Unfortunately, a number of those people are making decisions regarding how the Endangered Species Act is administered and are putting such animals as the Canada lynx and polar bear in even greater danger.
Research by the Government Accountability Office shows that Bush appointees to the Interior Department doctored data to make the plights of eight endangered or threatened species appear less dire than they actually are. Instead of fixing the inaccurate analyses, the department did nothing until whistleblowers called their hand.
Three animal species that live in Utah - the white-tailed prairie dog, Canada Lynx and Southwestern willow flycatcher - were among the eight. But scientists know it's smart to pay attention when any species loses ground, since that signals serious problems with natural ecosystems that eventually may affect us all.
Responding to the Bush Interior Department's handling of this display of ignorance and lack of concern, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said, "At this point, the best hope for endangered species may simply be to cling to life until after January when this president and his cronies, at long last, hit the unemployment line."
Many Americans share Rahall's frustration. The most recent example of the administration running roughshod over the ESA is an insidious rule attached to the Interior Department's decision to list the polar as "threatened" under the act.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne declared that the agency will not increase current protections for the polar bear and will provide no protection whatever against the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global temperatures to rise, melting the polar ice that the bears need in order to hunt.
No Bush appointee is apt to do anything to curtail oil and gas development, which the Bush administration is promoting in Alaskan polar bear habitat, and has long advocated in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the polar bear's primary denning area.
It's obvious that polar bears will get a lot hungrier before any of George Bush's cronies curb their relentless pursuit of oil, despite the move by so many others toward sustainable, renewable energy, and away from carbon-emitting power that is a major contributor to the climate extremes that cloud our planet's future.
