Human activity threatens the extinction of species at three levels. The first, and most direct, is hunting. Then there is direct habitat destruction by farming or construction. And finally there is the indirect threat from habitat loss caused by climate change, which in turn is mostly caused by humans. Of these, it is the last that is easily the most important. Polar bears have been hunted since the arrival of hunter-gatherer Homo sapiens; they have been part of the Inuit economy for as long as that society existed admittedly a small part and mostly without high-powered rifles.
Western urban dislike of hunting should not distract us from the big issue but it can be mobilised to guide people to it. Earlier this year, we reported that Zac Goldsmith, David Cameron's environment adviser, complained that it was easy to raise money to "save" particular animals, whales, pandas and now polar bears but difficult to raise money to "campaign for increasing the fuel efficiency of cars to combat global warming... even though polar bears will not survive climate change".
That is plainly true, but he was wrong to imply that the "soft, feel good things" somehow got in the way of the "grittier stuff". If people care about the fate of polar bears then it is not difficult to persuade them that the real threat to their survival does not come from hunters but from global warming gases produced by humanity's energy hungry prosperity.
Nor is it hard to convert anger at the bloodlust of power sled tourists into a more reasoned critique of the irresponsibility of shooting animals as their habitat melts beneath them. Indeed, the ratchet effect of emotive symbolism is already working. Polar bears are likely to be listed in January as a "threatened" species under the US Endangered Species Act, based on a scientific assessment of the impact of global warming.
Unfortunately, this ratchet effect is working too slowly. Yesterday, for example, the US and Australia both countries previously in the front ranks of climate change scepticism signed a declaration by the Asia Pacific Economic Co operation forum. It did not even promise to "consider", as the G8 richest nations did, the target of halving global emissions by 2050.
