Hello Everyone,

Those who consider the survival of the polar bears a trifling matter
are playing a reckless game which also threatens the very survival of
the Homo sapiens. A world in which the climate is allowed to become
so inhospitable that it drives polar bears extinction won't handle
humankind's civilization mercifully.

Humankind's future survival is threatened. Shouldn't we stop? The
vast majority of deniers and the misinformed masses won't acknowledge
the existence of a problem until New York City is underwater.

Humankind cannot wait that long to address this problem. If you are
diagnosed with cancer it is best to treat it immediately rather than
wait until the pain becomes so horrendous that you have no choice.

Sincerely,

David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1


Analysis: Polar bear's impact on people is felt
Thursday May 15, 5:41 pm ET
By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press Writer
Analysis: Polar bear could be watershed in the debate over global
warming

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080515/polar_bear.html?.v=1

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.


It also reminds us that a choice soon may come between accepting
higher electricity and transportation costs and reducing the
pollution that is raising the earth's temperature.

In listing the bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act,
the Bush administration is taking pains to draw a line between
protection of the majestic mammal and the origin of its plight --
global warming.

"This listing should not open the door ... to regulating greenhouse
gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources," said
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, in line with views expressed by
President Bush last month.

There is a reason for that. Business fears the bear.

But will the administration, in its final eight months in power, be
able to maintain that firewall. The odds are it will not.

Environmentalists already are working on strategies for lawsuits
challenging the limits that Kempthorne put on the polar bear listing.
That includes assuming no relationship between greenhouse gas
emissions from, for example, a Texas power plant, and melting sea
ice, and that the bear should have no more protection from oil
drilling than it now has.

In fact, those restrictions may not survive a new administration.

All three presidential candidates agree that mandatory restrictions
on greenhouse gases are needed. An increasing number of businesses,
including some oil companies and coal-burning utilities, and
religious leaders are acknowledging the need to address global
warming.

It is no wonder that some in the business world view the bear with
trepidation.

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.

Scientists long have talked of the visible damage that global warming
has done to sea coral, for example, but it has escaped the notice of
the average person.

The polar bear is different.

"This animal is big, it's charismatic and it's powerful. It's
beautiful and it generates sympathy. If it blinks out, you'll
notice," said Steven E. Sanderson, president of the Wildlife
Conservation Society. It manages the Bronx Zoo and three other New
York City zoos, the home for three polar bears.

"They are very popular personalities," he said. One of them, Gus, is
now more than 20 years old at the Central Park Zoo, and once was
declared one of New York City's most important personalities.

Sanderson said he welcomes the listing of the bear as threatened and
that as a result it will get some additional protection. But he
worries it might be too late for many of the 25,000 polar bears that
roam the wild from Alaska to Greenland. "There's so much climate
change inertia built into the system already," he says, making it
likely the sea ice will continue to recede.

No one really knows how much influence the bear will have on the
climate debate. But it is certain that there will be plenty of polar
bear pictures on display in the Senate when lawmakers next month are
expected to begin debating the cost of curbing greenhouse gases and
the cost of doing nothing.

Legislation would, for the first time, impose mandatory limits on
carbon dioxide, the leading heat trapping pollution, which comes from
burning fossil fuels. Such limits, by all accounts, will mean that
people will pay more for electricity, gasoline and other fossil
energy.

But then there are other costs: the loss of an Arctic icon.

EDITOR'S NOTE: H. Josef Hebert has covered environmental and energy
issues since 1990.