If Polar Bear Is Listed, Don't Breathe

OK, the picture of the polar bear eating a horse head is gross -- but it shows the polar bear as it is, not the cuddly critter the Greenies would like you to see them as, as they rally all their resources to get the bear listed as an endangered species.

I've written frequently on the proposed bolar bear listing (see links below), but I admit I've never stated the consequences of a listing as clearly as Hugh Hewitt did yesterday. Here's what he said:

The short version: If the polar bear is listed, every activity that emits a greenhouse gas of any sort in the lower 48 AND which receives a federal permit or requires federal agency action of any sort --even if that permit or action is unrelated to the emission of the gases-- those activities will be subject to new review by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the approval may not be forthcoming, will certainly at least be delayed, and will almost certainly come with massive new costs attached.

Thus coastal building programs that require federal flood insurance or Army Corps of Engineers permits, highway construction that gets FHA funding, or joint NASA-private industry initiatives that result in launchings, all these and hundreds of thousands of additional federal permits and actions get gathered in under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalist groups have standing to sue to demand the Section 7 process be followed, and they collect attorneys fees when they succeed. It is the full employment act for environmental activists.

As Power Line (which directed me to Hugh, with a hat-tip to Jim) sums it up:

Come to think of it, every time you breathe you emit carbon dioxide which, according to the wackos, "endangers" the polar bear. Good thing you don't (yet) need a permit to breathe; so far, it's only the economy that is in danger of being killed off. Come to think of it, every time you breathe you emit carbon dioxide which, according to the wackos, "endangers" the polar bear. Good thing you don't (yet) need a permit to breathe; so far, it's only the economy that is in danger of being killed off.

There are mulitple source of data, both U.S. and Canadian, that shows polar bear populations are healthy, and last summers big polar ice melt-off was answered this winter with the fastest build-up of polar ice in recorded history.

I'm very glad this decision is being made by George Bush's Department of Interior. Yes, he's gotten squirly on global warming lately, but I think the imminent decision will come down on the side of science, and there will be no listing.

See also:

White Bears And Black People
Too Much Sea Ice For Polar Bears
Di Caprio Lies And Hustles Bucks
Dying Polar Bear Rebuttal Kit
The May's And Might's Of Global Warming