Editorial: A polar bear’s cold reality

Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006 | 7:19 a.m.

Many of Alaska's polar bear cubs aren't surviving along the state's northern coasts, and scientists say it likely is connected to changes in sea ice.

A U.S. Geological Survey study released Wednesday stops short of saying that the decline in sea ice is directly responsible for the 15 percent decline in cubs, and for smaller male cubs overall. But it does say that these occurrences are consistent with other phenomena that are linked with changes in the ice brought on by gradual warming of the oceans.

Wildlife advocates say it is impossible to ignore the connections among climate change, warming oceans, melting sea ice and the decline in polar bears. Polar bears' survival depends on sea ice, as it connects them to food sources. Some bears have drowned while trying to swim to forage areas that they used to reach by walking atop the ice. Researchers also uncovered evidence that polar bears in some areas resorted to eating each other in 2004. They found other bears that had died of starvation because they were trapped on ice too far from forage. While wildlife advocates and scientists grappled with how much global warming has contributed to the bears' decline, U.S. officials attending a global climate change conference in Kenya defended U.S. policy on the issue, which has included President Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. The worldwide treaty calls for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.

The United States emits more of these gases than any other nation. But Bush has opposed the Kyoto agreement, saying that it could damage the U.S. economy and that it also should require emissions cuts in poor nations. In reality, Bush's view shows an incredible lack of understanding about the United States' role, both as an emitter of greenhouse gases and a world leader.

Bush could have made the United States an international example in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that ignoring or minimizing the problem and failing to take swift action to reduce emissions shows "a frightening lack of international leadership."

It is frightening and sad - almost as sad as the image of a baby polar bear, set adrift to slowly starve or to drown in an ocean that is no longer cold enough to sustain it as nature intended.