[Combat-wombat]

They piss me off. My parents are liberals and vote green. Now I care about the environment, much more than most conservatives. I wish there was a perty that protected the environment and was pro-gun, but there's not. I get questioned by environmentalists , "why do you support a party that hates the environment?" My answer is: Because I don't want to look back one day while I'm on a cattle car headed for a concentration camp and say, "Well, we're going to die soon because we voted for a president that took all our guns away, but at least we saved that rare Brazillian mosquito." I care about the environment, but I care more about our freedom.

[Khornet]

you're almost right.

In the liberal/green mind, no one disagrees with them except because they hate nature and want to rape her. But in reality, there's nothing inherently anti-environment about conservatism.

I don't worship Gaia. I think humans are a legitimate part of the life of this planet, and they have as much right to use it as any wild boar ripping up the forest, any termite destroying trees, any animal species driving another to extinction. Yes, we have the power to devastate the natural world more completely than other species. And yes, we have made mistakes before we understood this. But no, it's not wrong for us to affect the environment. And when we are asked to sacrifice to protect the environment, there had better be some good evidence to justify it.

But we don't get that evidence. We get emotion and Gaia-worship. So if I disagree with the Greens, I'm anti-environment. Just as when I disagree with affirmative action, it's because I'm racist. Couldn't possible be because I think a.a. is itself racist.

Don't buy into the demonizing of conservatism. Think it through for yourself.

[Battler]

You know, the human is the only species that contains defective units that not only act against its own not only in favor of other species; but in favor of other KINGDOMS (e.g. plants). And occasionally rock formations.

[Khornet]

MISANTHROPIC ENVIRONMENTALISM

The viewpoint of today's environmentalist can be summarized this way: all human needs must take a back seat to environmental needs, however small. The existence of the smallest remnant of a vanishing species of tiny creatures is sufficient to prevent the construction of facilities which will benefit the lives of millions of humans. The presence of a single rare bug or bird is sufficient to prevent a citizen from building a house on his land. The potential detrimental effect on local butterflies of a new method of protecting crops from insect pests is sufficient to prevent the use of technology which may feed starving millions.

Mark Twain, when confronted with a particularly outrageous instance of ingratitude, would remark, "That was downright French of him." I think we can say that today's environmentalists are being equally French, because the source and foundation of all environmentalism is human, not animal or vegetable.

The noble wolf, Sacred Cow of the environmental movement, has never believed in game laws. He will gorge himself on prey species until the supply becomes so low that he begins to starve. The pack must then either move or dwindle in numbers, and in its new location it will behave the same way. Locusts will strip the land entirely bare in a day, sparing no living thing. Bacteria and viruses will ravage their host environment until the creature dies, and they with it. What limits the Animal Kingdom's exploitation of the earth's resources is the starvation it cyclically produces, forcing migration or mass die-off.

Only Man has game laws. Only Man decides to limit his kill and his harvest. Only Man practices stewardship of the land. He is the only defender of the environment, but, like all living creatures, he must exploit it to live. Like all his fellow inhabitants of the earth, his actions result in extinction of some species and the flourishing of others. While it is true that his technology permits exploitation on a scale impossible for other species, this power is balanced by an understanding and appreciation of the natural world that no bacterium or wolf has ever felt. That he has made destructive mistakes is nothing to the point, for as his understanding has grown, he has recognized them, regretted them, and resolved to do better. That environmentalists have driven many of these resolutions is also beside my point; it's their misanthropy with which I take issue.

The contempt for Man so characteristic of the environmental movement is not only self-righteous and arrogant; it is also a complete misunderstanding of nature, a self-serving anthropomorphizing of the universe. Man's obliteration of the Snail darter or the Buffalo is no more or less reprehensible than the countless extinctions perpetrated throughout the history of life on earth by one animal species on another. The possible elimination of an animal is not sufficient reason to stop the building of the dam, though that does not mean it should be built without thought of its effect on the natural world. But it does mean that the benefits to Man of his projects are of equal, and, sometimes, greater weight than the impact on the non-human world, because the prosperity of the human race is important to all the other species for one simple reason: we're theonly ones who really give a damn. Michael R. Bowen M.D.

[KMKeller]

I don't sweat environmentalists. They just don't realize that the earth has experienced far worse than we could ever imagine and survived quite well. It'll be here long after humankind is extinct.

[Battler]

About extinct species, I've had environmentalists quote Star Trek (5?) where the alien critters come back looking for whales. Or that some rare animal's body will contain the antidote for some apocalyptic disease.

Well, what if the aliens HATE whales and come back to destroy them and the planet they're on? What if the apocalyptic disease germinates in the rare critter; then spreads to humans?

Either is foolish speculation; but something to mention if someone brings up the "what if" foolishness.

