Some good news on the ridiculous polar bears are endangered because of climate change front. It seems the linkage to CO2 has been..ahem, denied.
I like this part:
Sullivan said that Fish and Wildlife Service failed to conduct a proper environmental review when creating the protections for the polar bear. The agency must now go back and conduct an environmental assessment of the outcome of the rule, and consider other options.
Oh, that’s gotta hurt.
Alaska Representative Don Young said:
The lawsuits to list the polar bear as endangered were never about protecting polar bears. Instead they were nothing more than a back door approach to regulate CO2 and stop responsible development from moving forward. This is a good decision, not only for Alaska but for this nation as we look to become more energy independent.
Looks like “polarbeargate” is now a complete collapse of the mission.
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Seems to be an epidemic of due diligence failures on the part of the current administration’s EPA personnel. First the CO2 finding, now the polar bear finding… I wonder what other homework they have fudged?
When they started the polar bear whining, anyone could go and check. There were first hand records of polar bear numbers in the Canadian Artic. Wikipedia displayed accurate fair numbers on polar bear populations. Then came the drowning bear report, and the firsthand information began to disappear; the wikipedia info was altered to support the IPCC position. Disgusting.
Even if you consider the polar bear to be endangered (which takes a pretty long set of ifs and maybes), then the issue of how to protect them should still go by the doctrine of the least possible disruption to other activities. To suggest that the only thing you can do to save the bears was to regulate CO2 emissions was completely outside the remit of the FWS.
If the ‘environmentalists’ are really concerned about bears, this finding will be a good thing as the focus is now back onto things which might actually affect their welfare!
Rob Potter says:
October 18, 2011 at 11:37 am
…
If the ‘environmentalists’ are really concerned about bears, this finding will be a good thing as the focus is now back onto things which might actually affect their welfare!
The simpliest thing that the ‘environmentalists’ could do, would be to ‘feed the bears. ‘What to feed them,’ is left as an excise to the diligent reader.
interesting – The ‘opinion’ in the AP article has a somewhat different slant.
http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/terms/Article_2011-10-17-Polar%20Bears-Climate/id-fe3c60baceb14de7932bd0ba5413663e
Oct. 17, 2011 7:44 PM ET
US judge orders more review on polar bears
“WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has thrown out a key section of an Interior Department rule that said the threat to polar bears posed by global warming could not be used to limit industrial development.
…
Environmental groups had sued, saying the polar bear needed more protection under the Endangered Species Act. The state of Alaska and hunting groups argued that the listing was unnecessary.
Along with the listing, then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne created a “special rule” stating that the Endangered Species Act would not be used to set climate policy or limit greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming and melting ice in the Arctic Ocean.
It was that aspect of the rule that Sullivan set aside on Monday.”
I sense that lazy scientists will soon face endangerment.
Once again, you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. No where did the judge use the word ‘ridiculous’, you just made that up. Here’s a link to a *peer reviewed* paper that discusses stress induces atrophy of apical dendrites of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0006899392915978
Show me where I’m wrong.
Ya know, this is another reminder that our court system is maybe the last bastion of law (principle), logic, and evidence in American culture. Yes, our courts are being eroded through appointments of ideologues. But at this time they are rather healthy. By contrast, mainstream climate science is outrightly hostile to law, logic, and evidence when they conflict with computer models of climate.
Kudos to Judge Sullivan and Rep. Young.
For more information;
US judge orders more review on polar bears
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/US-judge-orders-more-review-on-polar-bears-2223003.php
Fake Nick Stokes says:
October 18, 2011 at 11:57 am
Bwaaaaa ha ha ha…..
Forget to check ” Notify me of follow-up comments via email.
Wanted to follow . . . so ignore this!
Fake Nick Stokes says:
October 18, 2011 at 11:57 am
Please be so good and identify where Anthony even only loosely implied or insinuated that the judge had used the word ‘ridiculous’. Your allegation is about as tenuous and unwarranted as is your pointer to the “*peer reviewed* paper that discusses [that] stress induces atrophy of apical dendrites of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons.”
It looks to me as if the stress you worry about is self-induced and to be found in yourself. Take some of that medicine you prescribe for others to whom you project from yourself. How can anyone so ready to find fault with others be so awfully far out to lunch?
So the Seattle Pi link describes the ruling a lot like Dave in Delaware’s posting did: The Int Dept cannot NOT regulate greenhouse gas emissions because the polar bear is listed as endangered. Is the original ruling available for review? There seems to be two distinct interpretations going around.
Its odd that for an endangered animal that they still sell licensees to hunt polar bear , you would have thought that would be the first thing they would have got rid off. And you know what is funner still , the biggest danger to polar cubs is … adult male polar bears so . So if your really worried about polar bear cubs you know what to do .
