How to exploit polar bears

The decision to add the polar bear to the list of threatened species, on the basis that global warming threatens its habitat, is dangerous, and it’s going to hit Americans — and anyone who buys American products or relies on American investment capital — in their pockets. Not only trade, but similar decisions made by other countries or by international bodies, will spread this damage worldwide.

Environmentalists failed to convince the US legislature to enact draconian new laws to enforce costly measures whose benefits are at best speculative. Having failed to make their case, they fall back on what appears to be an innocent and even noble regulatory decision. They know listing the polar bear as threatened opens the door for litigation to enforce their ideas about carbon dioxide emissions on others, on the basis that any such emissions contribute to the destruction of the polar bear’s habitat.

Bloomberg’s Kevin Hassett says “this action will almost surely go down in history as the turning point in the global warming debate”. In an editorial titled Polar Bear Ruling to Bring Tsunami of Lawsuits, he writes:

Environmental groups are already preparing legal challenges. Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity told USA Today last week that the Endangered Species Act requires agencies now to address greenhouse gases, and warned that “we can and will go to court to enforce the law.”

Not only big companies will feel it. In theory, they could sue you for the car you drive, or the air-con you install in your home. And you won’t have a big company’s crack squad of expensive lawyers to protect you from the attack dogs of the green left. In short, this is a big deal. A very big deal.

At least we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that these superior beings (environmentalists, not polar bears) are obviously smarter than the rest of us, and care more too. So perverting the judiciary to achieve their political aims is a small thing when they’re saving the world from certain destruction. In fact, perhaps we should start a Fascist Party, so they can protect us from ourselves.

The poor panda, which really is endangered, had no chance. It was never, ever, going to be this profitable to the cause.