[DRC]

Hello Combat,

I'll echo that being a conservative does not mean you hate the evironment. Quite the contrary. Think of it this way, I'm a conservative and yet I do not possess any superhuman strength nor do I have physical tolerances outside that of anyone else. So if I destroy the environment by poisoning the air and water and strip the land of all living things making the planet uninhabitable, where am I going to live?

Another talking point that is often missed by the environmentalists when talking about conservatives is that conservatism does not render one sterile. I have children and last time I thought about it I figured that I loved them very much and want only the best for them. I was also born of a mother and father and although they are getting older I have not found it in me to begin hating them, wanting to take food out of their mouths or make them have to choose between food or medications and I haven't wanted to kick them out in the street. I thought to myself one day "How can this be? I'm a conservative all the way to the bone. I must be fooling myself then." Then it hit me, the opposition is lying to gain political ground. What a revelation! Someone would lie to get in the good graces of others? Perish the thought. But it's true they do and they do it often.

So what is a conservative? Simple, a conservative is someone with intelligence and common sense that believes that liberal ideology looks good on paper but knows it isn't worth the paper it's written on in practical application. The only way liberal ideas will work is if everyone thinks and acts the same way and therein lies the problem; we don't all think and act the same way. So to get people to think and act the same way you have to condition or force them into doing so (think public/higher education, big government and Socialism all Democrat dominated issues and ideas) Conservatives want less government, less intrusion and more accountability (if you do something it is your responsibility and not societies).

I hope this clears some things up for you and gives you some talking points when addressing those without the mental capacities to understand the painfully obvious.

DRC

[roscoe]

You should know that Edward Abbey, probably the most significant environmentalist writer of the 20th century was an avid supporter of the 2nd amendment.

he said:
"The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an 'equalizer.' Egalite implies liberte. And always will. Let us hope our weapons are never needed - but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny... If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government — and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."

Incidentally, environmentalists are not against people in the abstract. It is just that there are too many (a little birth-control would help) and they have a very short-term view of the world. As in, we need oil RIGHT NOW, we will worry about the future when we get there.

And, also, that whole concern about some obscure species preventing our god-given right to strip mine wherever we want is just a straw-man argument. Those species are often indicator species, so their health indicates the health of the ecosystem. And when that is not the case, well, given the human-related extinction rate since the end of the Pleistocene, we ought to make reducing extinctions a priority.

I personally wish Teddy Roosevelt had set a lot more land aside. He had the right idea - nature has an inherent value and needs to be protected from short-sighted and greedy humans. We are smart enough to figure out how to survive in this world without putting another oil well in a nature preserve.

[Battler]

"Greedy humans"

What about greed for trees and forest land?

Environmentalists do not really value forest land/etc. If you value soemething you will buy it.

They just like the abstract thought of there being trees out there because of the hippie bull**** they chant. If we drilled in "Anwar" they'd never know about it if we never told them about it, as most of the whiners will never go there.

[Doc]

Difference between a developer and an environmentalist?

The environmentalist already has his cabin in the woods...:neener:

[Malone LaVeigh]

More straw man. It's so easy to attack something you created...

[roscoe]

this is probably not worth getting into it over, but . . .

Battler:

What about greed for trees and forest land?

You might want to check the definition of greed, since environmentalists don't want to acquire anything.

Environmentalists do not really value forest land/etc. If you value soemething you will buy it.

Apparently you have a different sense of what 'value' means. There a lot of things people value that they won't or can't buy. And anyway, environmentalists regularly purchase land to preserve it, when they can. Other that that, I can see that you have no idea of why environmentalists try to protect the environment.

and Khornet no, environmentalists are not misanthropes, they just don't think that the ultimate good is defined by what benefits humans in the short term. The big problem is how short-sighted people are. That is why we have so many superfund sites - someone thought, well we need this chemical now, screw the future. And as for Dr. Bowen's comments on extinctions, he simply just doesn't about the history of extinctions through the millennia. The fact is, extinctions have accelerated at an exponential rate because of human intervention.

There are some people around here who seem to have no idea what environmentalism even is. A lot of environmentalism is specifically pro-human. When it comes to environmentalists demanding clean water and air, that is so people downstream and downwind of the coal plant can drink it and breath it. A lot of environmentalists don't deal with anything but issues that relate to humans and their health.

But in the liberal-bashing around here you won't get a mention of it. What you will get is people who are angry about the snail darter being protected, without even knowing why it is being protected (see comments about indicator species above).

[six 4 sure]

I’m a Mining Engineer, although currently unemployed, and I have done battle with these people directly and indirectly for the past couple of years. I’m here to tell you most of these people have the same agenda that gun grabbers do (usually the same politicians). These people aren’t looking for a compromise, they’re looking to put you out of business. I don’t think it’s coincidence that a large portion of the areas now designated as “wilderness areas” are historic mining districts.

Call me crazy if you want, but I truly believe that there are ways to extract/harvest/mine the earth’s natural resources in a profitable manner all while inflicting “minimal” damage to the environment, but I am definitely in the minority.

I could rant on this subject for hours.

