Ruling: Polar bears can't be used to regulate CO2

I’m reminded of that commercial “if you don’t want to pay banking fees, don’t pay banking fees”.
If you want to save polar bears, stop killing them with a gun.

Walter H. Schneider says:
October 18, 2011 at 12:28 pm
“How can anyone so ready to find fault with others be so awfully far out to lunch?”
Walter, you’ve been had. Nice one, Fake Nick Stokes.

@Brian H
You are quite right. The areas with declining populations are coincidentally the same ones with a high human population (think ‘rifles’). They expanded so much that their roaming area increased and Poly Bears (love that name) are now found in less frequented spots. Be happy if you never run into one. They can out-run, out-swim and out-climb a man and are completely omnivorous. Fortunately for us they don’t shoot back.
The back door attempts to regulate CO2 are the only way forward so expect (and oppose) them.

Crispin in Waterloo says:
October 18, 2011 at 3:25 pm

Yep; I hear, tho’, that the Churchill Falls area is “plagued” with them, raiding the garbage dumps. Some of the obvious ways to prevent that are not taken, though, because Polar Bear Tourism is a big money-maker thereabouts. Naturally, a lot of it is faked, stagey appeals to Greenie prejudices and sensibilities, picking times and seasons and locales that make it look like the bears are running out of sea ice (or is it Bay ice?).
As far as skills and capabilities go, I also hear they’re very adept at people-peeling: the process of rapidly removing unpalatable outerwear.

I think some of you are mis-intrepeting the ruling.
The way I read this is that the DOI CAN consider the Polar Bear in future decisions to issue permits to industry as opposed to the Bush administration’s 2008 ruling that they cannot.
The decision was based on the Bush administration not using proper evaluation to issue their rule.
Therefore it is much more likely now that the DOI can interfere with and deny permits based on future perceived damage to the Polar Bear’s habitat.
Looks like a win for the Greenies to me.

From the good ol’ AP:
“…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.”
Remember friends, whenever you have a “greenhouse gas emission” you are really melting ice in the Arctic Ocean! Really! The AP wouldn’t lie! BWAHAHAHA,

Matthew W says:
October 18, 2011 at 1:58 pm
“I think manatees are more sensitive to motorboats then temperatures.”
Normally, motorboats going too fast in certain waters of the St Johns River are probably the manatee’s biggest threat. However, the past two winters and especially the 2009-2010 winter was so cold for so long that river water temperatures dropped well below seasonal normals. According to the Blue Springs Park personnel, there was an exceptional loss of manatees and their calves that winter. . The head count of manatees “visiting” Blue Springs that winter was about 3 times normal. There is no food in the spring area. They have to go out into the river to feed but they like the warmth of the spring waters.

