Proposed Polar Bear Listing Threatens YOUR Future!!

APC SLEDGEHAMMER ACTION ALERT - From the American Policy Center

www.americanpolicy.org

The Department of the Interior and its Fish and Wildlife Service are getting ready to trample on your rights, drive up your cost of living, and regulate virtually every aspect of your life. You need to act immediately - or your energy and economic life will soon be dictated by climate change alarmists in government agencies, courts and environmental groups.

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne is dropping hints that he will declare the polar bear a threatened species - within the next few weeks. If he does, any activity that arguably adds to hypothetical global warming ... and thus supposedly causes arctic ice melting, habitat loss and polar bear deaths ... will be subject to DOI and FWS control. This decision would effectively put the Fish and Wildlife Service - and an army of bureaucrats, activists and judges - in charge of every energy and economic decision in the land. The impact could easily be worse than the Kyoto Protocol.

Listing the Polar Bear will be like the Spotted Owl on steroids; it will impact everyone! Under the ESA, any activity that is regulated by the Federal Government (because it affects air or water quality, for example) would be subject to further regulation on the grounds of greenhouse gases and potential effects on polar bears. That would mean facility emissions or modifications, expanded manufacturing capacity, increased shipping and a host of other activities that would come under renewed scrutiny for new reasons. Remember: Virtually everything we do involves fossil fuels and greenhouse gases (GHG).

85% of our energy comes from fossil fuels. That means almost every heating, cooling, transportation and electricity generation decision will be affected. Utility and manufacturing companies will be required to slash their CO2 emissions - and be forced to raise their prices to cover those huge new costs. Every other source of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases will also be regulated and restricted by eco zealots: bakeries, breweries, chicken and dairy farms, cattle ranches, dry cleaners, auto manufacturers and dealers, cement and other industrial facilities, and on and on.

As their costs go up, so will your costs to heat and cool your home, drive your car, clothe your family and put food on the table. As companies seek ways to cut expenses, to cover GHG control outlays, they will trim their workforces or send jobs overseas. Basic civil rights and individual freedoms will be hammered. It won't be long before we will be told what and how much we can drive; how high or low we can set our thermostats; where, or if, we can go on vacation; what we can put on our dinner table. Everyone's jobs, freedoms and cost of living will be affected.

And in the end it won't matter one whit. China and India will continue to emit more and more carbon dioxide. And our climate will continue to change, just as it has repeatedly over the ages - from natural causes. The fact is the entire notion of catastrophic climate change is based on nothing more than hypotheses, headlines, hype, hysteria, worst-case scenarios from climate change computer models - and the insatiable desire of bureaucrats and radical greens to eliminate fossil fuels and control our lives. Every step of the way, they will be aided by government-funded scientists who know a tax-dollar gravy train when they see one - and by UN agencies looking to tax your energy use so that they can create a perpetual cash cow to replace their Oil-For-Food money.

It's up to you to make sure this doesn't happen. But you have to act IMMEDIATELY.

ACTION TO TAKE

President Bush plans to note his concern about the polar bears in his January 28 State of the Union address. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne plans to announce his "threatened polar bears" decision a week or two later. But it could happen even earlier than that.

Act now. By phone, fax, email, ground mail, letter to the editor or personal visit:

Tell President Bush

• Keep this out of your State of the Union address.

• Order Secretary Kempthorne to reconsider any plans to list polar bears as threatened.

Contact info for President Bush - Ph. (202) 456-1111, Fax (202) 456-2461
email: comments@whitehouse.gov
or ground mail:
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington D.C., 20500

Tell Secretary Kempthorne

• You have no legal, factual or scientific basis for declaring that polar bears are threatened or endangered. Under the ESA, a species is "threatened" if it is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. Total polar bear population is about 22,000 animals.

• There is no danger to arctic habitats, and no evidence of imminent threat to polar bears.

• Computer models, hype, headlines and pressure tactics are not evidence.

• We will not tolerate your trampling on our energy and economic rights, sending our cost of living into the stratosphere, and putting bureaucrats and radical environmentalists in charge of our lives.

• Temperatures in Alaska have ranged from +100 (Fort Yukon, 1915) down to -80 (Prospect Creek, 1976). Any analysis beginning in 1975 will likely show a warming trend upward from a very cold period. The polar bears survived both and will continue to do just fine.

Contact info for Secretary Kempthorne - (202) 208-3100, no fax given
email: http://www.doi.gov/contact.html
ground mail:
Secretary Dirk Kempthorne
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington DC 20240

Tell your Senator and Congressman

• This proposal is insane; there is no legal, factual or scientific basis for it.

• Tell President Bush and Secretary Kempthorne they need to scrap this idea - and do their homework on the Endangered Species Act, the true state of polar bear populations, the history of warming and cooling in the Arctic, and the impact that this decision would have on jobs, prices and lives.

• Any elected official who doesn't oppose the listing of the Polar Bear will be held accountable on November 4.

• According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) average Alaskan temperatures are NOT climbing. By selecting the 1975-2000 warming period, alarmists were able to project a trend that - if it continued - would lead to catastrophic Arctic warming. But this is junk science at its worst.

• Polar bear populations are NOT declining throughout their range; total population is about 22,000.

• Dr. Mitchell Taylor, a biologist with the government of Nunavut, in Canada's Northwest Territory, says "polar bears are not going extinct" and do not even "appear to be affected" at the present time. The Nunavut government still allows hunters to kill up to 500 polar bears a year, to preserve other wildlife species that the bears feed on, and generate revenue. According to Taylor, of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number.

Contact info for your Congressman - Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-2131. Tell the Operator your Congressman's name, or the city and state where you live, and you will be connected. Email: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

Ground mail:
Office of Congressman (Name)
United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Contact info for your Senator - Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-2131. Tell the Operator who your Senator is, or what state you live in, and you will be connected. Email: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Ground mail:
Office of Senator (Name)
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

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