Good news for bees, bad news for bears (of the polar variety)

First off, this seems like good news for domesticated pollinating honeybees, but I'm not totally sure. Given the recent bad news, mostly the troubling colony collapse disorder (upon which the biomedical sleuths have probably found a true cause, which I'll have to track down again), this seems good. But there's a problematic passage that I just don't get.

Domesticated bee numbers soar amid buzzing demand

The lead sounds good for the domesticated variety:
"The number of domesticated bees is on the rise worldwide despite declining numbers of wild honey bees in the United States and Europe, a study said Thursday.

"The honey bee decline observed in the USA and in other European countries including Great Britain, which has been attributed in part to parasitic mites and more recently to colony collapse disorder, could be misguiding us to think that this is a global phenomenon," said Marcelo Aizen of Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Argentina."

Skipping on down a bit, this then reads: "Researchers found that commercial domesticated bee hives have increased 45 percent in the past 50 years, to match growing demand for honey among a growing human population, but not necessarily for pollination purposes."

But here's the part I don't get: "But demand for other popular crops such as fruit and nuts, which do depend on pollination by bees and other insects, has tripled in the past half century, raising doubts that there are enough insects to do the task."

So the increased agricultural demand for honeybees is outstripping their reproduction rate? Seems logical -- breed more honeybees! The reports on CCD made it seem like their demise was imminent; I guess not (but the U.S. and European situation is apparently still uncertain).

ON THE POLAR BEAR FRONT
Obama Administration Upholds Bush Polar Bear Rule

"Saying the Endangered Species Act is not the right tool to control global warming, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that he will leave in place a special rule created by the Bush administration that limits protections for the polar bear under the Act. The polar bear was listed as threatened under the Act on May 14, 2008 because climate change is melting the species' sea ice habitat, leaving bears unable to hunt. The Bush administration imposed rule 4(d) to ensure the listing would not require new efforts to tackle global warming or put new restrictions on oil and gas development in polar bear habitat."

This has not gone over well, to put it mildly:

"The Interior Department will have to defend its position in court. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity, and Greenpeace initiated a legal challenge to the 4(d) rule last May and today Andrew Wetzler, director of the NRDC's Wildlife Conservation Program, said the legal action will proceed."

Does the Endangered Species Act have teeth or not? Well, we should find out -- because anything that the API thinks is good for fossil fuel energy is not good for the future of Earth's environment.

"American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said, "We welcome the administration's decision because we, like Secretary Ken Salazar, recognize that the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation's carbon emissions. Instead, we need a comprehensive, integrated energy and climate strategy to address this complex, global challenge."

If there aren't enough incentives to change, change won't happen. The protection of the polar bear under the ESA is one way to make change happen. I hope the Obama Administration (and the W administration) lose this one.