This is from the Los Angeles Times:
A federal judge ruled Monday that the government did not breach its obligations under the Endangered Species Act by failing to consider greenhouse gas emissions in efforts to protect the polar bear.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan also concluded that federal officials were within their authority in a rule allowing “incidental” harm to polar bears that might occur as a result of oil and gas activities in the Arctic — provided that those activities already are authorized under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
The judge did find, however, that the government erred in not undertaking an environmental review before it issued its special rule on polar bears in 2008 — a shortcoming so serious that he sent the issue back for a new review.
The suit was filed by advocates for the polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Warmer temperatures are shrinking the bears’ primary habitat on the sea ice, making them a focal point in the debate over greenhouse gas emissions. Conservationists argue there is no way to ensure the bears’ survival unless their biggest threat — global warming — is attacked, perhaps thousands of miles from where the bears live.
A variety of oil industry and business groups, along with the governor of Alaska, had joined the government in opposing the suit filed by four leading conservation organizations. They argue that it is impossible to draw a scientific link between, say, a new coal power plant n Arkansas and the shrinking of the ice footprint in Alaska.
The court in its ruling Monday from Washington, D.C., didn’t address the merits of either argument but did say that the government had met its obligations under the Endangered Species Act. The judge said the act gives federal regulators broad discretion to decide what kinds of harm to let occur to species listed as merely threatened, rather than endangered.
“The question at the heart of this litigation — whether ESA is an effective or appropriate tool to address the threat of climate change — is not a question that this court can decide based upon its own independent assessment, particularly in the abstract,” the judge wrote.
“The answer to that question will ultimately be grounded in science and policy determinations that are beyond the purview of this court,” he said. “The question this court must decide is whether the agency has articulated a rational basis for the protections set forth in its special rule for the polar bear…The court finds that the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife] Service has done so.”
Conservationists had hoped for a ruling that might have opened the door to citizens’ lawsuits against greenhouse gas emitters around the country who didn’t have a permit to harm polar bears.
That would have been legally easier to accomplish if they had not already lost, in June, their legal bid to have polar bears declared endangered — which carries stricter prohibitions against harm — instead of merely threatened. The law gives the government more leeway in what kind of harm it allows to threatened species, the judge noted.
The plaintiffs — including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife — argued that the Interior Department has a blanket regulation applying “incidental take” protections to both endangered and threatened species. Furthermore, they said, the department shouldn’t have violated its own policy by adopting the special exemptions for polar bears.
“The polar bear was the first species added to the endangered species list solely because of threats to the species from global warming. Today’s ruling does not limit the applicability of the ESA to greenhouse gas emissions affecting species listed as endangered under the act, or to other threatened species for which Interior has not issued a specific exemption,” the plaintiffs noted in a statement.
“Just this summer, Arctic sea ice reached its second lowest level on record, making polar bear protections more important than ever,” added Jason Rylander, senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. “Only by acknowledging and accounting for the dramatic effects of climate change can this administration give this Arctic icon a realistic chance of survival.”
The special rule under challenge also provides an exception from the prohibitions against harm to bears for activities already authorized under the Marine Mammal Protection Act — essentially, oil and gas exploration and production across the North Slope. Such production has long coexisted with polar bears.
Very few bears have been killed as a direct result of oil and gas production, and Sullivan said it was reasonable to conclude that existing protections are sufficient. Some are even more stringent than the Endangered Species Act.
“We are pleased that the judge decided that the Endangered Species Act is not the proper way to regulate climate change,” said Eric Wohlschlegel of the American Petroleum Institute. He declined to say more until lawyers had scrutinized the decision.
A spokesman for the government of Alaska did not respond to requests for comment.
The judge’s ruling changes the immediate status quo very little; the special rule was struck down, but an interim rule that is back in effect is not much different.
The big impact, conservationists say, is that the government will now have to consider the environmental effects of allowing exemptions not only for greenhouse gases, but possibly for pesticides, mercury, PCBs and other pollutants that make their way into the Arctic food chain.
“The real-world impact is the full scope of protections for the polar bear is back in the Obama administration’s court,” Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity said in an interview. “They have to do the review, they have to reissue the rule, and they’re getting a second chance to do things right by the polar bear.”
Sullivan also issued a separate ruling upholding the federal government’s ban on the importing of heads and hides of polar bears shot by sport hunters in Canada, the only Arctic nation in which they can legally be hunted for non-subsistence purposes.
— Kim Murphy in Seattle
This means that the Polar Bears CAN be used to regulate CO2. The original clause stating they couldn’t has now been struck out because an environmental assessment is this regard was not carried out. So, depending on the results of the environmental review, the Polar Bear can indeed be used as a back door method of mandating carbon taxes. As the greenie says, it’s now up to the Obama administration to decide if they’re gonna. My question would be: who is going to conduct the review?

Quite right too. (Mmm, feels good to be able to say that about a legal ruling for once, even one from a different legislature.) As others have already pointed out, stop shooting the brutes and watch ’em thrive. Simple, really.

Its a trace gas, a trace gas, polar bears exhale it for goodness sake, but a trace gas.
How much time, effort amd budget are the numpties in Governements all over the world wasting on the nonsense. It verges on criminal fraud, wholesale, for a trace gas.
Cannot say it often enough.

The latest in the UK is that “climate change” is shrinking polar bears. An increase in numbers and more competition for food might have an influence,but that possibility doesn’t get a mention.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8830023/Animals-shrinking-due-to-climate-change.html