Six

[Khornet]

data re: accelerated extinction rates? We've supposedly had massive extinctions earlier in earth's history; what's so big about the 'modern' era?

"Indicator" species: indicators of what, exactly? I mean, besides what that particular species is going through at the moment? This is called extrapolating from the specific to the general, which is, you guessed it, junk science.

I think if you follow these two concepts back through their reasoning chains, you're going to find some huge, unsupported assumptions at the foundation. The conclusion could, of course, be correct. But if so, you should be able to show me. And if you can't, then you have no justification for demanding that I change my world to fit your feelings.

Look, what I'm trying to say here is that people have got to get a better idea of what good science really is, and how to recognize junk science. There's tons of it out there, and it's being used to drive public policy. And, I might add, if you question it, you're a bad person. But if you REALLY care about the environment, you're gonna need the truth. You're gonna need to know what works and what doesn't, and why. That means you need honest scientific debate. I stand by my point: the environmental movement does not tolerate honest scientific debate.

[Ian Sean]

I guess nobody here ever heard of the Pittman-Robertson Act or the Dingell-Johnson Act.

Damn near all fishing and hunting supplies, licenses, guns and ammo have an excise tax levied on them. This money is returned to the states for conservation uses. The USFWS is one of the organizations. WE pay for it, taking care of the game lands and state forests and fish stocking etc...WE pay for it.

Your enviro-hiker, tree hugger doesn't. WE do. I don't care how many acres they buy and donate, its a drop in the bucket compared to just the recreational fishing industry alone at 50 billion a year. I have no idea about hunting and shooting but I'm sure it is similar.

As far as environmental rules go US industry has some of the worlds strictest compliance regulations. Why do you think there was such a huge outcry against Kyoto ratification? All of the developing third-world hell holes were let off the hook entirely for environmental compliance. The list of alleged developing nations was even slanted, countries such as China and Mexico off the hook? No way. Thank god it wasn't enacted.

Let me pose a question: Has air pollution increased or decreased in the USA over the past 30 years?

Six 4 sure, I feel your pain, I too am in the industry (not mining though) and despise mis-informed enviro-nuts and the lies they spew.

[DRC]

What everyone should know but typically isn't privy to ;)

I'm trying to find the link to the exact figures but one of the things that most people don't know and have difficulty equating is the actual amount of land being occupied by human beings. The last figure I read showed that only 6.2% of the land in the US was actually occupied by human beings. As I said I'm still trying to find the link for proof of this statement since I'm suffering from CRS and can't remember where I read the article but it did make sense to me.

As to semantics and propoganda people have affixed words like "deforestation" "Human encroachment" and "Developement" to all things human when expansion is the key objective. None of these words mean what they've been given the definition for in real terms. Deforestation is anytime a tree is felled and an environmentalist doesn't think it should have been cut down. Human encroachment is anytime a person wants to build a home or a business in an area or place where an environmentalist feels it's wrong to do so (even if it's legal to do) Developement is any expansion that an environmetalist thinks is wrong and detrimental to wildlife living in the area even when the wildlife has taken up refuge BECAUSE of the developement. And so on.

Make it all sound bad and it becomes bad even when it helps. Look at the pipelines in Alaska and the Caribou. The Caribou are thriving because of the pipelines not deminishing in numbers. How many have seen a picture of the area of Anwar that we want to drill in? Anwar is nothing but miles and miles of ice and snow and the drilling local is a tiny blip on the radar compared to the whole area in and of itself. The mental pictures we're presented by the opposition to these things makes one think that the world will come to an end if these things are ever done but it's not true.

Take care folks and remember if someone says that the Spotted Snipe Lemming will become extinct if another shopping mall is built in downtown Burbank one might want to find out where the information to substantiate these claims came from before believing any of it ;)

DRC

[hammer4nc]

Agree with khornet on the junk science. But why promote such a sham? My experience is that the nameplate environmental issue is usually a thin veneer covering some ulterior driving motive. Could be a desire to control other people (thru regulation), or preserve a cushy bureaucratic position, for oneself.

More likely, however, many aspects of environmentalism have paid off handsomely, for their advocates. So called "non profit" groups, like the Nature Conservancy, Trust for Public Lands, Sierra Club, etc., are actually reaping windfalls by converting private land to govt. ownership. A multi-step process where private land use is restricted (environmental pretext) so as to be worthless for normal owners; harassed landowners "sell" to conservancy group at discount; parcels consolidated to form "crown jewel" type nature preserves; flip back to govt. agency (forest service, park service, F&W, etc.) at tremendous profit.

Another tactic used by local groups is "sue to success". File nuisance lawsuits against any industrial/resource activity that's announced, and a certain amount will settle out of court. I know of some local activists in WA state, who pursue this as a full time job, and have sent their kids to ivy league colleges on the proceeds.

The phrase "follow the money" is just as true for the enviro's as for any other special interest group operating in the political landscape. Just takes a little digging, to realize it.

