As the earth warms, the melting of the earth’s two massive ice sheets—Antarctica and Greenland—could raise sea level enormously. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise sea level 7 meters (23 feet). Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level 5 meters (16 feet). But even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea level rise. Senior scientists are noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of sea level rise during this century of 18 to 59 centimeters are already obsolete and that a rise of 2 meters during this time is within range.

As I note in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, assessing the prospects for the Greenland ice sheet begins with looking at the warming of the Arctic region. A 2005 study, conducted by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) team, an international group of 300 scientists, concluded that the Arctic is warming almost twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It found that in the regions surrounding the Arctic, including Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, winter temperatures have already climbed by 3-4 degrees Celsius (4–7 degrees Fahrenheit) over the last half-century.

In testimony before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit speaking on behalf of the 155,000 Inuits who live in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Russian Federation, described their struggle to survive in the fast-changing Arctic climate as “a snapshot of what is happening to the planet.” She called the warming of the Arctic “a defining event in the history of this planet.”

The ACIA report described how the retreat of the sea ice has devastating consequences for polar bears, whose very survival may be at stake. A subsequent report indicated that polar bears, struggling to survive, are turning to cannibalism. Also threatened are ice-dwelling seals, a basic food source for the Inuit.

Since this 2005 report, there is new evidence that the problem is worse than previously thought. A team of scientists from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research concluded that the ice is melting much faster than climate models had predicted. They found that from 1979 to 2006 the summer sea ice shrinkage accelerated to 9.1 percent a decade. In 2007, Arctic sea ice shrank some 20 percent below the previous record set in 2005. This suggests that the sea could be ice-free well before 2050, the earliest date projected by the IPCC in its 2007 report. Some scientists now think that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer by 2030, if not earlier. Arctic scientist Julienne Stroeve observed that shrinking Arctic sea ice may have reached “a tipping point that could trigger a cascade of climate change reaching into Earth’s temperate regions.”

Scientists are concerned that “positive feedback loops” may be starting to kick in. This term refers to a situation where a trend already under way begins to reinforce itself. Two of these potential feedback mechanisms are of particular concern to scientists. The first, in the Arctic, is the albedo effect. When incoming sunlight strikes the ice in the Arctic Ocean, up to 70 percent of it is reflected back into space. Only 30 percent is absorbed as heat. As the Arctic sea ice melts, however, and the incoming sunlight hits the much darker open water, only 6 percent is reflected back into space and 94 percent is converted into heat. This may account for the accelerating shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice and the rising regional temperature that directly affects the Greenland ice sheet.

If all the ice in the Arctic Ocean melts, it will not affect sea level because the ice is already in the water. But it will lead to a much warmer Arctic region as more of the incoming sunlight is absorbed as heat. This is of particular concern because Greenland lies largely within the Arctic Circle. As the Arctic region warms, the island’s ice sheet—up to 1 mile thick in places—is beginning to melt.

The second positive feedback mechanism also has to do with ice melting. As an ice sheet’s surface begins to melt, some of the water filters down through cracks in the glacier, lubricating the surface between the glacier and the rock beneath it. This accelerates the glacial flow and the calving of icebergs into the surrounding ocean. The relatively warm water flowing through the glacier also carries surface heat deep inside the ice sheet far faster than would simple conduction.

Several recent studies report that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating. A study published in Science in September 2006 reported that the rate of ice melt on the vast island has tripled over the last several years. In October 2006, a team of NASA scientists reported that the flow of glaciers into the sea was accelerating. Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, “None of this has been predicted by numerical models, and therefore all projections of the contribution of Greenland to sea level [rise] are way below reality.”

At the other end of the earth, the 2-kilometer-thick Antarctic ice sheet, which covers a continent about twice the size of Australia and contains 70 percent of the world’s fresh water, is also beginning to melt. Ice shelves that extend from the continent into the surrounding seas are starting to break up at an alarming pace.

In May 2007, a team of scientists from NASA and the University of Colorado reported satellite data showing widespread snow-melt on the interior of the Antarctic ice sheet over an area the size of California. Konrad Steffen, one of the scientists involved, observed, “Antarctica has shown little to no warming in the recent past with the exception of the Antarctic Peninsula, but now large regions are showing the first signs of the impacts of warming.”

