Water bears however will survive come what may. They can survive in a vacuum, boiled or frozen, 6000 atmosphere pressure. According to the following video George Bush would like to be one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKamWp610ng

Further info: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16422095.100-indestructible.html

Since the Property Bubble has well and truly burst :-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7398244.stm
Caroline Flint said: "We can't know how bad it will get."

one of the remaining bulwarks and bastions of the Economy is Energy.

If we can keep oil prices up, then the Stock Market will still rise, and keep the whole capital-debt-industry-globalisation-trade thing going.

So, it seems, if George W. Bush agrees to save the Polar Bears, we could have $200 per barrel of oil by the end of 2008, and the rich will be getting richer, as per usual...

...You know what, if I had less integrity, I would invest in Petroleum and Petroleum by-products. But I don't believe that free-market capitalism can contain Carbon Emissions, and I'd rather have a Viable Habitat than a Fat Wallet, thank you :-

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aIF14Y3PWiTE&refer=h...

Polar Bears Threatening to Deliver Us $200 Oil: Kevin Hassett

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

May 12 (Bloomberg) -- Protecting the environment is a noble cause, although the consequences can be costly.

Back in August 1973, a biologist found a humble fish called the snail darter in the Little Tennessee River. At the time, it was believed that this species would be pushed to extinction if the Tennessee Valley Authority finished its Tellico Dam.

The snail darter became a celebrity, as environmentalists used the Endangered Species Act to halt the project. It took six
years and an act of Congress to complete the dam.

Since then, the snail darter has been the poster child of endangered species litigation. The fish, which subsequently was
found in other Tennessee waters, established the conventional wisdom about the interaction between endangered species and development. The pattern is familiar. Someone discovers a rare species in a local area. It is declared endangered, and then local projects are blocked.

If things go the right way this week, the local nature of this issue might change. An endangered species could have an effect on economic activity everywhere in the U.S., not just in a single locale. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken recently ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether polar bears should be listed under provisions of the act.

There is a strong chance that the polar bear will be declared ``threatened.'' If so, then everything about the economics of endangered species will be turned on its head.

Why is the polar bear in trouble? The main risk is that global warming will melt ice in the Arctic. Polar bears, biologists believe, need ice to live. Take away the ice, and no more polar bears.

Arctic Predator

The dependence on ice results from the bear's evolution as a predator. They mostly eat seals, and capture them by lurking around on the ice. They can't outswim a seal, but they can pounce on one when the seal slides into its den on an ice floe.

They are so good at hunting on the ice, and so bad at surviving without it, that bears that live in areas that have significant summer ice melts tend to go without food during the iceless times. So it is reasonable to believe that global warming would, if it melted the ice caps, be a serious threat to polar bears.

This week's probable decision is debatable, to say the least. One problem is that the beast, which is notoriously hard to count, exists in vast numbers throughout the Arctic. Opinions even differ as to whether its population is increasing or decreasing.

Population Dispute

For example, professor J. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania recently told Science Daily that ``the polar bear populations have been increasing rapidly in recent decades due to hunting restrictions.''
Others, such as biologists Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher, see troubling signs of decline in specific subpopulations that live in regions more affected by ice melts.

The truth is, as noted by my American Enterprise Institute colleague Kenneth Green in a recent article, ``Is the Polar Bear Endangered, or Just Conveniently Charismatic?'' we just don't have the data to assess what is happening to polar bear populations.

``Polar bear populations are difficult to measure, in part because they travel so much, are sparsely populated, and live far from people,'' he writes. Even aerial surveys and mark-and- recapture studies, which are the best tools to estimate changes in polar bear populations, offer ambiguous results.

If the polar bear is to be declared threatened it must be because the Interior Department accepts the forecasts of continued global warming, and a significant reduction in Arctic ice.

There are two reasons why that decision, if it is made, will be momentous.

Geographic Reach

The first is the possible wide geographic reach of the global warming argument. The snail darter almost killed a single dam.

The polar bear could, in theory at least, stop everything.

Suppose someone wants to build a coal-burning power plant in Florida. Environmentalists might challenge the construction on the grounds that the plant will emit greenhouse gases leading to global warming and an increased threat to polar bears.

It is hard to say how such challenges would play out. My guess is that it would heighten the pressure on the U.S. to adopt a cap-and-trade emissions program or a carbon tax.