[roscoe]

Khornet,

You are right about a couple of things. First, yes, extinction is a natural process, and it accelerates from time to time. But that is typically attributable to major climactic fluctuations. The extinctions that are occuring presently are not attributable to anything other than human interference. Some of the most interesting species, like the Tasmanian striped marsupial wolf were wiped out in the lifetime of my grandparents. Others, like the giant lemurs, were wiped out by first people in Madagascar around the time of the ancient Greeks. The point is that this is way out of pace with normal extinction rates during periods of climactic stability.

Secondly, yes, the use of indicator species are an example of going from the specific to the general. This is known as logical induction and it is the foundation of much of predictive science. The term 'junk science' is thrown around a lot by people who have no idea how science works, on both sides of the aisle. Plenty of studies by mining companies on impacts to wildlife are just as easily dismissed as some of the more extreme environmental studies. The best way to judge is to go directly to the scientific journals. Junk science usually doesn't make it past the editor, and if it does, other scientists are literally itching for the opportunity to prove somebody wrong. So, if you think indicator species are bunk, I encourage you to check out zoological and environmental biology journals. You might come away with a different opinion of how science works.

This is, of course, all a tangent. The real question is, whom do you trust? Do you trust mining and forestry companies to tell you anything like the truth when their interests are in extracting the maximum profit for the minimum investment and cleanup?

The fact is, it is a question of priorities. Many people are willing to allow the slow erosion of the last wild lands in the country for a few companies to make an enormous profit. I am not. I spend a significan proportion of my time in the wilderness and am sick of seeing it ground up for the sake of a few cents on the price of gas.

I say, take the long view. If we REALLY need those minerals someday, they will still be there for my grandchildren. As well as we live now, we just can't justify it.

[Malone LaVeigh]

I’m here to tell you most of these people have the same agenda that gun grabbers doThe way I look at it, "these people" are closer in nature to gun rights advocates than gun grabbers. They're fighting a rear-guard battle to preserve things that folks used to take for granted against a relentless, exploitive march toward uniformity and conformity be it in behavior or landscapes. There's a sense of the Quixotic struggle for values that not many care for any more, as long as they can be lulled into passive comfort.

A lot of folks here could stand to read some Edward Abbey.

This is called extrapolating from the specific to the general, which is, you guessed it, junk science.No, actually, that's called "inductive reasoning." There are times when it's valid, times when it isn't. Funny, though, the only group I never hear use the term "junk science" in reference to environmental concerns is scientists.

Let me pose a question: Has air pollution increased or decreased in the USA over the past 30 years?Some forms have increased, some have decreased. Those that have decreased are the more easily regulated ones like sulfur out of smokestacks. They have decreased due to regulations that were lobbied for by environmentalists and over the strenuous opposition of big business. Breathing easier? Thank an environmentalist.

Other forms of air pollution have been a lot more resistant. Tailpipe emissions have been decreased (again by those pesky regulations) on a per-mile basis, but increased auto driving has kept pace, and the air quality in a lot of important airsheds is actually declining (i.e., the San Juaquin Valley.)

Since you asked...

most people don't know and have difficulty equating is the actual amount of land being occupied by human beings. The last figure I read showed that only 6.2% of the land in the US was actually occupied by human beings.Rubbish. Only the most simplistic definition of the word "occupy" would lead to this conclusion. All of our farm lands, range lands, and most forests are "occupied" in the sense that we are intensively managing them to meet the necessities of our lives. In what sense are you not occupying land that you have greatly modified from it's natural state to meet your needs? Our survival depends on the use of a lot more land than we pour the slabs for our houses on.

This is the kind of misleading factoid that gets spouted by some talk radio host and repeated until it takes on a life of its own.

[natedog]

My thoughts: We've been chased round and round by animals and abused by nature since the beginning of time, no its our turn. :evil:

[ravinraven]

Environmentalist/Green "leaders" care nothing for the environment. The environment is just a road to political power to these people. The NOW gang care nothing for the situation of women. [Remember their silence when Slickster was abusing women? Remember how they love Chap-Of-Quick-Dick Kennedy? Remember how they opposed the liberation of Afghan women?] Again. The object of their concern is the way to get political power. Hitler used to surround himself with children dressed in white in photo ops. How many of these same children did he incinerate for the sake of power? Jesse Jackass cares nothing for black people. If he did, he'd be trying to help them help themselves and not attempting to further destroy them with his "reparations" welfare idea which will give him more power at their expence.

These types of "leaders" are all cut from the same cloth. Since gas chambers are no longer fashionable, these creeps resort to terminology that can kill. They resort to court ordered terrorism. They resort to corruption of the law-making process. But their motives, their goals their unbridled lust for power and the ungodly corruption of their dispicable anti-liberty anti-American foul smelling souls differ not one iota from the core of the villians that spawned the Third Reich.

