I am still recovering from yesterday, which felt a bit like the inevitable scene at the end of every Godfather movie when everyone gets gunned down at once.

The big news came down with the announcement of the Department of Interior's Endangered Species Act rule changes which released federal agencies from the burden of consulting with actual scientists to ensure their projects do not damage wild life and wild places. Everyone knew it was coming at some point, but the announcement was sudden.

But the hit men at Department of Interior were not done. During the hullabaloo that followed the rule changes, we got word that another modification had been finalized. The recent polar bear endangered species listing had been modified to exclude oil and gas activities from the list of things that could be considered a threat to the bears.

Wow. I will let Andrew blog on this as he is much closer to this story, having been part of the case from the beginning.

But watching from the sidelines, I am left scratching my head.

How do you pick and choose the threats? Either we are protecting polar bears or we are not... To exclude the oil industry and say we are protecting polar bears is just peddling a cynical illusion...

It is no more real than Luca Brazzi or Michael Corleone, but just as scary.

Photo by Yukon White Light via Flickr