Cheat-Seeking Missles

Friday, May 16, 2008

As If The Polar Bear Listing Weren't Enough

No sooner is the ink dry on yesterday's disastrous threatened listing of the polar bear than the Greenies are back with another proposed listing for a species supposedly impacted by theoretical global warming. From E&E News:
The Bush administration will consider Endangered Species Act protections for a California seabird whose island habitat, environmentalists say, is threatened by climate change.

The Fish and Wildlife Service announced today that protection may be warranted for the ashy storm-petrel, so it will perform a formal status review.

The small, smoke-gray seabird nests and forages on a handful of offshore islands near San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Its population has already experienced sharp declines. The largest colony in central California decreased by 42 percent from 1972 to 1992, according to a study by scientists at the Point Reyes Bird Observatory in California.
By the way, don't assume that just because scientists did these population studies that they are right. From the snail darter to the spotted owl, the population studies used in endangered species listings are frequently very flawed.

Now here comes the global warming connection:
The review comes in response to a petition and legal challenge from the Center for Biological Depravity Diversity. The storm-petrel petition is one of many requests the group has made for protection of species affected by climate change. Its most high-profile complaint concerned the polar bear, which the administration agreed to list as "threatened" yesterday after several lawsuits. The center also has successfully pressed for the listing of two coral species affected by climate change.

The center's petition predicts sea-level rise could drown important habitat for the bird in sea caves and offshore rocks. Warmer, less productive waters and ocean acidification are expected to reduce the numbers of the storm-petrel's prey -- small larval fish and plankton.
Also under attack by the Center is shipping and other off-shore activities, because they have "lights that can confuse its nocturnal flights." I'll bet there's no proof of that either, but it makes a good argument for a group that is committed to the depopulation of the American West. Click the link, scroll down to the section on water supply, and you'll see the group's founder, Kieran Suckling, pictured, talking about his vision of a depopulated West.

The storm-petrel listing petition is more evidence of the Center's strategy of litigation-storms and listing-storms. They are not content with the ludicrous polar bear listing alone, so they immediately back up their victory yesterday with another listing petition. It's sort of like jurisdiction shopping; they file multiple listing petitions and multiple lawsuits, so that if one falls flat, they've got a back-up.

They did the same thing in the California delta. Once they found a fawningly sympathetic judge who decreed water deliveries to SoCal would have to be cut by 30 percent (YIKES!) to protect the Delta Smelt, the Center promptly filed a listing petition for the long-finned smelt, another Delta fish whose listing would result in further pump cut-backs.

Combine the Center's global warming and water supply litigation and listings and you've got a plan for getting people to move elsewhere, except that people will have nowhere with a good economy to move to, since any growth at all will be stopped because it could lead to a chunk of ice melting of Kamchatka somewhere.

We have seen the enemy; it is within, and its weapon is the Endangered Species Act.

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