When these "leaders" have managed to totally jam the nation with their anti-liberty "liberalism" and we are beyond the point where the nation can correct itself legally, what then??

rr

[faustulus]

The problem with most enviromentalist is they don't have a firm grasp of what they are fighting against.
For instance, according to the Forestry service there are more trees in America now than in 1900, yet any use of wood is bad. They don't want rain forests cut down but oppose bioengineered foods which produce more per acre and can cut down on land usage. Most of the arguements are emotional. Global warming, the average temp of the planet has risen one degree in the last 100 years according to three studies by the French, Germans and Japanese.
In 1984 we discovered a hole in the ozone layer over antartica, six months after we launched a satillite to study the ozone layer. If you think factory emmissions are worse today than at the turn of the century you are not studying history and most of the cut back is because of more efficent machines.
What sickens me is that many of these 'enviromentalists' live in the west where there every need is taken care of. Most of them complain about the spotted owl because they have never been faced with a choice of clearing land to feed their starving children. And very few of them are willing to compromise on anything. Trust me the world will survive us. If we screw up too bad it will take care of itself. See any dinosaurs roaming around? They had the place for 165 million years, couldn't adapt and poof. Talk about your mass extintions. Speaking of which, can anyone tell me how many there have been since the dinosaurs? If not then probably shouldn't spout off about the species dying off now.
The truth is a lot of what is going on in our enviorment we dont' have enough data to make a good hypothsis about.

[Khornet]

Thanks for the calm and reasoned replies. Nice thread; we haven't had one this juicy in a while.

Yes, induction from specific to general is a part of good scientific reasoning....WHEN it's reasoning. That is to say, "Tasmanian devils are decreasing. Could this mean other species are similarly affected? And if so, from what cause? And if we find a plausible cause, is it the result of human activity? And if so, are there ways to fix it? Do those ways include only banning of human activity, or can we modify it? If we adopt a particular remedy, does it work?

Environmentalists go directly from "tasmanian devils are decreasing" to "we must ban human activity" without following the chain. Yes, some good scientists attempt to follow the chain, but their work is often hijacked by political and emotional groups. My point stands.

As for "junk science not getting by the editor" of a respectable journal--it happens every day. Every day. See the "study" recently touted in which a small Montana town banned smoking in public areas and ONE YEAR later the investigators found a decrease in heart disease mortality. In a disease process which takes decades to develop and years if not decades to recover from once smoking stops, in people WHO DO NOT THEMSELVES SMOKE, who have never been shown, anywhere, to develop disease from secondhand smoke. Junk science. Or take the recent "study" in the "respectable" journal of the American Society of Public Health, which sought to see whether supplying condoms in schools led, as conservatives claim, to an increase in teen sexual activity. The researchers measured...what? PREGNANCY rates. Not condom use. Not sexually transmitted disease incidence/prevalence. Pregnancy. Now, what's the problem with teens and condoms? Like the problem with teens and seat belts, teens and drinking, etc.,it's that they're teens, and it won't happen to them, so they don't take precautions. This was shoddy research which shouldn't have been accepted, but it was.

Junk science reigns, my friends. If you're an engineer or a chemist, or an expert in flow analysis (sorry Malone) you may not see it as much, because those disciplines don't tend to study things with big public-policy implications. But if it's health or environment, research is about grabbing headlines and thereby funding and votes, not about finding truth.

Good science is phenomenally slow and plodding. It asks a very narrow question, and gets a very small, narrow answer on which to build the next step in the chain. That principle is being routinely violated, and the result is that none of us has the truth. I could be wrong, or you could be wrong, or both of us wrong, but today's "science" isn't helping us.

[Ian Sean]

Some forms have increased, some have decreased. Those that have decreased are the more easily regulated ones like sulfur out of smokestacks. They have decreased due to regulations that were lobbied for by environmentalists and over the strenuous opposition of big business. Breathing easier? Thank an environmentalist.

WRONG, thank the republicans in the early 70's that created the EPA. This initiative was quickly hijacked by Democrats. The original Republican prposals called for industry to be able to offset clean-up costs with tax-breaks etc..

What happened and continues to happen is industry being demonized. Many industries were forced out of business by laws that made what they were doing yesterday, illegal today with no alternative but to close thier doors.

Now who gets to clean up these Superfund sites? You and me, and where are the good wage paying industrial type jobs? Third world hell-holes with no EPA or any controls.

No industry, loss of good jobs and and toxic sites that need to be cleaned up with tax dollars. You are welcome to mull that over while thanking the environmentalists while your flipping burgers or working two jobs to make ends meet.

As far as pollution from industrial sources is concerned every major pollutants yearly disharge tonnage has decreased by an average of about 30% sinc 1990 alone. NOX, SOX, CO, various particulates and now mercury are heavily monitored. This is air emisions, the similar can be said for water. Rivers like the Delaware were practically dead 30 years ago. Now stripers are being pulled out as high as Trenton. Marine life has made a comeback that is largely ignored by the enviros. No rivers have burst into flame lately have they?

