The administration of US President Barack Obama, which promised a sharp break from the previous administration on global warming, declared on Friday it would stick with the previous government’s stand against expanding protection for polar bears, ruling out an approach that would have opened a broad new attack on climate change.
To the dismay of environmentalists, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused to rescind a rule from the administration of former US president George W. Bush that says actions that threaten the polar bear’s survival cannot be considered when safeguarding the iconic mammal if they occur outside the bear’s Arctic home.
The rule was aimed at heading off the possibility that the bear’s survival could be cited by opponents of power plants and other facilities that produce carbon dioxide, a leading pollutant blamed for global warming.
The Endangered Species Act requires that a threatened or endangered species must have its habitat protected.
Environmentalists say that in the case of the polar bear, the biggest threat comes from pollution — mainly carbon dioxide from faraway power plants, factories and cars — that is warming the Earth and melting Arctic sea ice.
Salazar said global warming was “the single greatest threat” to the bear’s survival, but that he did not believe the federal law that protects animals, plants and fish should be used to address climate change.
“The Endangered Species Act is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue, and that is the issue of global warming,” said Salazar, echoing much the same view of his Republican predecessor, Dirk Kempthorne, who had declared the polar bear officially threatened and in need of protection under the federal species law.
Kempthorne at the same time issued the “special rule” that limited the scope of the bear’s protection to actions within its Arctic home.
The iconic polar bear — some 25,000 of the mammals can be found across the Arctic region from Alaska to Greenland — has become a symbol of the potential ravages of climate change.
Scientists say while the bear population has more than doubled since the 1960s, as many as 15,000 could be lost in the coming decades because of the loss of Arctic sea ice, a key element of its habitat.
Environmentalists and some members of Congress had strongly urged Salazar to rescind the regulation, arguing the bear is not being given the full protection required under the species law.
Others, including most of the business community, argue that making the bear a reason for curtailing greenhouse gases thousands of kilometers from its home would cause economic chaos.
Reaction to Salazar’s decision on Friday was sharply divided.
Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin hailed the decision as a “clear victory for Alaska” because it removes the link between bear protection and climate change and should help North Slope oil and gas development.
Both of Alaska’s senators and its only House member also praised the decision and rejected claims the bear won’t be protected.
Senator James Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Environment Committee, who does not believe in global warming, applauded Salazar “for making the right call and applying a commonsense approach to the Endangered Species Act” and climate.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS