Interior Department officials -- who have maintained for months that they did not analyze how human activities were affecting Arctic warming and endangering polar bears' survival -- completed a review examining studies of this very subject less than a week before proposing that the government list the bears as threatened with extinction, according to the department's own documents.
The report includes information about how the Arctic could be protected, discussions omitted in the document proposing that polar bears be listed as threatened. A major threat to polar bears is shrinking polar sea ice, a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. There are, in fact, options which could reduce that risk.