The polar bear has become the poster child for global warming:

We are constantly bombarded on television (news & public service announcements) with the same file footage of that sickly, dirty, obviously exhausted polar bear cub, struggling helplessly to climb aboard an ice floe-- a victim of the "melting Arctic ice cap."

Yes; the poor, forlorn polar bears; what shall become of these beleaguered, cuddly creatures?

But these lovable animals are the only bear species that actively hunts humans for food. And left to their own devices, they could easily survive on a seasonal diet of Inuit Eskimos, or even an occasional stranded ice road trucker.

Recently a federal appeals court threw out a Shell oil and gas leasing program in the Alaskan Chukchi Sea; and of course, it was all because of "concerns" about the potential harm to the polar bears.

But the real polar bear problem may be the threat to our national security; the bears have become pawns in the radical left's attempt to restrict our country's most vital economic mission-- domestic energy exploration. 

But polar bear habitats aside, one thing reamains clear-- America is a nation that runs on oil; and as the old oilmen like to say..."A country that runs on oil, can't afford to run out."

During the Bush years, administration officials maintained that drilling for Alaskan oil, and the survival of the polar bear, "were NOT interconnected.”

But in the Obama era. Edward J. Markey-- Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence-- now claims that indeed, they ARE "intimately connected", and has introduced legislation to reverse Bush's “oil-first, polar-bear-second” energy policy.

Chairman Markey recently was quoted: “It is time to put the interests of an industry awash in profits aside, and consider the vast impacts the Bush administration’s foolish decisions have had on an imperiled species, and on the planet.”

Markey will continue to block Arctic oil exploration at every turn-- using the bears as his "cover story." 

In the 60’s and 70’s, polar bears were being shot, and hunted down wholesale by the thousands. Currently an estimated 1200 polar bears are  being "harvested" per year; mostly in the northwestern territories of Canada. 

If Markey and the environmentalists are so gravely concerned, why do they remain silent about the hunting? Why doesn't Markey push for a "Serengeti-type" bear habitat around Hudson Bay, where --despite the so-called warming climate-- polar bear populations are on the upswing.

Polar bears have been around for as long as time. They have survived on their own through natural warming/cooling cycles long before man became a factor. So why all of a sudden are the bears incapable of surviving now, when they have done so in the past?

And why have they emerged to become the focus of the debate about global warming?

Markey (and the the left) knows that it's a convenient way for storybook emotions to trump common sense: "Protect" the polar bears; save the environment; block  drilling-- which raises fuel prices-- and (drum roll, please), opens the way for ALTERNATIVE energy sources.

Currently, U.S. foreign oil imports are nearing 70% of our annual supply, rising at an alarming rate of 2% per year-- the same rate of decline of our aging oilfields in the Southwest and Gulf of Mexico.

At this pace, by 2019, we'll be importing 90% of our oil from abroad.

What if there was a Mideast war, and oil exports to the U.S. cut off? How would we then supply our military after our strategic petroleum reserve goes dry? What then?

Why does the $700 billion we pay to the Arabs continue to be our chief annual export? Why can't we drill offshore in Alaska; are polar bears really that important?

All we need do is look to the Southern hemisphere.

Since November of 2007, Brazil has had two mega-sized oil discoveries off the coast of Sao Paulo-- among the biggest ever made in the oil industry-- estimated between 12 - 20 billion total barrels. The first commercial oil production is scheduled to begin in late 2010. 

These discoveries literally changed Brazil's status overnight, from a net energy importer to a future exporter. Result? Do the math; 20 billion x $70/barrel = 1.4 trillion dollars of wealth that Brazil will realize over approximately the next decade, as they harvest their petroleum bounty.

Meanwhile, back in the good ol' USA, we continue to worry about polar bears, as our deficits rise, the dollar shrinks; American drivers are looking at three/four dollar gallon gasoline, and our economy continues to crater.

Chances are (within the next five years) a combination of drilling restrictions and falling oil supplies is going to make gasoline too expensive for routine use in America's 250 million private automobiles.

When news of Brazil's amazing oil strike was flashed across the country, it touched off a wild, national celebration; the Brazilians knew it would put money in the pockets of every citizen in the form of social services, government infrastructure improvements, and basically, lifting all boats on a rising economic tide of oil exports.

So why can't we use the Brazilian model? Why should we be the only country worried about polar bears, oil splls, and the like? Deepwater offshore drilling techniques-- developed by U.S. engineers-- have made the process virtually hazard free, and it's been adopted by China, Brazil, Norway, and around the world.

The National Geological Survey has estimated that there are anywhere from 90-160 billion barrels of oil north of the Arctic Circle; at current crude prices, 160 billion x $70 = 11.2 TRILLION dollars-- money that roughly equals our national debt; a total that keeps rising as we continue to borrow money from the Chinese, and then send to OPEC.

But the leftists in Congress (and the Whitehouse) are quite content to preserve this insane staus quo, and watch our standard of living slide toward that of the third world.

The more the left can deny Americans of the wealth that is theirs, the more political control they will garner, as a struggling populace must look to Washington DC to solve economic problems that wouldn't exist were it not for these power-crazed, callous liberals.

But there is a simple solution: Why don't we build a Gitmo for polar bears? Would it not be a lot cheaper than to keep importing oil, and leaving12 trillion bucks in the ground?

Given that the U.S.will continue one of the world's biggest consumers of petroleum, why should we continue to be its biggest importer of oil?

But even if there were no polar bears around in a few decades, would it really change anything? Aren’t efforts to list the polar bear as endangered (or threatened) just liberal attempts to control our lives, and put the UN (and the leftists) in charge of us all?

If the polar bears went away-- so what? Polar bears are hardly the first-- and will definitely not be the last-- of animals to become extinct; this planet could survive just fine without them.

Why should we bankrupt ourselves for 25,000 polar bears? Since when did they get the vote? With so much attention on animals, where’s the concern for people?

100 years from now, people will look upon this present time in sheer bafflement:

History will be written about how a nation-- once the envy of theworld-- literally turned against itself and self-destructed, over a dog-eat-dog environmental argument; an apocalypse of ecological insanity versus common sense-- a nation that caused its own economic downfall, because animal rights had surperseded human rights.

America is a nation that can't afford to wait around for $10/ gallon gas. We need to develop our resources now, and let the polar bears fend for themselves; there are more than enough tasty seals around to keep them happy.