Polar Bears v. Global Warming, Part 2

As mentioned in an earlier post, loss of sea ice off the northern coasts of Canada and Alaska is likely to have serious consequences for Ursus maritimus, the polar bear. In a move which surprised many conservationists who had criticized the Bush Administration for downplaying global warming, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has proposed putting the polar bear on the Endangered Species List as a "Threatened" species. It normally takes a year or so for a species to go from a proposal to a formal place on the ESL.