By Marc Morano and Matthew Dempsey U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Minority Committee

The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing the polar bear a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. This report details the scientists debunking polar bear endangerment fears and features a sampling of the latest peer-reviewed science detailing the natural causes of recent Arctic ice changes.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s.  A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations may now be near historic highs. The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future. And the methodology of these computer models is being challenged by many scientists and forecasting experts.

See the many recent peer-reviewed papers challenging these models and debunking this fear here.

UPDATE: See Senate testimony this week by Professor Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in front of the EPW as transribed by SPPI here.

By Jim Pedersen, Guest Columnist in Seattle PI.com

Can a reputable scientist be a “denier?” If the evidence of man-caused global warming is as overwhelming as the left claims it is, why the lack of rational, intelligent public debate between qualified people of opposing views? Doesn’t this make more sense than believers simply brushing off deniers? Given the chance, wouldn’t believers want to publicly articulate their overwhelming scientific evidence and silence the naysayers or “deniers” once and for all?

The reason this hasn’t happened is because the science is not settled. Man-caused global warming isn’t scientific fact; it’s an article of faith for the left—the stuff of belief. In the realm of global warming, environmentalism has become a faith-based movement not unlike Christianity. There is a sad irony to this situation. Nobody with any common sense wants to destroy the environment. Christians believe that God made us stewards over this planet, and he will hold us responsible for our actions toward it. Christians want a nice world for their children to grow up in, too.

Before we pass laws that ruin economies and do real and immediate harm to people, let’s get to the bottom of this problem. It’s supposed to be about science and the stakes are high. Man-caused global warming must be established and proven by the scientific method. Anything less is alarmist and irresponsible. If believers and deniers are certain of their positions, they should embrace this opportunity. See full column here.

By Chris Horner

The gang over at DailyKos are upset that Marc Morano, Senate Republican Communications Director for the Environment and Public Works Committee is . . . communicating with the public. This objection raises questions about NASA employees like James Hansen - purportedly “muzzled” for being told, not to stop speaking to the public, but to speak to science and leave policy to the policy people; and spokesman Gavin Schmidt - who regularly posts over at RealClimate on the taxpayer dime (and presumably using other taxpayer resources, as well, if his times of posting are any indication: What, again, is that reason that Executive branch employees aren’t supposed to access private email accounts from work?).

So, to put it gently, Morano is to be muzzled to stop him from performing a specific function of his employment; meanwhile, you and I are to pay people for doing things that are outside of their job description. Welcome (yet again) to the world of global-warming double standards.

Christopher C. Horner serves as a Senior Fellow at CEI. As an attorney in Washington, DC Horner has represented CEI as well as scientists and Members of the U.S. House and Senate on matters of environmental policy in the federal courts including the Supreme Court. He has written on numerous topics in publications ranging from law reviews to legal and industrial trade journals to print and online opinion pages, and is the author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism” (Regnery, 2007), which spent half of 2007 on the New York Times bestseller list. He frequently posts in Planet Gore and this is where this piece appeared today.