Bush History 12/27: Ignoring the Plight of Polar Bears

[BlueButGlad2]

On This Date in Bush History 12/27: Forced to Protect Polar Bears

2004: Today's Time Magazine named President Bush ‘person of the year’. First awarded to Charles Lindbergh, other ‘person of the year’ winners include most modern presidents as well as Adolph Hitler. The magazine stated "for gambling his fortunes and ours on his faith in the power of leadership, George W. Bush is TIME’s 2004 Person of the Year". The results of that gamble have become very clear.

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards. It is must easier for a nation" President Bush, October 11th 2006

2006: The Interior Department proposes protection of polar bears today, saying melting Arctic ice is a threat to their livelihood. Still, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne would not take a position as to why the ice was melting. The words ‘global warming’ appear to be too difficult a phrase for some Bush officials to get out of their mouths. Lawyer Kassie Siegel says in the NY Times, "I don't see how even this administration can write this proposal without acknowledging that the primary threat to polar bears is global warming".

Today's Interior Dept. designation likely has less to do with helping polar bears and more to do with a lawsuit filed by environmental groups seeking polar bear protection. A court had ordered that the department respond by today. An international body, the International Conservation Union, declared polar bears as threatened back in May 2006.

By 2007 Ted Scambos of Colorado’s National Snow & Ice Center reported that the melting of the Arctic ice cap was occurring much faster than predicted. He said satellite data showed melting was about 30 years further along than predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Arctic ice slows warming by reflecting sun to space, so this melting only further increases the rate of future warming.

Excerpted from the 2008 Bush Calendar: http://www.PoorGeorgesAlmanac.com/onThisDate.htm