Critics take aim at polar bear listing - AP

[Eugene]

Critics take aim at polar bear listing

By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer

Fri Mar 2, 6:13 PM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A marked decline in sea ice off Alaska's coast is not enough
to take the drastic step of listing polar bears — a species dependent on ice —
as threatened, critics said Thursday at the first of three public hearings on the
proposal.

Restrictions that could kick in with a listing under the Endangered Species Act due
to global warming would be too burdensome, given the unknowns about the future
of polar bears, such as the extent of the loss of Arctic sea ice in the next 100 years
and whether the animals would face extinction, according to opponents.

"The listing likely will force anyone in America whose business requires the emission
of greenhouse gases to go through an additional layer of consultation with the Fish
and Wildlife Service, creating delays and expenses," said Marilyn Crockett, deputy
director of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, a trade group.

-snip-

Tina Cunning, special assistant to the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish
and Game, said the state is reviewing the science on the proposed listing. She said
some information may have been omitted.

-snip-

Full article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/ap_on_sc/polar_bears

[XemaSab]

1. The other day I went to a workshop on the California Environmental Quality Act

(CEQA, for those in the know), and we discussed analyzing climate change impacts for projects. Projects, under CEQA, are anything that might hurt the environment, such as housing developments, building power plants, creating new dairies, grading large areas of land, or dredging out harbors. Most projects are pretty small, but some are huge.

So now, when we build a 20 house subdivision, we get to talk about how the project will affect climate change. This is a totally laughable idea to me.

So you have your 20 houses. What impact will they have on the climate? Not much. You can probably throw out some numbers, such as the amount of energy the houses will use and the amount of driving the people who live there will do. Are the impacts significant? You can probably cook something up and say the project will have a less-than-significant impact and throw in a bus stop or solar panels or something as a mitigation measure. If you're analyzing impacts to polar bears, the project will have no impact.

So a month later you're working on the next project: extracting 1.8 million barrels of oil from an offshore deposit.

What the hell do you say about that? The carbon in the oil will increase global CO2 levels by what, 1ppb? If that? So is that a significant impact to global climate? It would be hard to argue that it isn't, but it's also hard to say how that minute increase will really change the weather in New Delhi or Nairobi. How do you mitigate that? You don't. It's a significant and unavoidable impact. What are the impacts to polar bears? Unknown. Impossible to quantify. The only mitigation I could think of would be donating money to "Save the Polar Bears" or whatever, but will that accomplish anything? Probably not.

So then two months after that you're happily working on another 20 house development, and life goes on.

[Eugene]

2. A local action may be tiny, but national policy affecting millions of homes

and millions of cars will add up, especially since the U.S. burns 1/4 of the world's
oil and is the world's biggest polluter. Declaring the threat to the Arctic and
the polar bears should, in principle, prod the government to change is policies
on the national and industrial level.

I know. I know. Big Oil owns BushCo and laws are only suggestions to the pResident.
However, America is on course for 19% growth in GHG emissions by 2020. That needs
to change.

The protest from Alaska's oil and gas interests echo the a new denial. Even if
climate change is for real, the problem is not urgent enough for America do do
something about it. The polar bears will adapt and so will people.

[jpak]

3. Global Warming = Death by a Thousand Cuts

Every car, truck, ship, aircraft, home, business, oil/gas rig and coal mine, etc., represents an incremental contributor to global GHG emissions.

Small things add up to have global impacts...and seemingly small individual local decisions have global impacts as well...