I don’t think I have ever witnessed a more corrupt executive branch than this one. From the justice dept. “fast and furious” to the czars,the EPA rulings and now this polar bear thing-how shameful!
Theo,
we more often seem to get the rule of judges than the rule of law in this country. For too many, the Constitution doesn’t mean what it clearly says but means whatever is convenient to the prevailing political mood of the times.
If you live by the court, you’ll die by the court.
Nomen Nescio:
October 18, 2011 at 12:31 pm
IN RE POLAR BEAR ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT LISTING AND § 4 (D) RULE LITIGATION
Dist. Court, Dist. of Columbia, 2010 – Google Scholar
… v. Salazar, et al., Case No. 09-245). These five actions were consolidated before this Court, along
with six related actions, pursuant to an order of the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. … Plaintiff
CBD contends that FWS’s decision to list the polar bear as “threatened …
Related articles
IN RE POLAR BEAR ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT LISTING
627 F. Supp. 2d 16 – Dist. Court, Dist. of Columbia, 2009 – Google Scholar
… MEMORANDUM OPINION. EMMET G. SULLIVAN, District Judge. … Director of the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (collectively “FWS”),
challenging the FWS’s legal determination that the listing of the Polar Bear as threatened …
Cited by 1 – Related articles – All 2 versions
IN RE POLAR BEAR ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT LISTING
748 F. Supp. 2d 19 – Dist. Court, Dist. of Columbia, 2010 – Google Scholar
… v. Salazar, et al., Case No. 09-245). These five actions were consolidated before this Court, along
with six related actions, pursuant to an order of the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation. … Plaintiff
CBD contends that FWS’s decision to list the polar bear as “threatened …
Related articles
IN RE POLAR BEAR ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT LISTING AND § 4 (D) RULE LITIGATION
Dist. Court, Dist. of Columbia, 2011 – Google Scholar
… consolidated before this Court, along with six related actions, pursuant to an order of the Judicial
Panel on Multi-District Litigation. … Having carefully considered each of these arguments, the Court
is simply not persuaded that the Service’s decision to list the polar bear as a …
Related articles
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=u.s.+district+judge+emmet+sullivan&as_sdt=40003&as_ylo=2010&as_vis=0
Polar bears cannot be used to regulate CO2, but they certainly can regulate temperature.
A nice coat of Poly Bear Fur will keep you snug and warm in winter here in Canada.
Wrong Link sorry . . .
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=polar+bear+ruling+District+Judge+Emmet+Sullivan&btnG=Search&as_sdt=40003&as_ylo=2009&as_vis=0
So this poster child isn’t working out as planned. It was always nonsense, and the Canadian government agency that assesses species at risk listing (COSEWIC) never gave in to the intense political pressure to upgrade the status of the polar bear to ‘Threatened’ simply because the facts could never support that. Historic high polar bear populations.
(There seems to be some confusion in the mind of the public – encouraged by the eco-fear mongers – that anything listed under the Endangered Species Act is actually endangered or facing extinction. That is absolutely false of course. Only those actually listed as Endangered are, and the vast majority of listed species (or real and invented subspecies and ‘distinct populations’) are not.)
As many regular readers know, my pet corruption scandal is not AGW but the even worse model-based psuedoscience called ‘Conservation Biology.’ The polar bear has been the poster child for what garbage that is, and how it works with the AGW crisis industry. The Conservation Biology industry has been booming with no end of nicely funded ‘impacts of climate change on x’ research, and it almost always finds impacts of indications of impacts to keep that gravy train going.
So this is great news. The only mystery is why it took so long. But then, given what the EPA has become and how effective the AGW polar bear propaganda campaign has been, I guess that is not really a mystery at all.
I think that Manatees would make better poster children for Climate Change than Polar Bears. Being quite sensitive to small decreases in water temperature, they were hit pretty hard by the negative Global Warming in Florida a couple of Winters ago.
DrDavid says:
October 18, 2011 at 11:46 am
“The simpliest thing that the ‘environmentalists’ could do, would be to ‘feed the bears. ‘What to feed them,’ is left as an excise to the diligent reader.”
Excellent idea. We can even get a toofer. Advocates of reducing human population could be donated as polar bear food. Probably need to add a little sugar though, I am sure those folks would be quite bitter about it.
Ruling-polar-bears-cant-be-used-to-regulate-co2
Honestly, I find fiber a far better regulator for my CO2 output than those excessively furry polar bears. The fur balls are getting a bit much.
The only action necessary to “save the polar bears” was taken long ago: regulate hunting and stop shooting so many.
Thereafter, population rapidly quintupled and stabilized. Duh.
Larry Fields says:
October 18, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I think that Manatees would make better poster children for Climate Change than Polar Bears. Being quite sensitive to small decreases in water temperature, they were hit pretty hard by the negative Global Warming in Florida a couple of Winters ago.
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I think manatees are more sensitive to motorboats then temperatures.