The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) has analyzed the effect of a 10-meter rise in sea level, providing a sense of what the melting of the world’s largest ice sheets could mean. The IIED study begins by pointing out that 634 million people live along coasts at or below 10 meters above sea level, in what they call the Low Elevation Coastal Zone. This massive vulnerable group includes one eighth of the world’s urban population.

One of the countries most vulnerable is China, with 144 million potential climate refugees. India and Bangladesh are next, with 63 and 62 million respectively. Viet Nam has 43 million vulnerable people, and Indonesia, 42 million. Others in the top 10 include Japan with 30 million, Egypt with 26 million, and the United States with 23 million.

The world has never seen such a massive potential displacement of people. Some refugees could simply retreat to higher ground within their own country. Others—facing extreme crowding in the interior regions of their homeland—would seek refuge elsewhere. Bangladesh, already one of the world’s most densely populated countries, would face a far greater concentration: in effect, 62 million of its people would be forced to move in with the 97 million living on higher ground.

Not only would some of the world’s largest cities, such as Shanghai, Kolkata, London, and New York, be partly or entirely inundated, but vast areas of productive farmland would also be lost. The rice-growing river deltas and floodplains of Asia would be covered with salt water, depriving Asia of part of its food supply.

In the end, the question is whether governments are strong enough to withstand the political and economic stress of relocating large numbers of people while suffering losses of housing and industrial facilities. The relocation is not only an internal matter, as a large share of the displaced people will want to move to other countries. Can governments withstand these stresses, or will more and more states fail?

#     #     #

Adapted from Chapter 3, “Rising Temperatures and Rising Seas ,” in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.

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In upholding the Bush-era decision on polar bears, is Obama shrewdly pushing a larger climate agenda?iStock PhotoThe Obama administration will uphold a controversial Bush-era decision that limits protection for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today.

Polar bears will continue to be considered a threatened species because their arctic habitat is melting due to climate change. The decision essentially means ESA protections cannot apply to oil exploration and greenhouse gas emissions originating outside of the Arctic-—the main threats to the bears' habitat.

For environmentalists, the decision means another disappointment from Salazar, a Coloradan with a ranching background whose environmental credentials were hotly debated when he was nominated for the post. Salazar upset wildlife defenders in March by upholding another Bush decision to take gray wolves off the endangered list in much of the northern Rocky Mountains and upper Midwest.

"For Salazar to adopt Bush's polar bear extinction plan is confirming the worst fears of his tenure as Secretary of the Interior," Center for Biological Diversity biodiversity program director Noah Greenwald said in an quickly released statement. "Secretary Salazar would apparently prefer to please Sarah Palin than to protect polar bears."

"We're very disappointed that Secretary Salazar decided not to cut through the red tape and restore protections for polar bears immediately," Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a release. "The polar bear's Arctic sea ice habitat is melting away, the Arctic seals which polar bears hunt for food are becoming increasingly scarce, and the cause is clearly global warming. In spite of this, Secretary Salazar is leaving in place a rule that says activities that cause global warming and therefore harm polar bears will never be considered violations of the Endangered Species Act under any circumstances. That made no sense under the Bush administration and it certainly makes no sense for the Obama administration."

In his announcement, Salazar said polar bears would continue to receive federal protection under the ESA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act; the department's main point is that the ESA isn't the right way to address climate change.

"We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change," Salazar said. "However, the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation's carbon emissions.  Instead, we need a comprehensive energy and climate strategy that curbs climate change and its impacts -– including the loss of sea ice. Both President Obama and I are committed to achieving that goal."

That spin was echoed by Sen. Mark Begich, Alaska's newly elected Democrat. "I commend Secretary Salazar for protecting the polar bear while also recognizing it is not appropriate to use a federal law like the ESA to try to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. I support Secretary Salazar's belief that we need a comprehensive energy and climate strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the ESA should not be used as a back-door regulatory tool to achieve this goal," he said in a statement.

