Green Friendly California

Obama Administration Maintains Bush-Era Policy on Polar Bears

The Obama Administration has decided to keep a Bush-era policy on polar bears — declining to crack down on greenhouse-gas polluters on the grounds that their emissions are helping shrink the bears’ habitat on Arctic sea ice, officials announced today.

The reason, officials said: the problem of climate change is so big, and so complicated, that it would essentially overwhelm the bureaucracy created to protect threatened and endangered species.

As a result, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, the bears will continue to be listed as “threatened.” But the government will not use the 1973 Endangered Species Act to attack the main problem that threatens them.

“The Endangered Species Act is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue,” Salazar said in a conference call with reporters. Instead, he said, the Obama Administration would continue to push for a cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through legislation.

The polar bear, which environmental groups have made the furry face of climate change, presents a kind of problem that will come up again. Scientists say climate change is affecting animals all over the world, altering their habitats underneath them or slowly shifting ecosystems out of sync. (more…)

Black Warrior Riverkeeper ^® was founded in 2001 to help protect and restore the Black Warrior River and its tributaries in Alabama, America’s leading state for freshwater biodiversity. A citizen-based nonprofit organization, Black Warrior Riverkeeper is dedicated to improving water quality, habitat, recreation, and public health throughout the Black Warrior River watershed. The nonprofit patrols waterways, educates the public, and holds polluters accountable.

Black Warrior Riverkeeper recently achieved a $150,000 settlement in a lawsuit over sedimentation from storm water runoff, one of the leading causes of impairment in Alabama’s streams and rivers. The defendants, Birmingham Airport Authority and Dunn Construction Company, were ordered to take steps to curtail construction storm water runoff polluting Village Creek, a tributary of the Black Warrior River’s Locust Fork. Part of the settlement will fund a conservation project in the Village Creek watershed.