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Our Green Man pointed out something yesterday that you won’t find written about in many other articles on the subject: When Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that he had been finally forced to give protection to polar bears under the Endangered Species Act (because polar bears are actually, you know, endangered), that didn’t mean that polar bears would actually be receiving any protection. Kempthorne announced:

“While the legal standards under the ESA compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting. Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective. That is why I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isn’t abused to make global warming policies.”

Polar bears are threatened by global warming, you see, and the Endangered Species Act requires the government to remove threats to endangered species whenever possible. Yet, Secretary Kempthorne says that nothing will be done about global warming, even though the Bush Administration has now grudgingly acknowledged that global warming exists, and admits with this listing that global warming is severe enough that it is likely to cause polar bears to go extinct in the wild if there is no intervention.

All that was noted by the Green Man. What I want to point out this morning is something in the tone of Dirk Kempthorne’s remarks. It’s his use of the word abuse.

“I am taking administrative and regulatory action to make certain the ESA isn’t abused to make global warming policies,” said Kempthorne. There are two meanings of the word abuse that Dirk Kempthorne might have intended with that statement:

1. That creating global warming policy under the authority of the Endangered Species Act might actually injure someone
2. That the act of creating global warming policy under the authority of the Endangered Species Act is a misuse of the Endangered Species Act that is contrary to the intended function of the Endangered Species Act

The first possibility is absurd. When a human-produced disaster is of such proportions that even powerful animals in areas far from human habitation could be wiped out by it, a policy to bring the disaster under control is not abusive. The policies that created the disaster are the abuse. Given that human habitat is as much under threat as polar bear habitat, it’s mind-boggling to consider that Republicans in the Bush Administration still consider taking action to deal with global warming would be abusive against human beings. Republicans have been saying that for over 20 years now. Do they still believe that they were right to fail to act in time to avert the tragic effects we are now suffering?

The second possibility is equally absurd. It is the intended purpose of the Endangered Species Act to trigger the creation of government policies that remove environmental threats that contribute to species extinction. Given that it’s global warming that threatens the extinction of polar bears, the creation of global warming policy is exactly what the listing of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act ought to result in.

That’s not abuse. It’s the law, and it’s in the interest of everyone involved - except for, perhaps, big oil and gas corporations. Under the Endangered Species Act, those corporate interests must give way to the interests of the actual human beings, and the animals, involved.