The Obama administration had until tomorrow to overturn the Bush rule, known formally as a 4(d) exemption. Today's news could be read as further proof the president prefers to tackle climate change through a comprehensive plan -- with approval from Congress -- rather than through a series of regulatory maneuvers.

Don't expect the polar bear story to end here: Defenders of Wildlife, which has sued in the past to force bear protections, said today it "will be forced to continue its litigation challenging the rule."

It's been an eventful few weeks in wildlife protection. Last Tuesday Obama overturned another crucial Bush ESA rule, restoring the ability of government biologists to weigh in on how federal actions would impact plants and animals. On Monday the gray wolf delisting took effect, handing the animals over to state management, which includes hunting plans, in Montana and Idaho.

And on Wednesday the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would review the threat climate change poses to the American pika, a small Western mammal that thrives only in a narrow altitude range. The pika could be the first animal in the lower 48 states to animal to join the endangered species list primarily because of climate change; FWS will submit its findings by next February.

--

Related Story: The Wolf and the Polar Bear (May 1, 2009)

Read more reactions from lawmakers and interest groups >>>

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Additional reactions:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of Senate Environment Committee: "I disagree with the Department of Interior's decision to limit the tools we have available under the Endangered Species Act to save the polar bear from extinction. Monitoring the situation will not tell us more than we know now - that the polar bear is threatened and we need to act."

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), noted climate denier and ranking Republican on Senate Environment Committee: "I applaud the Secretary of Interior for making the right call and applying a common-sense approach to the Endangered Species Act. Secretary Salazar is absolutely correct: 'The Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation’s carbon emissions.' The same is also true of the Clean Air Act or any other federal law."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R): "We all want to preserve and protect the polar bear using the best possible tools, but there is absolutely no need to change the 4(d) rule to accomplish this purpose. I want to thank Secretary Salazar for his careful review of the science and the administrative record that led to this decision."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): "I'm pleased that the department has chosen to retain the existing polar bear listing rule, which provides rational measures for the protection of polar bears within their natural range. ... I appreciate the Obama administration's position that the ESA should not be used to address global climate change, but I remain concerned about the ability of this rule to be misused through third-party lawsuits to block important projects anywhere in the country."

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska): "This reaches far beyond the scope of protecting polar bears. It was a political ploy influenced by the extreme environmentalists to hurt our economy, and put Americans out of jobs. Want to add more livestock to your herd? You can’t, unless you run it past Fish and Wildlife first. Want to build a school or church thousands of miles away from the nearest polar bear? Make sure you add the Department of Interior to the list of government officials you need to check with. What happened to our civil liberties? Revoking the rule would have set a dangerous precedent; it would impede our economy and hurt Americans. I commend the Secretary for maintaining the 4(d) special rule for polar bears. This is a victory for Alaska as we move toward securing our energy future."

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), ranking Republican on House Natural Resources Committee: "On the same day the Administration announced the highest unemployment rate since 1983, I applaud Secretary Salazar for making a common sense decision that will ensure more jobs are not lost due to excessive regulations of greenhouse gases by the government. This decision will help protect crucial projects needed to stimulate our economy from becoming the target of frivolous lawsuits by environmental groups designed to stop economic development in our country. We all want to preserve and protect the polar bear, and I am pleased the Administration has recognized that we can do that without shutting down the economies of cities and states that are thousands of miles away from the Arctic."

Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope: "If polar bears are going to survive global warming, they will need far greater protections than what the law currently offers. The Bush administration enacted this special rule in an effort to delay action in the face of overwhelming evidence that global warming poses a very real and immediate threat to polar bears. It's unfortunate that this rule is still lingering as a reminder of the Bush administration's denial of science and failure to act."

David Dickson, director of the Alaska Wilderness League's Western Arctic and Oceans Program: "We're extremely displeased in Secretary Salazar's decision to keep the previous administration's polar bear policy in place. We think the title of his press release -- 'Salazar Retains Conservation Rule for Polar Bears' -- is a little bit ironic. That rule basically keeps in place protection of the polar bear under the Marine Mammal Protection Act instead of the Endangered Species Act, which the polar bear should fall under. We are hopeful that with this administration we can work with the secretary and Department of Interior to develop a rational and sound policy for the conservation of the arctic, and thus the polar bear. The polar bear is an iconic species of a habitat that is critically threatened.

