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Re: NFC: Thread that won't go away. [Fish briefly mentioned, Josh. Honest!]
Hi Wright
its funny reading your post and thinking just how far
away that we are , and yet how close :-)
I am an unabashed 'tree hugger', but, the Sierra Club
frustrates me to the point of giving me gas.
Dont know how old you are, but I am old enough to
remember when the Cleveland River, in Cleveland Ohio
caught fire, and took most of a day to be put out. We
have come a long ways since then, but have a long ways
to go. Too long to me.
Yes, it is warmer, and, no I dont have an answer as to
why, its most likely one of the three things I posted
earlier, greenhouse warming natural with mans
increase, natural warming cycle, or a combo. It will
take a lot more data to nail it down then we have.
Meanwhile the glaciers are melting and the ocean warms
and the jet streams do weird things. This I think that
we can agree on.
I think we share the concerns for the conservation of
our streams, lakes, seas and their inhabitants. I am
VERY concerned over the cyprinodons in the southwest
as the sw continues in a multi-year drought, and even
rivers are dropping in water. Yet the iceplants along
california and other state highways get irrigated. The
cotton irrigation in arizona is just a little less
braindead.Irrigating crops that are in major surplus
and near unsaleable is a no-brainer. These things give
me major gas. Not enough for an SUV but too much for
me. And yes, I also think it is braindead for many to
design, build, sell and buy vehicles that only get 16
mpg in 2001 while my plymouth grand voyageur, nine yrs
old gets 28 mpg and holds camping gear and supplies
for three for a week.
This kind of blatant ignoring of conservation is to me
akin to that which resulted in the Cleveland River
catching on fire. There are still far more communities
and cities polluting their rivers then the famous
'farm runoffs' that everyone still cites.
Eastman Kodak is STILL the major polluter in Rochester
NY but seems to enjoy a charmed protected status and
is most likely the reason why the NY DEC still says to
cut the bellys off of most Lake Ontario fish.
Meanwhile, they and other polluters like Dupont have
properties in the Rochester area that are forever
dangerous, and unsaleable unless 'someone' (read
taxpayers) pull them down and excavate the ground on
which they stand/stood
under extreme hazmat conditions.
Bottom line Wright, we arnt out of the pollution
jungle yet and the trip is deadly. On the plus side,
we are SLOWLY learning where and when and how 'clear
cutting is on the plus side(in checkerboard patterns
of moderate acreage), education is increasing , but we
still allow clear cut of old stands to go to Japan for
toilet paper and pulpwood at bargain
basement-close-out sale prices. Drilling in the arctic
reserve would give us six months worth of oil, period,
while we have far more available in the midwest which
is deeper then the companys want to drill.
And, we should be pursuing , big time other energy
sources. The hybrid cars are encouraging, but so is
methanol as a fuel source. If we can keep from
irrigating the corn, which Nebraska does, and has
almost destroyed their aquifers in the process. It is
conceivable that in our life times Nebraska could
become again THE 'great american desert'. This is the
only doomsday prediction I will make here. Its a real
possibility.
My glass isnot half empty, its half full and I am
looking for ways to fill it overflowing. As a
practicing fisheries biologist I have seen too many
species leave our various waters and the continued
existence of many is very questionable. Every little
success is heartening, but, its a continuous battle,
not one in which a victory is won forever, what we
win in species survival today can be lost next week or
next month. That is also a national
truism/problem/danger.I am VERY concerned over our
various aquifers which are being drawn on like they
are infinite bank accounts while the truth is that
many are seriously and dangerously overdrawn. And thus
are drawing dangeroulsy on others, as california has
taken to for the past fifty years and seems to think
is its 'natural right'.
A state with a beautiful mediterranean climate has
tried to 'terraform' itself into a subtropical rain
forest, without its own rain to achieve it, and
arrogantly draws down the aquifers in the surrounding
states. Major no-brainer by most of the western
states.
Here in NYS I am totally frustrated by the 'official'
position that endangered or extirpated species willnot
be reintroduced to their former range, even if
conditions causing the decline have been improved
and/or turned around. Research is done only on the
game fish while the most that non-game species get is
an occasional survey.
Lotta problems , but there are solutions.
Unfortunately I think politics will be the driving
force behind many
'solutions' many of which will be irrelevent, but
maybe we will get some good things along with the
windowashing. I think that long term education is the
key, and the projects like the AAT will bear fruit for
years down the line. Its unfortunate that cutsy
projects like reintroducing river otters will take
precedence to restoration of non-game fish species,
but, on the plus side they promote conservation
interest. Population sprawl is still the number one
destroyer of habitat, and the only solution I see to
that is strict zoning and green set-asides and
reserves. We are heading towards a 'national burb'
with a few green areas spread through it. And some
brown ones where there is no longer any water.
Enjoy, I look forward to your opinions and suggestions
on how to fill our glasses.
jake
the unabashed tree hugger
--- Wright Huntley <huntley1 at home_com> wrote:
> "Global Warming" is a hot button that gets folks
> totally worked up. It is
> particularly obvious among those of us concerned
> with conservation and our
> native flora and fauna. We care, and are often quite
> outspoken about it.
> Wheeee!
>
> I'm no exception to that, and I think I have paid
> enough dues to be entitled
> to a bit of say, now and then. I hardly expect all
> to agree with me, and I'm
> certainly most willing to learn, if I'm wrong. How
> else should we do serious
> conservancy?
