Amazing polar discoveries

It's not clear who ought to be more happy. Polar bears or environmental activists? Canada, Greenland (Denmark), Norway, Russia and the United States declared that the global warming is the single largest threat to the remaining population (20-25,000) of polar bears.

A modest fanfare of the domestic press and WWF heralded Canadian signature on the updated version of 1973 Polar Bear Agreement for acknowledging both the global warming and the threat to polar bears: "The parties agreed that long-term conservation of polar bears depends upon successful mitigation of climate change." So far so good but not new. Changes to a particular species' natural habitat, no matter how induced, do affect the species' ability to prosper and survive. But then, it's better than nothing, and it's certainly newsworthy.

What's not so praiseworthy is the lack of a proper, concrete real-world follow-up to the declaration, there's not even an obligatory call to the UN. Signing up for monitoring and controlling industrial activities in the region is a matter of common sense not a Polar Bear Agreement update. Having said that, as nobody can say 'no' to a non-committing declaration interweaving the bears' survival with the global warming, the declaration makes polar bears, in a rather specific way, very lucky creatures. Unlike seals...