Melanie Duchin, Greenpeace's global warming campaigner in Alaska: "Secretary Salazar's failure to rescind this regulation only serves to cement the Bush administration's legacy of ignoring global warming science, thus putting the polar bear at further risk of extinction. Regrettably, it seems to reflect an emerging willingness by the Obama administration to ignore clear scientific imperatives on global warming in the face of industry pressure."

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Next week brings two milestones in wildlife protection that serve as a lesson in contrasts -- examples of what the environmental movement has been and what it's becoming.

On Monday, gray wolves in Montana, Idaho, and parts of other northern states leave the endangered species list, designated as an officially "recovered" species. Once driven nearly to extinction, the wolves will fall under the watch of state management -- which includes hunting -- following the Obama Interior Department's decision in March to sign off on a delisting process put in motion on George W. Bush's watch.

Later in the week, the legal status of polar bears will become clearer when the Obama administration must decide whether to overturn a last-minute Bush move that denied the arctic mammals key protections under the Endangered Species Act. Acknowledging that the polar bear is threatened by a melting habitat, Bush officials still ruled that endangered species protections cannot apply to causes originating outside of their habitat (in other words, the greenhouse gas emissions heating up the polar regions). Obama has until May 9 to overturn the decision; otherwise, it stands.

Two different species located in very different places -- what's the connection?

The wolf story is a chapter in the environmental movement's decades-long efforts to protect specific species and eco-systems -- a campaign descended directly from "save the whales" and "stop the logging." Protecting the polar bear, however, is all about confronting the existential threat of global warming.

Wolf, meet bear. When it comes to saving the planet, you're just a sideshow.

Gray wolves are a classic "old environmentalism" problem. Humans threatened the species in a very localized way: they shot too many wolves and settled in their habitat. Local ecosystems were disrupted, and when the federal government introduced a Rocky Mountain recovery plan in 1995, it tried to balance the interests of local parties, such as cattle and sheep farmers. Environmentalists fought for stronger protections through their long-preferred method -- lawsuits. This continues: a coalition led by Earthjustice will sue to overturn the wolf decision in June, once a 60-days-notice requirement has been met.

For years the Bush administration sought to remove wolves from the endangered species list, and wolf advocates twice blocked the move in court. When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar upheld the Bush policy in March (it had been put on hold by the new administration), it was like, well, upholding a Bush environmental policy -- exactly the opposite of what many in the environmental community expected.

In public and private statements, Interior officials have framed wolves' resurgence as a success story -- what the Endangered Species Act intended. They cite the wolf population across the Northern Rockies -- about 1,600, including about 100 breeding pairs -- and evidence that wolf packs in three distinct areas (Yellowstone ecosystem, central Idaho, and northwest Montana) have enough contact to interbreed and ensure genetic diversity.

"The population has really come back from the brink," said Seth Willey, a Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) regional recovery coordinator in Denver. "There's been scientific consensus on this for a long time."

The delisting hinges on management plans submitted by the states. Montana's and Idaho's plans were approved, though the department rejected Wyoming's trigger-happy plan [PDF] as inadequate, so wolves will remain federally protected in that state.

Wildlife groups find the Montana and Idaho plans nearly as troubling; Idaho, in particular, would allow hunters to reduce the current population to 104 animals, down from a current count of 778. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) famously said he would be first line for a wolf hunting license.

"We've made all this progress," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "Instead of continuing with that and ensuring the wolves recover to a larger area of their historic range, we're going to shut the door and allow them, particularly Idaho, to reduce their population to the point where it's questionable they're going to be viable."

Suzanne Stone, an Idaho field conservationist for Defenders of Wildlife, a leading wolf advocacy group, questioned whether the Rocky Mountain populations are sufficiently connected, as FWS claims. She said federal recovery goals are based on an outdated 1987 plan [PDF].

