Resident Scholar  Kenneth P. Green

As the late astronomer Carl Sagan observed, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Environmental groups, in seeking to have polar bears declared a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, are making an extraordinary claim, indeed. Listing the polar bear as threatened would not only hinder the development of the Arctic's vast fossil fuel and minerals potential, it would also slide greenhouse-gas emission controls into place via the back door of the Endangered Species Act.

Environmentalists have long used charismatic megafauna as poster children in their ongoing crusade to wall off as much of the world as possible from human encroachment.

Environmental activist Eric de Place observes that using these types of animals as "poster children" for broader conservation has worked with grizzly bears, wolves, and sea otters. And the money follows the glamour.

Today's megafauna campaign features the polar bear, Ursus maritimus, which, as baby bear Knut showed the world, look about as warm and cuddly as can be. Environmental activists want the polar bear listed as "threatened." The Bush administration must issue a ruling by May 15, by court order. But in a time when people are starving for both food and energy, is there extraordinary evidence that polar bears are threatened, or that global warming poses a looming threat?

The first question we should ask is, how have polar bear populations fared as the climate has warmed over the past 50 years, the span in which humanity's greenhouse gas emissions are presumed to have warmed the climate by about half a degree Fahrenheit. It turns out, that's a hard question to answer because polar bears are hard to count because they roam over a massive area that is inhospitable most of the year, and they are solitary animals.

But from aerial surveys, sightings by indigenous people, tagging programs and other guesstimates the polar bear population is estimated to be around 25,000 bears. That is a significant increase over previous decades. According to Canadian government biologist Mitch Taylor, "There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

It is true that the sea ice in the arctic is melting over time. In recent years, it's been setting records for scarcity, and it's growing thinner as well.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attributes this decline to man-made global warming, and as they predict temperatures to keep increasing, they predict the ice will keep melting. Of course, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail: the IPCC attributes nearly all climate changes to human activity.

But there's a hitch: Science exists outside the IPCC, and two outside research groups, one of them being NASA, attribute the recent melting of sea ice to changes in wind patterns that are moving heat up north from the tropics, and blowing ice down south toward warmer waters.

Finally, it's not even clear that polar bears are that dependent on sea ice for their survival. Polar bear fossils have been dated to over 100,000 years, which means that polar bears have already survived an interglacial period when temperatures were considerably warmer than they are at present.

Environmentalists are staking an extraordinary claim to control over the arctic, and the energy economy of the United States. They've latched onto the polar bear as their mascot in making this extraordinary claim. But, in a world starved for both energy and food, the justification for walling off the Arctic seems far from extraordinary.

Kenneth P. Green is a resident scholar at AEI.