>
> When it is a political issue, that has received
> enormous amounts of (often
> quite erroneous) propaganda in the mandatory
> government schools and in the
> more statist-oriented parts of the press and TV, we
> get deluged with the
> emotional backwash that such a condition always
> generates. "Help! Chicken
> Little was right!!! Help, help help! Do something,
> even if it is wrong!"
>
> When it gets added to the "PC" situation we have
> allowed to grow in
> academia, the garnering of good data, and the
> application of reasoned
> analysis, become hopelessly tainted.
>
> [Today, almost anyone in biology, climatology, or
> meteorolgy that publishes
> information that disagrees with the Sierra Club's
> statist/racist political
> agenda is ostracised, loses his/her grants, and may
> be fired (if untenured,
> as all productive academics tend to be). It takes no
> time for smart Profs to
> get the message. I resigned after 11 fine years at a
> famous University over
> an issue of academic freedom, so I know, personally,
> just how hard that is
> to do for most academics.]
>
> I'd like to toss out a few "facts" that I *think*
> are true, and suggest that
> anyone with good information to refute them please
> let me know, so I don't
> continue to misinform anyone. [My opinions are
> another matter. They are
> subject to review only if you first convince me my
> facts really are in
> error. :-)]
>
> I'll start by referring you to the short article at:
> http://www.mackinac.org/3536.
>
> I have reviewed some of the background material used
> for that article, and,
> as a scientist/engineer, I find it to be pretty
> credible, on average.
>
> Here are a few interesting facts:
>
> Long-range weather prediction is not possible, at
> this time. That's a fact.
> Summer's hotter and winter's colder is about the
> best we can do, right now.
> <VBG> El Nino is a predictible press phenomenon,
> more than a meterological
> one. :-)
>
> We don't even get it right on next week's rain, most
> of the time, and those
> satellite-fed models are far more refined, data
> intensive and polished than
> the studies on CO2 and global climate change have
> ever tended to be.
>
> Major climate change always includes much greater
> fluctuations than any
> recent measurements can cover, and no trend can be
> confidently predicted
> with a model that utterly fails to read through the
> "noise." We are coming
> out of one big and one little ice age, so hopefully
> the trend *is* to get
> warmer for a while. Predicting on a finer scale than
> that is like trying to
> do next week's rain. Pretty iffy, at best.
>
> [Anyone here ever heard of "Chaos Theory." I know
> more statistics, and
> particularly, statistical communication theory, than
> most "calamitologists,"
> so think I'm capable of evaluating their analyses.
> Their data sampling
> appears simply inadequate to make really *confident*
> predictions of *any*
> medium-term trend, at this time. I'm not in the
> business, so I don't review
> all of them, though, by a long shot.]
>
> It *is* getting a little warmer right now, but so
> what? That trend is *way*
> down in the noise. [Yeah! The "little ice-age" of
> medaeval times is finally
> passing! ;-)]
>
> We have 3 times as much forested land in the US at
> the end of the 20th
> century as we had in the early 1900s.
>
> Those forests are such gobblers of CO2 they actually
> make the modern US a
> net *consumer* of CO2 and not a generator of any
> excess!
>
> The total human contribution to the CO2 in the
> atmosphere (perhaps primarily
> through burning hydrocarbons) is less than 5% of all
> the CO2 already there.
> [That is the *only* part we could actually affect
> with "Kyoto"-like
> restrictions -- that marginal 5%! What is that? 5%
> of 3 parts per million of
> air? I forget the normal concentration.]
>
> The vast bulk of that 5% appeared before 1940, BTW,
> and before the greatly
> expanded world-wide use of hydrocarbon fuels in the
> *last* half of the
> previous century. The mysterious CO2-increase
> deficit since 1940 hasn't been
> completely explained.
>
> "Kyoto" would have reduced that 5% by less than half
> by nearly destroying
> the industrial world with emission restrictions that
> were far more draconian
> than were ever printed in Time magazine.
>
> The most credible predictions of reduction in
> temperature increase by fully
> implementing "Kyoto" was only a bit over 1 degree C
> in 10 years. BFD!
>
> The effect of that decrease is likelier to be
> slightly more harmful than
> beneficial, BTW. It does nothing to help rainforests
> recover, for example,
> and shortens growing seasons. Certainly it was far,
> far below the noise
> threshold in the limited global measurements
> available. Recent ocean
> water-temperature readings are blowing much of the
> data used by the NSF
> report out of the water, anyway. [Pardon the use of
> the cliche! ;-) Their
> models mostly are 100% atmosphere-readings based and
> about 1/10th as
> credible as the local TV forecaster's ability to
> predict rain next week.
> Water has a *lot* more thermal mass than air. Ocean
> temperatures have
> received relatively little study, though, until too
> recently to be even
> included in the reports.]
>
> Recent studies have also shown that the oceanic
> algae are restricted in
> growth primarily by shortage of iron, and that a
> small spreading of
> micronized iron compounds over the central Pacific
> could have a huge effect
> on reducing CO2, as compared to "Kyoto," at an
> utterly insignificant cost.
> That is *most* unpopular with those convinced that
> "industrialization" is
> the enemy, though. [Note that "Kyoto" exempts the
> big socialist countries,
> like China, and focuses on controlling/hindering
> capitalism -- the greatest
> force for environmental protection we now have. Read
> the article!]
>
> What does this all have to do with native fish?
>
> Well, we who keep fish are more likely to be
> sensitive to the enormous
> impact of tiny things like iron (or other
> micronutrients) on our plants
> (read that "our algae"), and their ability to suck
> up CO2. :-) I can
> understand the significance of a tiny change, as
> well as the presence of a
> still-not-understood "flywheel" that moderates
> climate change. I see the
>
=== message truncated ===
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