"Since that time, wildlife scientists have repeatedly warned that the original wolf recovery goals were set too low and in order to reach a recovered metapopulation, the northern Rockies wolf population needs to be much larger than a few hundred wolves," she wrote in an email. "... Genetic scientists have also confirmed that when our regional wolf population reached 450 wolves region wide (the current requirement for delisting), the wolf population was still disconnected and not functioning as a metapopulation by providing genetic connectivity between all three subpopulations."

The Interior Department maintains its plans are based on the best available science. The government's recovery findings were detailed in the Federal Register [PDF] on April 2, written largely by wolf recovery architect Ed Bangs. Further, said spokesperson Hugh Vickery, the Endangered Species Act compels a species to be delisted when it has recovered, meaning Salazar's decisions was less a judgment call than a requirement.

"How the decision is made is clearly spelled out in the law," Vickery said. "If the best available science says to do it, we have to do it."

The department's handling of the announcement didn't win it any friends. Wildlife groups that had worked on the issue for years resented being caught off guard by the announcement.

"It's too soon to pass judgment on how [Salazar] will ultimately do as secretary, but certainly it was a warning flag that more needs to be done to arrive at these decisions carefully, that more communication needs to occur," said Bob Irvin, the senior vice president for wildlife at Defenders.

Congressional supporters of continued protections also felt left in the dark on announcement. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote to Salazar asking him to delay the effective date (he did not). She also questioned whether the Endangered Species Act allows the department to single out a particular area -- Wyoming -- for continued protection, a point Defenders of Wildlife also raises.

A staff member for Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), another longtime wolf advocate, said simply that Dicks found the announcement unexpected, disagreed with it, and had spoken to Salazar about it.

Defenders of Wildlife filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents showing whether Salazar looked at any new research before making the "scientifically flawed" decision. It's awaiting a response, Irvin said.

"We're very disappointed in the [wolf] decision, but it's way too early to draw any lines between it and future administration actions," said Andrew Wetzler, endangered species project director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is a bad decision among a number of good decisions."

Unlike gray wolves, the threat to polar bears' habitat isn't local. It won't be fixed with a regional management plan, which can't address greenhouse gases from tailpipe emissions in Los Angeles or coal plants in India. It won't be fixed with a typical lawsuit -- wildlife advocates can't litigate a national (or global) climate change plan into existence.

True, polar bears are furry and loveable (from a distance!), and much like wolves inspire awe at nature's untamed predators. Like wolves, they require protection from local habitat destruction. But polar bears have become the poster-species for the issue that defines the new environmental movement -- one that concerns itself less with charismatic species than with the tremendous disruption to human life that climate change will bring.

On its surface, the wolf delisting puts President Obama in an awkward spot -- upsetting a key plank in the Democratic platform -- environmental voters -- and complicating the clean break he's tried to make from Bush's environmental policies. The political sensitivity of the decision was made clear by the fact that Salazar's announcement back in March came on a Friday afternoon, the classic time for downplaying unpopular news, and was issued with no comment from the White House.

But if the White House upholds the Bush decisions on wolves, it may show that Obama is making a political calculation. The president's selection of Salazar, a Colorado senator with a fairly strong environmental record and deep family ties to ranching, can be seen as a signal of the president's belief that it's more important to mediate culturally charged western states issues like wolves and save political ammunition for the bigger challenge -- enacting a comprehensive strategy for combating climate change.

"The science makes it so clear that the polar bear is threatened by greenhouse gas emissions, and it's such a well-known species, that they should be considering rescinding [the Bush-era rule]. I think it's still possible they will," said Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Overturning the Bush exception, Greenwald said, could lend additional weight to efforts to strengthen auto-efficiency standards and block offshore drilling and oil shale development.

Interior Department Press Secretary Kendra Barkoff said the department had not yet decided on the polar bear rule. A decision must come by next Saturday.

