Polar bears are not endangered!

By Tom DeWeese

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., apparently doesn't care if you freeze in the dark. Actually, his real concern is for the money he gets from the rabid environmental movement to promote their lies and hysteria. The proof is in his actions.

Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, is now pushing legislation to stop the sale of oil drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea. He says this important source of human energy "may be" needed as critical habitat for the polar bears' "survival."

Protecting the polar bears from global warming is the new green scheme to block human progress. "Global warming is melting the polar ice caps and endangering the polar bear populations," so the mantra goes.

But, it's not true. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, average Alaskan temperatures are NOT climbing. Yet environmentalists have skillfully selected the years of the 1975-2000 warming period to create the appearance of a warming that – if continued – would lead to a catastrophic Arctic warming that would lead to destruction of polar bear populations. This is junk science at its worst.

Polar bear populations are not declining throughout their range. The total population is about 22,000 and stable. Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with the government of Nunavut, in Canada's Northwest Territory, says, "Polar bears are not going extinct" and do not even "appear to be affected." In fact, the Nunavut government continues to allow hunters to kill up to 500 polar bears a year to keep populations under control and preserve other wildlife species the bears feed on. According to Taylor, of the 13 separate polar bear populations in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number.

So for Rep. Markey to block much-needed oil supplies for the sake of a polar bear population that doesn't need protection means the real disaster will be felt by the human species – you and me.

Worse, the Bush administration, under pressure from the environmental movement, is taking steps to add the polar bear to the endangered species list. If that happens, it will be the first ever listing in the name of "climate change." The results on humankind will be devastating.

That's because, under the Endangered Species Act, any activity that is regulated by the federal government (because it affects air or water quality, for example) would now be subject to further regulation using the excuse of greenhouse gases and potential effects on polar bears.

As those who have been watching the "climate change" debate know, that term can mean anything. Proponents say climate change causes the ice caps to melt; causes massive hurricanes; causes milder hurricanes; causes massive rain fall; causes deserts; causes flooding; causes colder winters; causes milder winters; in short, climate change is an undefined theory that can mean anything its proponents find necessary to enforce their agenda. That is a very dangerous premise on which to try to function as a society.

To date, no such regulations based specifically on global warming have ever been issued or enforced, but it's a disaster in the making for our economy and way of life.

For example, companies that need to expand their facility emissions or make modifications, expand their manufacturing capacity, increase shipping and a host of other activities (in other words, grow) would find more and more regulations holding them back – in the name of protecting polar bear habitat because of climate change.

Americans must resist the emotional images of cute, furry polar bears as victims and fully understand that virtually everything we do involves fossil fuels – whether we like it or not. Eighty-five percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. That means almost every heating, cooling, transportation and electricity generation decision will be affected. Utility and manufacturing companies will be required to slash their CO2 emissions – and be forced to raise their prices to cover those huge new costs.

But it won't stop there. Every other source of carbon dioxide, methane and other kinds of emission will also be regulated and restricted by environmental alarmists, including: bakeries, breweries, chicken and dairy farms, cattle ranches, dry cleaners, auto manufacturers and dealers, cement and other industrial facilities and on and on. Every one of the products produced by these companies will either go up in price or cease to exist. In fact, all items produced using energy will increase in price, including aspirin and toothpaste.

As costs go up, so will costs to heat and cool your home, drive your car, clothe your family and put food on your table. As companies seek ways to cut expenses to cover the cost of climate-change regulation, they will trim their workforces or send jobs overseas.

Basic civil rights and individual freedoms will be hammered. Al Gore and his elite buddies will still fly their private jets, but the rest of us will be told what and how much we can drive. Government is already trying to gain control of our thermostats, as recently witnessed in California's proposed building codes that called for radio-controlled thermostats to give outside access to your personal settings. Higher and higher gas prices will begin to control where you can travel on vacation. Controls on food production will dictate the food on your table.

No item and no person will escape the devastation of our way of life if "climate change" is allowed to become the excuse for making policy. Blue collar, poor, fixed income and minority families will be the hardest hit. But everyone's jobs, freedoms and cost of living will be affected.

And in the end, even if all the sacrifice demanded really were for protecting the environment, it wouldn't matter at all. Because China and India will continue to emit more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And our climate will continue to change, just as it has repeatedly over the ages – from natural causes.

The fact is the entire notion of catastrophic climate change is based on nothing more than hypotheses, headlines, hype, hysteria, worst-case scenarios from climate-change computer models, and the insatiable desire of bureaucrats and radical activists to eliminate fossil fuels and control our lives. It is a fact that hundreds of scientists are coming out every month to announce their doubts about manmade global warming. There is no consensus. Yet they continue to force this discredited policy.

It's all happening right now. Any day, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne plans to announce his decision to include "threatened polar bears" under the Endangered Species Act. And Congressman Markey is right now moving to ban any hope of drilling more oil to keep human civilization moving forward.

Don't you wish we humans had someone to represent us and protect our ability to survive just like those cute little fuzzy bears? But that would be politically incorrect. Humans, they tell us, aren't part of the environment and so deserve no such consideration. We're just the ones stupid enough to elect these clowns.

Related special offers:

"Global Warming or Global Governance?" DVD

"The Sky's Not Falling!"

"HYSTERIA: Exposing the secret agenda behind today's obsession with global warming"

Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center and editor of The DeWeese Report.