Is it enough?

In an unprecedented decision - the polar bear has been made a protected species. The debate on this has been going on a while.

Controversy over the status of the polar bear is tied to the fact that this is the first time a species has been considered for listing specifically because its habitat is threatened by global warming
I think its great, even after great delay- that our government has acknowledged that the polar bear is being affected by climate change- although they made sure to let it be known that this does not mean that the endangered species act should be used to fight global warming- what they really mean by this- is even though – yes, they agree that climate change is affecting the polar bears survival- there is no proof what is causing that change- so gentleman you can still drill for you oil- so its not a 100 % victory for environmentalist but it is a huge step in the right direction. Long Live the Polar Bear!!!
Here are a few highlight from the New York Times article announcing the decision….
"Few natural resource decisions have been as closely watched or been the subject of such vehement disagreement within the Bush administration as this one, according to officials in the Interior Department and others familiar with the process. After the department missed a series of deadlines, a federal judge ruled two weeks ago that the decision had to be made by Thursday."

"Barton H. Thompson Jr., a law professor and director of the Woods Institute of the Environment at Stanford University, said Wednesday that while the Interior Department gave itself “sufficient room” to list the polar bear, it did not provide “environmental organizations with a mechanism for trying to address climate change.”
He said that lawsuits challenging the connection between a factory’s greenhouse-gas emissions and the threat to individual polar bears might provide difficult to win"