Today the Washington Post reported that the Department of the Interior is proposing listing the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The cause of the polar bears problems? Global Warming!

Repeatedly the Bush administration has denied that global warming is even occurring, claiming that the Earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling. That is true, but this time it’s not a cycle and is clearly being caused by human’s carbon emissions. The Bush administration has even gone so far as silencing and threatening government scientists who don’t agree with them in an attempt to deny the existence of global warming.

The plight of the polar bear however is something even Bush can’t cover up. Receding polar ice has shortened the bears fishing season, shrunk its habitat and lowered fertility rates. Polar bears are even drowning trying to swim between ice sheets. If the government does not act soon the polar bear will face extinction.

The Endangered Species Act requires government agencies to take no action that jeopardizes the animal’s existence. So what will Congress and Bush do? Impose carbon emissions caps? Raise fuel economy standards? Build more nuclear power plants and shut down coal power plants? My guess is none of the above. Bush will probably just claim that the polar bear can’t be endangered because it never existed.