Global warming to significantly decrease polar bear population

Polar bears are one of the many mammals that are being affected by global warming.  According to the United States Geological Survey, the polar bear population will decrease by two-thirds between now and 2050:

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 —and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning seaice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecastFriday.

Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the westcoast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expectedto survive through the end of the century, said the U.S. GeologicalSurvey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.

USGSprojects that polar bears during the next half-century will disappearalong the north coasts of Alaska and Russia and lose 42 percent of theArctic range they need to live in during summer in the Polar Basin whenthey hunt and breed. A polar bear's life usually lasts about 30 years.

Here is the report itself.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to add the polar bear to the list of endangered species.  On Friday, they released a statement reiterating their report about "polar bear extirpation due to the loss of sea ice."

This is extremely good news to hear from these government agencies, and somewhat surprising.  In Bush's first term, he appointed more than 100 one-time industry insiders as regulators.

Then again, these days global warming is getting fairly difficult to deny -- especially when the US acknowledges that more arctic oil will become available once the ice melts in a few decades.