Lets adopt Kyoto now! We can increase our pollution! Levels are lower now than 1990. Kyoto requires us to be at 1990 leves. What a crock.

As far as CO2 is concerned the USA because of the land mass and trees has the ability to remove 100 times more CO2 than we produce, a fact acknowledged in the Kyoto crap.

Energy use is up 50% since 1990 and pollution went down. I guess the big evil businesses realized that the improved combustion in large utilities not only reduces pollution, but saves money and increases profits by increased plant and equipment efficiency.

I am not an idiot, the environmental concerns are real and there is work to be done. Good common sense work with real world solutions. Not the close minded enviro-nazi lunacy promoted by greenpeace or thier ilk. Time and time again these groups alleged research has proved to be garbage and lies and fallen apart under scrutiny.

If you like I can quote you several scientific reports, EPA, and various DEP findings, as well as the yearly EPA reporting required to back up my claims for source material.

[Mute]

The problem with many environmentalist is the same as with many other social activists. They believe the government and laws are the answers to the problems they are trying to solve. If we should have learned anything by now is that the government is the real life equivalent of Murphy (of Murphy's Law Fame). Give them any task, reasonable or otherwise and they WILL screw it up.

Their second problem is their holier-than-thou attitude. They'd be much more effective if they didn't treat everyone who doesn't subscribe to their beliefs like the devil incarnate. I don't think most people want to destroy the environment, but environmentalist behave like that is the case unless we adopt their proposed changes. NOW . Or else.

[Shalako]

I love the environment. I have a BS in Environmental Engineering. I feel clean water, clean air, habitat, and ecosystems are paramount to a healthy planet. But environmentalists annoy the heck out of me. I love the Sierra(s) and am amazed by the grandeur of Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, Redwoods, and other national treasures I've made it to so far. But if you want to join an activist club such as the Sierra Club, you better snap into lock-step with them and their 'blame the white man' attitude or you will be scorned. No room for dissent. I have a pet theory that they are almost racist too (despite blaming the white guy). I get Backpacker Magazine and amazed that 99% of the people shown are slim and trim white suburbanites. WTH? These same folks are the ones pushing to get Yosemite off limits to personal vehicles. The slim and trim are the only ones capable of carrying everything they need for a week or weekend on their person. Forget about some 'loser' that needs an icechest, tailgate, BBQ, suitcases, refrigerated insulin, etc. beacuse its not going to fit on the tram that 'they' propose. What about the larger sized Lithuanian grandma? Does she get to see Yosemite too? Not if she has to carry everything she needs on a packframe. Its these fit and trim suburbanite enviro-crusaders who think if you are not as cool or as able as them then tough luck. No soup for you. Elitest, holier-than-thou, do-gooders that have their own special club (of white, suburban, fitness freak, backpacking, eco-evangelists..) really piss me off. They give advocates for the environment a bad name.

[/rant]

[roscoe]

Khornet,

I think that your examples may provide an demonstration of the difficulties associated with the use of science for political ends. I was unable to find any journal called the "Journal of the American Society of Public Health". The only article I was able to find that matched your criteria was from the American Journal of Public Health. It is from 1994:

DOES THE PROMOTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF CONDOMS INCREASE TEEN SEXUAL-ACTIVITY - EVIDENCE FROM AN HIV PREVENTION PROGRAM FOR LATINO YOUTH
SELLERS DE, MCGRAW SA, MCKINLAY JB
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
84 (12): 1952-1959 DEC 1994

I highly recommend you read it - you will find that many legitimate criteria were used to measure sexual activity. By my standards, it looks like reasonable science. They certainly do not go leaping to any undefensible conclusions. In most cases that I know of, the "junk" part of junk science is added on by non-scientists. I am willing to admit to a certain amount of that by liberals, but I certainly see a lot of it by industry advocates, especially those in congress. My favorite is the selectively misleading use of statistics, but that is a argument for another time.

Ian Sean,

You really don't expect anyone to believe that conservatives were behind the cleaning of the environment in the 1970s do you? Sure, the Nixon tried to get ahead of the public outrage over industrial pollution by creating the National Pollution Control Council, which was comprised solely of industry executives. He also vetoed the second Clean Water Act. But he was aware of the public outrage and congress further pressured him by passing the National Environmental Policy Act. It was Edmind Muskie who championed clean air around that time.

Since then, Republicans have consistently fought to have EPA regulations loosened, both in the court and administratively. So I don't think we should be falling off our horses trying to thank Republicans for the cleanliness of the Delaware River.

Shalako,

If I am reading you correctly it is the born-again attitude of environmentalists that bothers you the most. Brother, I am with you on this one. They can be self-rightous and annoying and I argue with them for the rights of hunters all the time.

