What do you think about the Interior Department%26#039;s designation of the polar bear as threatened? The designation was granted because the species is threatened with extinction because of shrinking sea ice. This makes it the first creature added to the endangered species list primarily because of global warming.

But the department also issued special rules designed to exempt from the law offshore oil and gas drilling in prime polar bear habitat off Alaska%26#039;s north coast, and cast doubt on whether far-flung conditions, such as emissions from tailpipes, feedlots and smokestacks around the globe, could be directly linked to the shrinking sea ice.

Conservation groups, however, are gearing up to test that premise in court, citing a Supreme Court ruling last year that defined carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

Your thoughts?

Additional Details

3 months ago

rwcrufle: Not true, at least not the way you put it.

%26quot;Polar bears can be found at low densities right up to the North Pole, but their main habitat is the nearshore annual sea ice over the continental shelf, where biological productivity and their main prey are more abundant. The southernmost limit of the bears is in the subarctic waters of James Bay, in Canada, which is at about the same latitude as London, England. For management purposes, polar bears have been divided into 19 different subpopulations based on movement patterns of adult females wearing satellite radio collars.%26quot;

http://actionbioscience.org/environment/...

%26quot;The world population, estimated at 22,000 bears, is made up of 20 relatively distinct populations varying in size from a few hundred to a few thousand animals.%26quot;

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/prod...

So, not so simple, is it?

And finally, I think the exemption for offshore oil and gas drilling in prime polar bear habitat is totally bogus. They%26#039;re threatened yet we get to continue drilling in their prime habitat? Nice priorities.

LMAO on this one! Since WHEN do polar bears eat ice. They eat fish and seals! They don%26#039;t need ice to live, breed and eat. If that was the case how do they explain polar bears living in the Phoenix zoo. Yeah they prefer the ice but they don%26#039;t NEED it. Good Lord this crap is getting crazy.Polar bears are being threatened because humans kill them! They (the bears) have discovered it is easier to feed off our garbage than to hunt for food. Therefore they have come into our cities where they (being aggressive bears) have threatened humans. Which in turn the humans living in Alaska shoot the mean old bears. Where in the h*** did you go to school?

I saw them in Alaska as a kid. THey were big and amazing to look at. I think it is vital to save them and it is good thing that Dept has done. I get very sick of hearing this global warming mantra. Most people don%26#039;t get the very complex weather dynamic that affects temperatures and anything else related to weather and forecasting. It%26#039;s nuts!

This is really sad but I guess that the deniers will say its another hoax. When I worked in Torino, Italy some 15 years ago, there used to be ice on the mountains (Alps) all year round but these few years they are all gone except for a few patches.

It is a move to prevent drilling and exploratioin via the use of the endangered species act.
In the last 40 years the population of polar bears has increased 5 fold. Reality

Time will tell if the decision was correct, I have no problem with polar bears being placed on the list as long as reasonable people decided it was the thing to do, and not political expediency.