Save the Polar Bears!

My comment added to the petition by Defenders of Wildlife to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

It's bad enough - worse than we think - when species most of us have never heard of go extinct, eliminating another piece of the web of life in which we have evolved to thrive. When species we have grown up loving are allowed to disappear, it is a symbol both of how hard we have become, and how oblivious we have become to our own survival as the hands of the "Doomsday Clock" are moved toward midnight. The same global warming that threatens the polar bear was likely a major contributor to the intensity of Hurricane Katrina. I was recently in New Orleans, where almost a year and half after Katrina very few people have moved back into their damaged homes - another symbol of how hardened and oblivious we have become.