As for making wilderness convenient for everybody, well, that wouldn't be wilderness. You can certainly drive yourself all over the National Parks and Forests and BLM land, and even on a good many parts of Wilderness. But everybody can't have everything. Otherwise, we would have to put wheelchair ramps up the glaciers at Denali.

[DRC]

"Rubbish. Only the most simplistic definition of the word "occupy" would lead to this conclusion. All of our farm lands, range lands, and most forests are "occupied" in the sense that we are intensively managing them to meet the necessities of our lives. In what sense are you not occupying land that you have greatly modified from it's natural state to meet your needs? Our survival depends on the use of a lot more land than we pour the slabs for our houses on."

Um, if you really want to get into this I'm game but you might want to look back at the heading of my post. It says "Semantics and propaganda" Remember (and I see you quoted me) I said "occupied" not owned. Because of this, one can only occupy what one occupies. "Simplistic" or not it's the truth; also true is the fact that we as humans can only be in one place at a time occupying only that where we are. But enough semantics for a moment, the human population does not occupy as much physical territory as one might think.

If you want provable science take the physical size of inhabited locals add them together then subtract that number from the total land mass of an area and see what you come up with (as a hint I would be willing to go out on a limb and say the number wouldn't exceed 10%) Now, if you want to get into ownership of the land...well it's all owned by someone, some city or state so 100% of it is "owned" but that does not mean it is all occupied not to mention there are still areas in this country alone that haven't even been fully explored because of dense forrests and vastness of the territory. We (you and I included) tend to equate territories to those places we inhabit and the world ceases to exist past those borders and boundaries of civilization and our "civilization" tends to be extremely vast because of our minscule presence in it. "Rubbish"? Try again.

"This is the kind of misleading factoid that gets spouted by some talk radio host and repeated until it takes on a life of its own."

By your statement I would have to assume that you have heard this before then? So then I'm not insane. I did read this? Actually, I read it in an article when doing a review on population growth and immagration, but I read so many I can't remember which one it was in so I'm going back through then as I have time. So if you're feeling particularly scientific feel free to prove me as well as a host of others wrong. I'm sure you'll have no trouble doing this since you're a very intelligent person so this shouldn't take you long.

To give you a head start lets take Alaska since it's a big state. 40 million acres equates to roughly 11% of Alaska land mass so if we do a little math we could say that Alaska is a total of 360 million acres (simple math here). Now, in 2000 the US population in all 50 states was 281,421,906 people. So then lets say we give evey person an acre in Alaska and free up the rest of the US. Alaska is only around 5 to 6% of the total land mass off the US. So then lets ponder that shall we. We could all have an acre in a single state and still have land left over. I'm not sure where you live but the lot my house sits on is less than an acre and my house occupies less than the entire lot but taking the total area of my immediate house and property I could move it to Alaska and probably fit 3 to 5 more houses just like mine in that acre.

"Rubbish"? I kind of like that word...when used properly and in the right context of course.

Remember "reading is fundamental" and math is one of the three R's of education (even though "math" and "arithmatic" do not start with an R unless you say "rithmatic" ;)

Semantics, propoganda and then there's reality that gets thrown in to screw up the works :)

DRC

[roscoe]

DRC,

Not to get in someone else's scrap, but according to the Agricultural Atlas of the United States, the US is roughly 41.8% farmland (as of 1994) and that includes virtually unfarmed areas like Alaska. That means that none of that is wilderness by my definition.

And we only add from there.

[Malone LaVeigh]

WRONG, thank the republicans in the early 70's that created the EPA.I said environmentalists. No reference to party. It is a fact that in the golden days before Reagan and Watt and the other looneys hijacked the party, there were quite a few environmentalists among Republicans. It's a sad comment that Nixon was reasonable compared to the current gang. But that's just a sign of how far to the right that the country has swung.

What happened and continues to happen is industry being demonized. Many industries were forced out of business by laws that made what they were doing yesterday, illegal today with no alternative but to close thier doors.Well one problem is that we are more willing to regulate pollution than foreign trade. Allowing polluters to relocate beyond our jurisdiction and then sell us goods made with polluting technologies strikes me as perfect Republican thinking.

As far as pollution from industrial sources is concerned every major pollutants yearly disharge tonnage has decreased by an average of about 30% sinc 1990 alone. As I said.

Rivers like the Delaware were practically dead 30 years ago. Now stripers are being pulled out as high as Trenton. Marine life has made a comeback that is largely ignored by the enviros. No rivers have burst into flame lately have they?The Clean Water Act, again passed by Dems and Reeps over the strenuous objections of big business, has done a lot to clean up municipal wastewater and industrial effluents. The problems that have been a lot more recaltricant are pesticides and other nonpoint source pollution. The study I was a part of a couple of years ago found levels of diazanon in urban creek water that was demonstrably toxic to aquatic life.

I'm not sure what you mean by "marine life." The world's oceanic fisheries are being woefully overfished, and one was closed recently.

