groups, but huge flocks that required extraordinary quantities of hardwood forests for them to feed, breed and survive. Deforestation to build homes, create farmland and over hunting for cheap food decimated their population. The westward drive to grow the United States in the 1800s and early 1900s was incompatible with the needs of the Passenger Pigeon and they literally could not survive in the new North America being carved out by the U.S. economy. The interesting thing about the Passenger Pigeon was the impact its extinction had on another species—man. That impact was essentially none. Man continued to find ways to feed himself through agriculture and other technologies and the United States and its citizens continued to prosper from the early 20th century till today. Whether or not Polar Bears become extinct because of Global Climate Change or other reasons, we need to address the larger question of: Do we care and why? One of the ways a nation, its citizens and the global community can answer that question is addressed by John A. Warden III in Thinking Strategically About Global Climate Change. He asks some interesting biodiversity questions in his post to include How Many Species Is the Right Number and Which Ones?
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