Polar Bears, Snow Days and Snow Jobs

School is cancelled today. The kids are home. Mrs. Maru is home too. A belly full of pancakes (ordinarily a treat reserved for leisurely weekends) plus an extra cup of coffee has put me in an especially good mood. The rest of the world may be going about its business, but even in a money-never-sleeps, constantly connected world, there will always be something special about sitting in a warm house watching whatever may come through the window. The weather outside is frightful... but since we've not place to go... let it snow, let it snow...

OK, so this much hyped storm probably isn't going to amount to much by ordinary New England winter standards, but it's a major departure from the clear streets and strange brown frozen lawns that have characterized the past three months. Which is not to say that I draw any conclusions about global warming one way or the other from local, temporary weather patterns. If it's silly for the global warming zealots to posture about their case because it happens to be unseasonably warm, it would be hypocritical of me to posture about mine because it's unseasonably cold or snowy. Weather happens and it's been my position from the beginning on global warming that a perspective on geologic time (thousands if not tens of thousands, even millions of years) is critical to appreciating natural fluctuations and thus not getting overly excited about extrapolating trend lines from extremely short-term evidence. (In the span of geologic time, 135 years of direct weather observations counts for very little). All of which is a long-winded prologue to talking about polar bears.

Two California-based environmental groups (apologies for the redundancy)--'Earthjustice' and 'The Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Environment'--are suing the U.S. government...

...claiming marine mammal regulators are not doing enough to protect polar bears and walruses against the combined threat of oil and gas exploration and global warming.

The groups say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not fully consider the effects of global warming, such as diminished sea ice, as it wrote regulations allowing for incidental harassment of polar bears and walruses by the industry in the Beaufort Sea and nearby coastal areas.

AP 'storytorial' here. It's worth inserting a few "of courses" here (to borrow a Steynism). Of course its a bad idea to force a major species into extinction when there are reasonable ways of avoiding doing so. Of course we have to take into account our understanding of how ecosystems work and how knocking them out of balance causes unintended side-effects. Of course some externalities resulting from economic activity are worth taking into account. Of course it's unrealistic to return to an era where anybody could shoot anything that moves and isn't human just because they felt like it. Of course people have the right to organize into interest groups and file lawsuits--unless you're the new Democratic Congress and you almost manage to pass a bill that, as I noted a few weeks ago...

...would have forced all bloggers with "audiences" over 500 to report detailed information to the government. It would also have put onerous and invasive requirements on grassroots lobbying and information-providing groups, of which many of the most successful have been conservative

Here are a few more "of courses" that fewer people are likely to agree on: Of course humans are more valuable than animals. Of course it makes sense to work towards energy independence so as to avoid funding our ideological enemies in the Middle East. Of course a grand theory like global warming requires unassailable and logical proof before relying on it to resolve lawsuits.

We were talking about polar bears, weren't we? Me bad. Here are some facts, courtesy of a W$J article now unlinkable in archives that appeared on page A12 of the January 3, 2007 issue:

And here's what that piece had to say:

Unless you've been hibernating for the winter, you have no doubt heard the many alarms about global warming. Now even the Bush Administration is getting into the act, at least judging from last week's decision by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to recommend that the majestic polar bear be listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. The closer you inspect this decision, however, the more it looks like the triumph of politics over science.

"We are concerned," said Mr. Kempthorne, that "the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting" due to warmer Arctic temperatures. However, when we called Interior spokesman Hugh Vickery for some elaboration, he was a lot less categorical, even a tad defensive. The "endangered" designation is based less on the actual number of bears in Alaska than on "projections into the future," Mr. Vickery said, adding that these "projection models" are "tricky business."

...most of the alarm over the polar bear's future stems from a single, peer-reviewed study, which found that the bear population had declined by some 250, or 25%, in Western Hudson Bay in the last decade. But the polar bear's range is far more extensive than Hudson Bay. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain concluded that the ice bear populations "may now be near historic highs." One of the leading experts on the polar bear, Mitchell Taylor, the manager of wildlife resources for the Nunavut territory in Canada, has found that the Canadian polar bear population has actually increased by 25% -- to 15,000 from 12,000 over the past decade.

But polar bears are cute and fuzzy! But, but, but... if they aren't endangered now, maybe they will be! Here, look at this computer model! Yeah, and I've got a spreadsheet I just cooked up that says that cows and pigs and sheep and chickens might be endangered too if we don't all see the light and become vegans and dispense with wool and leather clothing right this very minute.

Bottom line: the polar bear is a neat visual for the global warming crowd to put an emotionally appealing face on an otherwise abstract and speculative topic. Emotionally appealing that is, if you don't live in the growing territory the polar bears would like to inhabit--in which case you are very aware (even if you are a photographer) that the main thing they want to do is rip you apart and eat you. But if you live in a blue state where a 911 call is your main source of physical safety (rather than two shells in a cocked thirty-ought-six) then such things seem remote and theoretical, not to mention ugly, distasteful and base.

Which raises another question I was pondering on a brief foray out in the snow earlier this morning: Why is it that many on the left insist on empathizing with whatever or whomever is trying to kill them? Just askin'...