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The U.S. government will designate critical habitat for polar bears off Alaska's coast as part of a partial settlement of a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Interior Department declared polar bears a threatened species in May, but neglected to make any stipulations for habitat protection. "You can't protect a species without protecting the place where it lives," says CBD's Kassie Siegel, adding, "After global warming, oil development is the biggest threat to polar bears." Federal law prohibits actions that "destroy or adversely modify" designated critical habitat, which would seem to include offshore oil and gas drilling -- though with GOP vice prez candidate Sarah Palin touting "safe, environmentally friendly drilling offshore," one never can be certain. After a rule proposal, public comment, and public hearings, the finalized critical-habitat designation must be in place by June 30, 2010. And the one remaining polar bear will no doubt appreciate it.

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The U.S. Interior Department has been sued yet again over polar bears, this time by five industry groups that say the agency's regulations for protecting bears unfairly single out Alaska businesses' contribution to climate change. When the polar bear was declared a threatened species because of climate change, Interior went to great lengths to note that the ruling should not be used to block greenhouse-gas-spewing fossil-fuel development. To that end, the agency specifically exempted industrial projects from undergoing related reviews in every state -- except for Alaska. The American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Mining Association, National Association of Manufacturers, and American Iron and Steel Institute say the "Alaska Gap" unfairly puts fault for a global phenomenon on one source of emissions. Says the lawsuit, "Anchorage has no more effect on climate change or polar ice than does an emission in Ankara."

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Ten polar bears were recently spotted swimming in open water off of the northwest coast of Alaska, federal officials confirmed on Friday. Polar bears were not often spotted in open water until about 2004, said Susanne Miller, who heads up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's polar bear project. She and other biologists worry that the bears could exhaust themselves with long swims, which take more energy than moving on ice or land. Green groups point to the unusually high number of swimming bears as yet another sign of global warming, with melting ice forcing bears to swim farther than usual to hunt seals or reach stable territory. A higher-than-usual number of polar bears have also been seen on land this summer, perhaps because sea ice is retreating. The Bush administration in May declared that polar bears are a threatened but not endangered species, making sure that oil drilling could continue in their habitat.

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Two green groups are suing the Interior Department over its refusal to limit the impacts of drilling on polar bears, which were listed as threatened last month. The Bush administration has tried its darnedest to ensure that listing the bears wouldn't limit oil and gas exploration in their Alaskan habitat, but Pacific Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity maintain that the Interior Department by law must ensure that energy development in the area doesn't further imperil the bears. "The only thing keeping pace with the drastic melting of the Arctic sea ice is the breakneck speed with which the Department of the Interior is rushing to sell off polar bear habitat for fossil fuel development," said Brendan Cummings of CBD. The groups are worried that drilling and seismic exploration as well as oil or chemical spills in polar-bear habitat could greatly disturb the charismatic bears and lessen their chances of survival. Legions of activists in polar-bear costumes are no doubt holding their breath for justice.

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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will sue the Interior Department over its decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species. "We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it's unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models," says Alaska Assistant Attorney General Steven Daugherty. To green groups, that argument is, shall we say, unimpressive. "Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," says Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this." Palin's litigation comes mainly out of fear for Alaska's fossil-fuel-reliant economy, even though the wording of the Interior Department decision went to great lengths to ward off any new restrictions on oil and gas drilling.

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In entirely expected news, green groups have sued over the Interior Department's listing of the polar bear as a threatened species -- or, more accurately, over Interior's caveats that the listing not be used as a means to fight global warming. The Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and NRDC say the bears should be listed as endangered instead of threatened, and that the listing should spell out steps to reduce climate change -- the main threat to the bears' livelihood.

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Polar bears are a threatened species, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Wednesday -- but that doesn't mean we can't drill in their habitat! The "threatened" designation means the bear could become endangered if conservation steps aren't taken; it puts polar bears on the endangered-species list but in effect allows Interior to pick and choose which protections to impose. And those protections will, says the very subhead of the departmental press release, "allow continuation of vital energy production in Alaska." While the polar bear is being listed specifically because climate change is melting its habitat, Interior took pains to point out that the listing "should not open the door to use of the [Endangered Species Act] to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources." In fact, the department plans to propose modifying the regulatory language in the ESA to "prevent abuse of this listing to erect a back-door climate policy."

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