Wash, Rinse, Repeat:
The U.S. government just put polar bears on the threatened species list because climate change is shrinking the Arctic ice where they live. Never mind that polar bears are in fact thriving — their numbers have quadrupled in the last 50 years. Never mind that full implementation of the Kyoto protocols on greenhouse gases would save exactly one polar bear, according to Danish social scientist Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book “Cool It!” Yet 300 to 500 polar bears could be saved every year, Lomborg says, if there were a ban on hunting them. What’s cheaper — trillions to trim carbon emissions, or a push for a ban on polar bear hunting?
The country is being forced to subscribe to a modern version of transubstantiation, whereby corn is miraculously transformed into sinless energy even as it does worse damage than oil.
Plastic grocery bags are being banned, even though they require less energy to make and recycle than paper ones.
But the polar bears make for such cute, cuddly pictures. I am married to someone who has seen the aftereffects of these little cuties tearing off people’s arms and legs however, so I’m not quite so sure its a good thing to have them on the endangered list.