Analysis: Polar bear's impact on people is felt It's not about saving the polar bear as much as the polar bear saving us. The Arctic bear facing extinction because of global warming is bringing home the consequences of cheap energy and — until recently — the need for little sacrifice. It also reminds us that a choice soon may come between accepting higher electricity and transportation costs and reducing the pollution that is raising the earth's temperature. In listing the bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the Bush administration is taking pains to draw a line between protection of the majestic mammal and the origin of its plight — global warming. "This listing should not open the door ... to regulating greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants and other sources," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, in line with views expressed by President Bush last month. There is a reason for that. Business fears the bear. But will the administration, in its final eight months in power, be able to maintain that firewall. The odds are it will not. Environmentalists already are working on strategies for lawsuits challenging the limits that Kempthorne put on the polar bear listing. That includes assuming no relationship between greenhouse gas emissions from, for example, a Texas power plant, and melting sea ice, and that the bear should have no more protection from oil drilling than it now has. In fact, those restrictions may not survive a new administration....
Cap-And-Trade Folly Legislation pending in the Senate might warm environmentalists' hearts, but not because of potential cuts in carbon emissions. Their interest is in the heavy economic costs the plans would inflict. Each bill uses the cap-and-trade scheme to control carbon dioxide emissions. Each establishes limits, then prescribes how to distribute or sell to the private sector the rights to emit specific amounts of greenhouse gases under the cap. The bill sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is the least egregious. It would force greenhouse gas emissions to be cut to about 3% below last year's level. The others, one from Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Independent from Connecticut, and Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, another from Lieberman and Sen. John Warner, Republican of Virginia, are more draconian. The former would cut emissions to 16% below the 2007 output, the latter 44%. None would affect climate change. All, however, would carry heavy economic losses. Naturally, the environmentalists, having pushed the environment down their list of concerns, like that. It's no surprise that the most expensive of the three is the Warner-Lieberman bill. The Environmental Protection Agency reckons it could cost as much as $3 trillion a year in lost GDP. In an economy of roughly $14 trillion, that's a significant loss. But even the Bingaman-Specter legislation, the least costly of the three, would hit the economy for about $1 trillion a year. Much of the pain would be caused by increases in gasoline and electricity prices. The Science Applications International Corporation calculates that Lieberman-Warner by 2030 would boost gasoline prices from 60% to 144% while electricity prices would be up 77% to 129%....
Sea lions likely died from the heat The deaths of six sea lions found in traps on the Columbia River earlier this month were likely caused by the heat, and not by gunshots as officials first suspected, the National Marine Fisheries Service said. Oregon and Washington officials had been trapping the animals as part of a federally approved removal process because they feast on salmon at the Bonneville Dam. Federal and state officials initially said the sea lions had been shot, but they did an about-face after necropsies by state and federal experts found no evidence of bullet wounds. The fisheries service said Wednesday the results of necropsies on all six animals were consistent with death from heat stroke. Studies of tissue samples taken after the May 4 deaths are expected in about 10 days and might reveal more....
Ranch owner surrenders in bison deaths Jeffrey Scott Hawn, the Texas businessman facing multiple criminal counts in the killing of 32 bison in South Park, turned himself in at the Park County Jail earlier this week, the Park County Sheriff's Office said today. While there, said the sheriff's department, Hawn, 44, of Austin, posted the $15,000 bail set by District Judge Stephen Groome. Groome has given Hawn, who has a home and ranch in South Park, permission to travel outside Colorado, but the judge is determining whether Hawn can leave the country. According to an arrest warrant issued last week, the bison apparently were killed over a span of a couple of weeks. A group of hunters claimed that Hawn, in a letter sent to one of them Feb. 25, said they could kill the bison, which belonged to South Park rancher Monte Downare....