Photo by Vladimir Gorbunov.

 The government’s decision to delay listing the polar bear as threatened is certainly getting a lot of press – and thankfully, the press is linking the polar bear to the government’s incomprehensible decision to move forward with oil and gas lease sales in the Chukchi Sea. 

Check out the following links for some great editorials on the subject: 

Regulatory Games and the Polar Bear (The New York Times) 

Polar Bears:  Stop Oil, Gas Leases (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Protecting Polar Bears (The Los Angeles Times) 

The Threatened Polar Bear (The Washington Post) 

Meanwhile, Congressman Ed Markey is holding a hearing about the polar bear and the Chukchi Lease Sale in the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  The hearing is at 9:30 Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, January 17.  The panel will be broadcast over the internet for those interested:  It can be accessed by going tohttp://globalwarming.house.gov/home and clicking on the box next to the picture of Ed Markey on the left hand side.  The box reads “Next Hearing–Polar Bears on Thin Ice- Thurs. Jan. 17 at 9:30am” 

If anyone has trouble with that link they can also try here. 

Let’s hope that Minerals Management Service is paying attention and chooses to delay the Chukchi Lease Sales! 

Photo by Vladimir Gorbunov.

Welcome back to Pacific Environment’s blog in 2008.  Over the next year, check back to this blog to find interesting tidbits and news related to our work to protect the Pacific Rim environment! 

A couple of items caught my eye in the last couple of days.  First of all, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delayed its decision about whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.  Supposedly the delay is to allow the Service to consider new scientific studies.  Yet the studies – which demonstrate sea ice in the Arctic receding even more rapidly than originally thought – only confirm the critical need to act now. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s delay in making a decision now allows the Minerals Management Service to proceed unhindered with a proposed oil and gas lease sale in the Chukchi Sea in February.  Recent news articles suggest that both Exxon and Shell are interested in the lease sale.  Is it coincidence that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s delay allows the government to move forward with this lease, which will only increase the threats to the polar bears?  I think not. Click here to read a press release from our partners at Center for Biological Diversity or click here for an article that explains the connection between the polar bear delay and the Chukchi lease sale. 

We fiddle while the Arctic burns. 

Meanwhile, at least South Korea is taking some action.  Click here to learn that South Korea is taking action to ban single-hulled tankers by 2010, following its disastrous oil spill last month.  Wait, you say, weren’t single-hulled tankers banned after the Exxon Valdez?  No, unfortunately not.  The Valdez spill led to an international agreement to phase out single-hulled tankers by 2015.  Now, South Korea is making a commitment to moving up that timeline.  Sometimes it takes an accident like they experienced to force action.  We could learn something from Korea.