Friday 8 May 2015

gov to sue over bears

A week ago, I wrote that Gov. Palin was being rather conciliatory about the polar bear listing. The statement from her office said the state would work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat and develop necessary conservation measures. "While the state is disappointed with this decision, Governor Palin said, the state stands ready to assist the USFWS to ensure that polar bear populations remain viable for decades to come."
Today Palin announced the state would sue over the listing.
. . . [T]he state maintains that there is insufficient evidence to support a listing of the polar bear as threatened for any reason at this time. Polar bears are currently well-managed and have dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation measures enacted through international agreements and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A listing of the polar bear under the ESA will not provide additional conservation measures. . . . The Secretary’s decision to list a currently healthy species is based on not only the uncertain modeling of future climate change, but also the unproven long-term impact of any future climate change on the species. . . .
Palin said the state would also monitor -- and potentially intervene in -- litigation filed by conservation groups aimed at using the listing as a way to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. “Inappropriate implementation of this listing decision could result in widespread social and economic impacts, including increased power costs and further increases in fuel prices, without providing any more protection for the species,” natural resources commissioner Tom Irwin said in a statement.
As far as I can tell, this is the first time Palins administration has explicitly expressed concerns about the impact of the listing on development (if thats indeed what Irwin was talking about). Before, the focus was exclusively on the merits of the science.
On that issue, Palin is reportedly relying on information she wont disclose from scientists who, as I understand it, arent really experts in the field. Tom Kizzia over at the Anchorage Daily News looked into where the state was getting its info and wrote this, which largely profiles the Department of Fish and Games Ken Taylor.
. . . With limited peer-reviewed science available that concludes the bears are doing fine, however, the state devotes most of its space to challenging everyone elses work.
That pits Taylor and his staff -- and several national consultants from the warming-is-overblown camp -- against polar bear biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and leading international authorities in the World Conservation Unions Polar Bear Specialist Group, not to mention the climatologists of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. . . .
Click here for the whole story.
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