The second impact of this ruling is that it will likely end all Arctic exploration for oil and gas, at least in the U.S.

Given surging world demand for oil, increased supply is the only thing standing between us and $200-a-barrel oil.

Costly Restrictions

These restrictions will have a large cost. ``The U.S. Geological Survey and the Norwegian company StatoilHydro estimate that the Arctic holds as much as one-quarter of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas deposits,'' Scott Borgerson, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. ``

Some Arctic wildcatters believe this estimate could increase substantially as more is learned about the region's geology.''
Many biologists believe that global warming is a serious threat to the polar bear. If that leads to the polar bear being listed as threatened this week, then the world you live in will have fundamentally changed.

(Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, is a Bloomberg News columnist. He is an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona in his bid for the 2008 presidential nomination. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Kevin Hassett at khassett@aei.org
Last Updated: May 12, 2008 00:01 EDT

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So, George W. Bush has shown pity on the poor Polar Bears, and agreed to designate them as endangered.

What now for the massive plans for drilling the Arctic, land and ocean, for hydrocarbons ?

And will the Polar Bear be the reason that the United States get cutting their Carbon Dioxide emissions ?

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0515/p25s20-sten.html

US puts polar bears as threatened

Wednesday's designation is the first to list a species due to global warming threats.
By Amanda Paulson
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 15, 2008 edition

It's official: The polar bear is threatened and is likely to become endangered if actions aren't taken to stem the loss of its habitat. That was the decision of the Interior Department, which on Wednesday issued a long-awaited decision to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.

It is the first time a species has been listed due to a threat from global warming, and raises it questions about the scope and ability of the act to address such a complex global concern.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne sought to answer some of those questions in announcing the listing, which comes one day before the deadline imposed for the decision by a federal district court.

“The Endangered Species Act is not the means, nor the method, nor the vehicle by which you can deal with global climate change,” he said in a press briefing, noting that the listing will not hold individual sources of carbon emissions responsible for contributing to the decline of the polar bear.

In addition, the department is seeking to clarify the scope of the act by invoking a special “4-D rule” which will essentially allow any activities already permissible under the current Marine Mammals Protection Act (MMPA) – which makes it likely that decisions on oil and gas permits, for instance, are not likely to change.

While Secretary Kempthorne claimed that the MMPA is more stringent than the Endangered Species Act in many of its requirements, environmentalists note that it deals primarily with harm to individual animals, not habitat, which is the biggest threat to polar bears.

Last February, for instance, oil and gas companies were granted leases in 29 million acres in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska's Northwest coast, home to one of two US polar bear populations. While the leases were allowed under the MMPA, environmentalists question whether the they would have conformed with the Environmental Species Act provision that prohibits actions that would jeopardize listed species.

“If the law is properly applied, we don't see how they could do the Chuckchi lease sale as they did,” says Brendan Cummings, oceans program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of three groups that sued the government over the delayed listing.

Still, many groups hailed the listing decision, even with its limited parameters.

“It recognizes the importance of sea ice for the polar bear, and it does protect the integrity of the Endangered Species Act,” says Margaret Williams, managing director of the World Wildlife Fund's Alaska office. The science leading to the decision was so conclusive that a decision not to list would have raised serious questions about the political pressures at work, she says.

Ms. Williams hopes that some of the limitations of the listing will be reconsidered, but notes, that ultimately, this is a signal of the importance of broader steps to stem global warming.

“The ESA is an important step,” she says. “It is not going to be the panacea or the ultimate way to help the polar bear survive. The ultimate tool is reducing CO2 emissions.”

Some groups critical of the listing have noted that polar bear populations are actually in recovery at the moment; their population is estimated at 20,000 or 25,000, up from about 12,000 in the 1960s, when they'd been overhunted.

But in announcing the decision, Kempthorne stated that he had very little flexibility under the strict guidelines of the Endangered Species Act. The science – including nine peer-reviewed studies conducted by the US Geological Service – was clear: Sea ice, necessary to the polar bear's survival, is melting dramatically and is likely to further recede in the future. Within the next 45 years, all the models predicted that the bears are likely to be endangered.

“It was a difficult decision, but in light of the scientific record and the constraints of the law that binds me, I believe it was the only decision I could make,” said Kempthorne. But, he added, “I want to make it clear that this listing won't stop global climate change or prevent sea ice from melting.”

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