Polar Bears Threaten Energy Development

The Interior Department has placed polar bears on the list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. [Link] The bears depend on the Arctic sea ice and global warming is causing a decline in the amount of sea ice. This threatens their habitat and could cause a drastic decline in their population if they can’ adapt.

Usually when an endangered animal is threatened with the loss of habitat, the cause is some type of development project like building commercial structures. Typically the development project is challenged and halted, thus preserving the animal’s habitat.

The challenge with the bears is different. The bear’s habitat is threatened not by encroaching commercial development, but by the burning of fossil fuel all over the planet. Some environmentalists might use this as an excuse to prohibit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The proximity of the drilling is irrelevant to the global warming problem. Could environmentalists use this as an excuse to challenge any energy project in the United States? Could the construction of a new electric generating plant fueled with either coal or natural gas be challenged on the basis of protecting the bears?

If reasonable energy development is stopped in this country, it would have a serious negative effect on our economy. That may have the perverse effect of actually making the global warming problem worse. Let’s say we can’t develop energy in this country and it drives industry off-shore to a country like China. We not only loose the jobs and investment in our economy, but the production may be much less energy efficient in China. That would result in a worsening of global greenhouse gas emissions and be counter-productive to saving the bears.

What the bears really need is a national energy policy that reduces greenhouse gas emissions over time that also projects our economy. We should start by reducing the use of those fuels, like coal, that produce the most greenhouse gas emissions. A long term national energy plan may call for the development of fossil fuel energy resources like oil to replace coal in the short term. Closing off oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may actually hurt the bears.