Polar Bears listed by US

The polar bear is now officially the pawn of the global warming alarmists.

The U.S. government has decided to list polar bears as a threatened species under its Endangered Species Act because of the effects of global warming

This decision comes despite the fact that polar bear numbers are actually increasing. But the doomsayers and alarmists have never allowed little things like facts to get in the way of their agenda.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, who made the announcement in Washington on Wednesday, said the decision was based on findings that polar bears' sea ice habitat, vital to their survival, has dramatically melted in recent decades.

He said computer models projected declines in sea ice averaging 30 per cent by the middle of the century. Scientists predict that as a result, two-thirds of polar bears could disappear by then.

There we go again - making policy based on computer models. Last week the alarmists were all in a tizzy and had to make excuses for their computer models when it became clear that mother nature is not paying attention to all their doomsday predictions and we might be heading into a period of global cooling.

Oh, and as for all that great loss of sea ice, here's a recent item titled Report: Global Sea Ice at 'Unprecedented' Levels:

“On a global basis, world sea ice in April 2008 reached levels that were ‘unprecedented’ for the month of April in over 25 years,” Steve McIntyre wrote on Climateaudit.org on May 4. “Levels are the third highest (for April) since the commencement of records in 1979, exceeded only by levels in 1979 and 1982.”

When arctic sea ice decreased last summer it was all over the news. But how many news stories did we hear that the ice had recovered and reached "unprecedented" levels?

Now that those cuddly polar bears are on the endangered species list, you can brace yourself for an onslaught of activists demanding legislation to reduce carbon emissions.

Update: Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee

“Unfortunately, the decision to list the polar bear as ‘threatened’ appears to be based more on politics than science,” Senator Inhofe said. “With the number of polar bears substantially up over the past forty years, the decision announced today appears to be based entirely on unproven computer models. The decision, therefore, is simply a case of reality versus unproven computer models, the methodology of which has been challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts. If the models are invalid, then the decision based on them is not justified. It’s disappointing that Secretary Kempthorne failed to stand up to liberal special interest groups who advocated this listing."