The Bush Administration finally admitted yesterday that global warming is threatening the polar bear with extinction, the first time it has ever shown even an ounce of intelligence on the subject.

In a move that will have profound consequences not only for the polar bear but potentially for America’s polluting industries, the Administration declared last night that the polar bear should be added to its endangered species list because of the drastic melting of its habitat.

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Could the polar bear be the beacon of light that inevitably leads to dirty American industries reducing there carbon dioxide emissions? Dirk Kempthorne, the Interior Secretary, said: “We are concerned the polar bear’s habitat may literally be melting.”

By placing the polar bear on the endangered species list, it takes on the responsibility of trying to prevent anything that would further harm or endanger the species. For the polar bear this means global warming. Obviously environmentalists (and anyone with any common sense) hopes this leads to laws forcing the reduction of greenhouse gasses (cough Kyoto cough).

This move also represents a full 180 for this administration, that until now has taken a “head in sand”(some might even say “head up ass”) approach to global climate change. While Bush did campaign in 2000 on reduction of greenhouse gas emission as soon as he was elected president the tune changed dramatically. The addition of polar bears to the endangered species roles represents some evidence that the Bush administration is coming around the the view held by just about everyone else, namely that global warming is real, and that humans are the main cause.

But not so fast. Even with the good news that polar bears will start to get more attention, Bush lackey (and head of the Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne said

that although his decision to seek protection for polar bears acknowledged the melting of the Arctic ice, his department was not taking a position on why the ice was melting or what to do about it.

While the Bush administration “takes climate change very seriously and recognizes the role of greenhouse gases in climate change,” Mr. Kempthorne said, it was not his department’s job to assess causes or prescribe solutions. “That whole aspect of climate change is beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act,” he added.

The scientific analysis in the proposal itself, however, did assess the cause of melting ice. Most of the studies on the Arctic climate and ice trends cited to support the proposed listing assumed that the buildup of heat-trapping gases was probably contributing to the loss of sea ice to date or that the continued buildup of these gases, left unchecked, could create ice-free Arctic summers later this century, and possibly in as little as three decades.

The Interior Department has a year to gather and study comments on the proposed listing and make a final determination. It must also work out a recovery plan to control and reduce harmful impacts to the species, usually by controlling the activities that cause harm.

Read the full report here(pdf)

It is unlikely that such a review could come to any other conclusion other than that global warming is the cause of the melting arctic ice, and that humans are to blame. It would take a herculean effort of purposeful ignorance to come to any other conclusion.

Kassie Siegel, the lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity added, “I don’t see how even this administration can write this proposal without acknowledging that the primary threat to polar bears is global warming and without acknowledging the science of global warming.”

As a result of the lawsuit, the Interior Department had a court-ordered deadline of Wednesday January 3rd to make a decision.