The Bush administration is about to acknowledge officially that polar bears are threatened with extinction because of global warming, reports said Sunday.
"The Interior Department may act as soon as this week on its year-old proposal to make the polar bear the first species to be listed as threatened with extinction because of melting ice due to a warming planet," the Los Angeles Times said in a report on its website.
Conservationists have used the Endangered Species Act as a lever to force federal limits on greenhouse gases linked to global warming, and possibly to battle smokestack industry projects far from the Arctic, said the report.
Now both the federal government and conservationists would agree that polar bears could be the first species to fall victim to global warming.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. "And then there is the polar bear," he added in a play on the famous line from George Orwell's political novel, Animal Farm.
Federal government scientists have presented increasingly compelling evidence that the number one predator at the top of the world is doomed if the polar regions get warmer and sea ice continues to melt as forecast.
Two-thirds of the population could be gone by mid-century if current trends continue, experts say. Bears are beholden to sea ice, on which they perch before pouncing on unsuspecting seals, their primary food.
Conservationists hope the bear will force the nation to focus on curtailing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed fort he warming planet and associated symptoms such as melting ice. They are eager to press this case in court, something oil and gas industries and their allies fear.
Several conservation groups have filed a lawsuit and threatened a second one to force the listing of the bear. They have already sued to nullify oil exploration leases in the Chukchi Sea, set for sale Wednesday, arguing that the bear's plight got short shrift during environmental reviews, according to the report.
Source:Xinhua
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