They were even more pleased because the proposal represented a long-sought admission by a recalcitrant Bush administration of the extent and dangers of global warming. The Arctic appears to be “moving toward a new ‘super interglacial’ state that falls outside of natural [cycles] that have characterized the past 800,000 years,” the Interior report noted. But in interviews Secretary Dirk Kemp-thorne was careful to tell reporters that the “whole aspect of climate change is beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act.” In fact, the listing wasn’t even the administration’s idea; a coalition of environmental groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity sued the department a year ago to put polar bears on the list. Interior can now take up to an additional 12 months to actually make the designation official, and then start work on a plan to save the bears. Meanwhile, researchers announced last week that an ice shelf covering 41 square miles, apparently loosened by warm Arctic temperatures, had broken free of land on the coast of Canada’s Ellesmere Island and drifted 30 miles out to sea.
