Alaska Sues to Stop Polar Bear Listing

Governor Sarah Palin (periodically touted as a VP possibility for McCain), isn't buying the globaloney about endangered polar bears and is suing to stop the listing on the threatened species:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday.

She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.

Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican.

The announcement drew a strong response from the primary author of the listing petition.

"She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Alaska deserves better."

Siegel said it was unconscionable for Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, the polar bear's habitat.

"Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," she said. "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this."

The only reason the environwackos pushed for this listing is because it opens up all kinds of new ways to cripple oil production and other activities that can be wildly construed as contributing to global warming, even if they're occurring thousands of miles away from the Arctic lands where the bears hang out. The potential damage to the Alaskan economy is just the beginning.