At the intersection - some might say train-wreck - of politics and science, the latter often gets mistaken for the former, and science often gets treated as nothing more than another political opinion. Case in point: the Alaska State Legislature has decided that federal plans to extend threatened status to the polar bear simply don't jive with the political necessities of supporting the energy industry and hewing to party line. Only problem is, the scientists don't really agree with that one.

So the legislature decided to buy some scientists to offer a "dissenting viewpoint" and approved funds for an "academic-based" conference to undermine the public perception that global warming poses a threat to polar bears. Says House Speaker John Harris, a Republican from the apparently irony-free district of Valdez, "We want to have the money to hire scientists to answer the Interior (Department) scientists."

This is what is known as "doing it wrong".

Alaska's choice of response to the Department of the Interior's soon-to-be finding that the polar bear should be added to the list of threatened species is as revealing as the language they employ: rather than directly challenge the ruling, they elect to obfuscate, confuse, and spread manufactured uncertainty. Meanwhile, the conclusions of the state's own wildlife scientists have yet to be released, and may never see the light of day unless the Alaska Department of Law releases them under open-records laws.

Meanwhile, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has publicly released predictions of record low Arctic sea ice in 2008, and predicts that the Arctic may be ice-free by 2050, drastically reducing available polar bear habitat. The best available research suggests that arctic, polar, and alpine areas - and the biodiversity they harbor - will be among the earliest and most severe victims of climate change. So why is it necessary to hold an intellectually bankrupt pseudo-scientific conference to defend the political priorities of Alaskan politicians?

Once again, the intellectual relativism of politics, where every opinion is just as valid as any other and where the informed and expert are forced to defend their opinions against the beliefs of ideologues, infects the environmental policy debate. It keeps us EnviroWonks in business, but it's disheartening just the same. The Alaska legislature's blatant manipulation of science and open disdain for the scientific process stands out for its staggering audacity, however; while the marginalization of science to fit the goals of one's party and/or campaign supporters is nothing new, the lack of subtlety of this one bugs us.

Not only have the politicians decided that the scientists are simply wrong, they're openly bribing whatever motley crew of crackpots they can lash together to parrot their predetermined conclusions, and never mind that federal, state, and academic researchers all over the country have produced hard data demonstrating otherwise.