These are the moments when you want to reassure your friends from outside, "I SWEAR all Alaskans aren't like this!"

Governor Sarah is bound and determined to let those polar bears fend for themselves:

(PRESS RELEASE BEGINS)
May 21, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin announced today the state of Alaska intends to file suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challenging U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“We appreciate the Secretary’s recognition that oil and gas activities are already regulated under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to prevent impacts to the polar bear and do not pose a threat to the polar bear,” Governor Palin said.

In previous comments submitted to the Secretary, the state maintains that there is insufficient evidence to support a listing of the polar bear as threatened for any reason at this time. Polar bears are currently well-managed and have dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation measures enacted through international agreements and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A listing of the polar bear under the ESA will not provide additional conservation measures.

The Attorney General’s office will draft and file a complaint under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The Secretary’s decision to list a currently healthy species is based on not only the uncertain modeling of future climate change, but also the unproven long-term impact of any future climate change on the species. Alaska’s Attorney General believes the decision is so arbitrary it violates the limits of the APA.

Conservation agreements = hunting them into extinction was NO LONGER ALLOWED.

That research they cite was done specifically in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in reference to potential drilling. The "30 years" cited were between 1967 and 1998...yes, 10 years ago. Also, the research focused specifically on whether or not development of ANWR would interfere with the land denning occuring there and the population growth being measured was the increase in denning activity, which could be partially explained (as they said) by relocation.

A quote: "The proportion of pack-ice dens dropped dramatically in the latter half of the study."

That tends to happen as the pack ice disappears but since that was not the focus of the study, it wasn't discussed.

The paper which cited that outdated research and presented it as an argument against listing polar bears under the "Endangered Species Act" was written by "The National Center for Public Policy Research". They call themselves "a conservative think-tank" and they have received funding for their activities from such groups as Exxon, the old oil money from the Mellon-Scaife family, as well as RJ Reynolds and Phillip Morris tobacco companies.

More recent studies, from 1999 - 2005 again by the USGS has determined a strong probability that sea-ice changes have forced polar bear females to change their denning behavior.

The population studies have determine that:

Survival of juvenile, sub adult, and senescent-adult polar bears was correlated with spring sea ice breakup date, which was variable among years and occurred approximately 3 weeks earlier in 2004 than at the beginning of the study in 1984. We propose that this correlation provides evidence for a causal association between earlier sea ice breakup (due to climatic warming) and decreased polar bear survival.

The latest prediction is that the North Pole itself may completely melt this year:

"Mark Serreze at the National Snow and Ice Data Center told me he sees ‘a decent chance that the North Pole melts out' this year," Revkin writes. Ignatius G. Rigor from the University of Washington, working with North Pole Environmental Observatory, told Revkin that he's putting his (research) money where his mouth is "by buying a few dozen buoys that are meant to be deployed in open ocean."

Ooops...flies in the face of Palin Administration claims. How embarassing for us and how potentially deadly for the polar bears.

The Attorney General’s office will also begin drafting a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act. This action is based on the Secretary’s failure to make a decision based solely on the best available scientific and commercial information.

Hint: All of the best available scientific information makes you guys look like a bunch of bumbling idiots.