Climate Crisis 5: The Politics of Endangered Species

When debating how to get the world behind the movement for global warming, environmentalists knew that the world wouldn't get behind Elkhorn Coral as their leading cause for activism. When debating how to keep the global warming activists from taking over the country, members of the Department of the Interior stalled their decisions. These are typical political moves that both sides of the endangered species/global warming spectrum use in order to get their people more in power.

Those who are environmentalists aren't really trying to get their people in power, but instead they are trying to spark a revolution to save the country. Kassie Siegel tactically maneuvered around the Endangered Species Act and made a huge move for environmentalists all around the world. With the help of climate models and stats from the past, she applied for the polar bear to be enlisted on the Endangered Species List. Some would call this a brilliant political move while others would call it an abuse of the law.

After Kassie put in her petition and got the signatures needed, the political moves of the other side began. Here, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne stalled and stalled until a court order was given for him to make a decision. He claimed that this was delayed because the science behind the position is so cutting edge, however, an alternate idea has come forth. There was an oil and gas deal made in February to buy 29.8 million acres around the Chukchi Sea, which is an important part of the polar bear habitat. This stalling could be because of this, or it could just be that those in power don't really care about the environment and its animals. The Bush administration has the worst Endangered Species reputation in the history of the program. He admitted only 60 new species. This number is far lower than the 522 from the Clinton administration and the 231 from the first Bush administration, which is half as long. Politics as usual.

Kempthorne made his ruling after the court order that the polar bear will be deemed as threatened. This means that the population is doing fine right now, but if the current way of the world continues, they will become endangered and eventually, extinct. To Kassie, this was a huge step towards her ultimate goal of stopping global warming. However, Kempthorne thought differently and said that since the polar bear is not listed as endangered, the department can choose whether or not to protect the habitat (you have to if they are endangered).

But the right took it even farther. They said that the government does not have to do anything to stop global warming because the only way you can protect an endangered species is by straight killing (hunting, running over, etc). Kassie was pissed at this (and I am too) because those in power are manipulating the law in order to feed their political careers. They have to stay in good standing with the ranchers, the farmers, the oil industries. Anyone who will give them money. This is wrong and the lives of our worlds' animals should not be used as a sacrifice to political greatness. If the world continues in the direction it is going, 2/3 of the polar bear population will be gone by 2050.

We all know that anything political can't be considered political until it is hit with corruption. And the Endangered Species process has been filled with corruption. Not including the recent polar bear "corruption," there was a much more serious case in the past. One of the former top officials of the Department of the Interior named Julie MacDonald altered documents from biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Services to make it seem like the prairie dogs of the Western States were doing just fine. However, she did this because of the effect of lobbyists in Washington. Her party (the Republican party) had oil interests that wanted to build oil fields in the area. Therefore, she had no reason to allow the prairie dog to become endangered, so she denied the application. Her actions are currently under investigation, and she has resigned from her post.

And some might say that the world isn't going in the wrong direction right now, but I have some more information to stop this.

First of all, the level of Arctic ice is the lowest it has ever been. It has gone down by 460,000 square miles since 2005, which was the previous record. Furthermore, the time of the year when the ice gets lowest hasn't even come yet (September).

In the past, polar bear cubs have had about a 60% chance of survival. Now, this amount has decreased to around 45%. What has caused this? Loss of habitat

Also during the Kempthorne era, the gray wolf was taken off of the endangered list, even though numbers were around 1500, which is far below where it should be. This was enough for the legislature of Wyoming to say that wolves can be killed under two conditions: they were in the accepted area of hunting (around 90% of the state) and if they were "worrying" the sheep. It used to be if they were attacking, but now the presence of a wolf anywhere can be considered "worrisome" to the sheep. Farmers can kill the wolves as they please with no punishment.

Let's take the politics out of endangered species and just save our planet's animals! The world would be a lonesome place without them.

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