Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It’s the first step toward reversing the animals’ downward spiral to potential extinction.

But it does not go far enough.

Answers to global warming have to be part of this country’s actions — and those of other countries — to save the polar bear as well as other species threatened by rising temperatures caused by trapped greenhouse gases.

The administration finally has come to believe most scientific evidence that Arctic sea ice is melting fast. Kempthorne acknowledged that polar bears from Alaska to Greenland are threatened by the loss of that ice. And he accepted the cause of the melting: global warming.

But Kempthorne dismissed use of the Endangered Species Act protections as a way to attack global warming. The law is “not the right tool” to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from industries, power plants and cars, he said.

Under the law, regulatory agencies are required to determine the effect of any future actions on listed species. What policies the administration adopts — or refuses to adopt — on global warming will have an impact on the polar bear’s future.

The polar bear lives on the ice and hunts mostly seals from it. As ice floes disappear because of warming Arctic temperatures, the bears are put in danger. Some scientists have predicted that summer ice could disappear entirely as early as 2040.

Scientists have found the bodies of polar bears that starved because they couldn’t reach food. Others have drowned while attempting to swim long distances after being trapped on small ice floes.

Without a strong U.S. commitment to fight the causes of global warming, the polar bear’s listing under the Endangered Species Act will not do much.

Such a commitment, unfortunately, may have to wait for a new administration. Bush long has fought any actions that would turn around global warming.

The three major presidential candidates — John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — support mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The country needs to pursue increased research into clean energy production and strong regulation of carbon-dioxide polluters.