While all agree the planet warms and cools periodically and now appears to be warming, there still is a continuing debate about whether it is primarily caused by the after-effects of human technology or a natural occurrence, so while the debate still rages, taking large scale action on one side or the other would not be equitable, efficient, nor economical.
Editorial: Bearish on habitat
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, January 7, 2007
Polar bears are the kings of the Arctic, having adapted to an environment where few predators can survive. Yet with global warming, these kings are watching their kingdom melt away.
According to NASA, the Arctic Ocean has lost about 20 percent of its sea ice since the 1970s, an area of 502,000 square miles -- twice the size of Texas. Polar bears depend on sea ice so they can travel and float to hunt seal and to reach coastal areas off Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia and Scandinavia.
With the loss of sea ice, the worldwide population of polar bears -- estimated at about 20,000 to 25,000 -- has steadily declined. The most studied population, in the West Hudson Bay of Canada, dropped 22 percent from 1987 to 2004. Some scientists project a further 30 percent decline by midcentury as Earth continues to warm.
Faced with incontrovertible evidence that polar bears are imperiled, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne agreed recently to designate polar bears as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The designation means the federal government must come up with a recovery plan for bears in its jurisdiction off the coasts of Alaska.
It is a rare acknowledgement by the administration that global warming is already causing wide environmental impacts, particularly in polar regions.
