Environmental Roundup -- Learn to Swim

White House to Study Protecting Polar Bears
"The Bush administration has agreed to study whether polar bears should be added to the nation's endangered species list because global warming is shrinking their habitat. They would be the first mammals to gain protected status as a result of climate change."

"President Bush opposes mandatory curbs, arguing they would harm the economy and cost jobs. He instead has pushed for voluntary steps and research into technology to reduce emissions."

Voluntary? As in the Bush administration's "voluntary" undertaking of this issue? Read on!

According to both WP.com & msnbc.com, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against the federal government in December 2005 to place polar bears on the endangered species list. The Center originally filed a petition in February 2005.
"Under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service was supposed to render its initial finding of the merits within 90 days, but the federal agency responded after a year. "We didn't have the money to do the finding," Woods said. The agency had to wait until budget money was available in the fiscal year 2006 budget and acted when it was available, he said.
When the agency had not acted by December, the Center as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace sued in federal court to protect polar bears. "

There's "voluntary" for you. Better late than never I suppose.

The U.S.'s polar bear population is estimated between 2,000-5,000 bears. Estimates of world-wide polar bear population are between 21,000 and 28,000. (msnbc.com)

Just a week ago, msnbc.com ran an article with an interesting graphic showing regions worldwide affected by glacial melting: Melting Mountains.

Also mentioned in the WP article are two environmental groups (the Evangelical Climate Initiative and the Pew Center for Global Climate Change) who yesterday issued a statement demanding government curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action. This statement comes on the heels of the NAE's official non-statement on global warming.

Read the initial post on this topic here:
(ACK except I forgot that I can no longer link to blog pages from this computer. If you're looking for it, it was a post from Monday 2/7. I will post the link when I can.)

Incidentally, the first name on the list of signatories to the Call to Action?
Rev. Dr. Leith Anderson, Former President, National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).