The U.S. government says the population of polar bears has increased four-fold since the 1960s, so the bureaucrats whose job security depends on stirring up environmental distress have classified the huge white beasts as an endangered species. Surely Alice in Wonderland has donned a disguise that makes her look and sound exactly like Secretary of the Interior DirkKempthorne. Alice issued a decision last week under Kempthorne’s signature that effectively mandates nothing can be done anywhere by anybody in the lower 48 states if it increases the greenhouse gases that fuel the global warming that is allegedly melting the Artic ice the polar bears require for survival.
It’s hard not to think the government’s left hand doesn’t know what its other left hand is doing on this issue. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the polar bears have increased their numbers from as low as 5,000 in the 1960s to an estimated 20,000 today. As Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., notes, the credit for this “should be given to protection already provided the polar bear by way of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the several international conservation treaties including the 1973 Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Conservation and Management Act of 2006, as well as conservation, education, and outreach agreement with native peoples.” Inhofe is the ranking GOPer on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. So, if the polar bear population is increasing because of laws, treaties and education programs that have been on the books for decades, what might be the real motive behind this latest global warming-induced lunacy?
Two things —ideological fanaticism and bureaucratic imperialism. First, elitist Americans are regularly seized by ideologically inspired enthusiasms that blind them to reality. Exhibit A here is California Democrat Barbara Boxer who chairs Inhofe’s panel. She claimed “the plight of the polar bear is a stark reminder that the planet is already experiencing the ravages of global warming. Today’s announcement underscores how important it is for the Senate to pass national legislation to cut global warming pollution and avert the dangerous effects of climate change.” Boxer has never been confused by the facts.
Second, the bureaucrats love it because implementing anti-global warming legislation will require vast budget and work force expansions for the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere throughout the federal leviathan. Combine these two factors and the result is a weapon of mass deception that obliterates reality.
