Environmentalists use charismatic megafauna to raise awareness of and promote policy solutions to perceived environmental threats. Studies show charismatic species are more likely to be protected than are less photogenic animals. Giant pandas are charismatic megafauna, as are whales, salmon, eagles, and caribou. The latest example is Ursus maritimus, the polar bear.

Environmental groups, claiming manmade global warming threatens the polar bears’ survival, have called for an endangered species listing with extraordinarily far-reaching consequences. Such a listing would most likely place the Arctic region off limits for mineral exploration, and would very likely lead to strict federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. As of this writing, the Bush administration has not rendered a verdict on whether polar bears will be declared an endangered species, but a federal judge has given the administration a deadline of May 15 (this Friday) to make a final determination.

New Scientist, which revealed last year that obesity causes global warming, now tells us that global warming will make days longer, which has been confirmed by NASA. So not only is at least one global warming hysteric worried that efforts to stop global warming may slow the rotation of the earth, but the hysterical New Scientist reports that global warming itself slows it:

Global warming will make days longer as well as hotter, say Belgian scientists. A team led by Olivier de Viron of the Royal Observatory of Belgium has calculated the impact of global warming from the build-up of greenhouse gases in the air on the angular momentum of the planet.

So we might at well get used to longer and longer days. Who needs Daylight Savings Time anymore?

UN agencies, especially the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and its offspring the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were orchestrated to achieve the goal of convincing public and policy makers that warming and climate change were a human created disaster. Manipulation of the process was first publicly exposed in the Chapter 8 issue (here). Sadly, it was just the first of several that established the pattern of IPCC behavior.

It was not the first time the unsupportable claim that humans were causing global warming had made the news. A major incident occurred in 1988 when James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), appeared before Senator Al Gore’s committee and said he was “99 percent” certain the Earth had warmed.

Back in August 1973, a biologist found a humble fish called the snail darter (pictured) 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.

Do today’s soaring food prices and Third World food riots mean we’re headed for global famine?

Not any time soon—if we suspend the biofuels mandates quickly. Unfortunately, if we keep burning corn, wheat, and palm oil in our vehicles, there’s no limit to the hunger, malnutrition, wildlife extinction and political disruption we can cause.

The problem is simple: Food demand is inelastic. People need about the same number of calories whether they’re expensive or cheap. But the demand for biofuels is almost without limit. An acre of corn produces only 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre, while humans worldwide burn more than a trillion gallons of gasoline per year.

Thursday is the deadline set by a federal judge in Alaska for the Fish and Wildlife Service to decide whether the polar bear is a threatened or endangered species.

All the evidence shows the polar bear doesn’t need his help.

Environmental groups petitioned for such a listing and sued when a decision was not forthcoming by the deadline. They claimed that global warming had already diminished polar ice, would continue to do so and doom the estimated 23,000 or so bears to extinction by perhaps 2050.