San Jose Mercury News: The polar bear has become an icon of global warming, often pictured amid sheets of melting Arctic ice. Now Ursus maritimus has become a flash point, not just a symbol, in the climate change debate. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a year ago to list the polar bear as a threatened species because its habitat is rapidly melting away. But on the eve of a final decision, the agency on Jan. 7 postponed it by up to a month. Conveniently for the oil-centric Bush …