I said "occupied" not owned. Because of this, one can only occupy what one occupies. "Simplistic" or not it's the truth; also true is the fact that we as humans can only be in one place at a time occupying only that where we are. But enough semantics for a moment, the human population does not occupy as much physical territory as one might think.OK, fine, then what you said has no relevance to any possible discussion. Of course, no one has ever said that humans physically occupy a large portion of the US or any other parcel of the Earth. That's what I mean by a "misleading factoid." there is no requirement that human bnodies occupy all of the world's land mass for the effects of population stresses to be significant.

I manage public wild land for a living and own a respectable chunk of farmland. Let me assure you, there is very little of the Earth's crust that isn't being managed pretty close to the peak and beyond the peak of it's capacity for human uses. Even legal wilderness is managed for recreation and game hunting.

This is a silly discussion. Of course humans have a much larger "footprint" (I put that in quotes so you won't take it literally) than they physically occupy. A much more important question is whether the land is being managed in a manner that is sustainable. I would argue that much is not. I'm talking about public and private lands.

[fallingblock]

That humans are a part of nature and not above or beyond it.

Many environmentalists are treating environmental science rather more like a religion than science.:rolleyes:

There is awe, reverence,devotion,piety,passion and superstition aplenty in much of what passes for "environmental activism" today.

Roscoe said:
"Some of the most interesting species, like the Tasmanian striped marsupial wolf were wiped out in the lifetime of my grandparents."

Perhaps a more complete statement would have been something along the lines of:

The Tasmanian striped marsupial wolf, once also widespread on the Australian mainland but extirpated there by competition from the introduced placental dingo (not present in Tasmania), completed it's slide into extinction due to persecution by European settlers.

The point, in this case being that if dingos had managed to reach Tassie a couple thousand years before the Euro-settlers, the extinction would have occurred. The marsupial wolf was not better adapted than the dingo competing for its ecological niche...it was, if you like, a species whose days were numbered. As are all species.

It's really pretty simple, for such a complex system.

If a species is able to adapt to changing conditions rapidly enough, it will survive those conditions. providing it isn't wiped-out by some cataclysmic event such as meteoritic or cometary impact. Human activity affects nature more near as cataclysum than gradualism.

Human activity proceeds at 'light-speed' compared to the chronological speed of organic evolution (with the exception of short-cycle organisms such as virus, bacteria and insects).

All this talk about Mother Earth being threatened by human activities is pure bunkum. The planet has and will survive much greater trauma than humanity can muster.

Is humanity able to destroy the environment sufficiently to impact upon itself and other organisms? Certainly.

But to deal with the threat rationally and scientifically is the only course that offers a reasonable chance of success.

The pseudo-religious approach of the greens and tree-huggers will only serve to confuse the issue and dissipate the resources and goodwill needed to actually cope with the problems a burgeoning human population and rising level of affluence have brought.

[ravinraven]

Good morning!

I've read somewhere in this thread about the percentage of occupied land on earth or in the USA, etc. Actually, we folks do not take much space at all. You can figure it out with your handy-dandy radio Shack number cruncher.

Assume there are 6 Billion people on this rock. That's 6,000,000,000. Plug that number into your cruncher and take its square root. You have 77,459.66692. Since the only fractional people are found in Congress, raise the number to 77,460. That's the number of people on the sides of a square holding all the people in the world. Now multiply by four to give each person 4 feet each way, front and one side, to stand in. That's 309,640. So the square will now be a bit more that 309 thousand feet on a side. Divide this by 5280 to find out the miles each side is long. That's about 56.68.

So all the people on earth can be stood in a square smaller than 57 miles on a side. That's about a third the size of Connecticut. That square would fit inside the county I'm typing from with rattling room. No problem. Next question.

Well, I do admit that if everyone brought their SUVs, scooters, camels, rickshaws or jet skis, there'd be a bit of a parking problem, but what the hell. The parking valets can handle that.

rr

[Khornet]

It's a 2003 study from Am J Pub Health.

Authors state specifically that they:

a) DID NOT compare teen sexual activity before and after condom programs were instituted
b)used SURVEYS of student sexual activity--what kids were willing to tell an adult
c) compared 9--yep, NINE--schools which distributed condoms to 50-FIFTY- schools which did not.
d0 found that 49% of students at noncondom schools reported sexual activity while 42% at condom schools did. Not much of a diff, and I wonder what the p value was.

Yet they report that teen sex not increased by condom distribution. Now they may be right, but that study proves nothing of the kind. Junk science.

All I'm asking for, and I'll keep asking, is good science. And it is still true that we're not getting it.

[CZ-75]

There's nothing wrong with the environment that reducing birth rates wouldn't cure.

I'm not going to live in a crackerbox and drive a tin can so someone can have half a dozen resource consuming children - just because they can. Malthus wasn't wrong just because his predictions haven't come true yet.

[Malone LaVeigh]

ravinraven:

This is exactly what I mean by a misleading factoid being picked up and taking on a life of it's own. So you've given each person 4 square feet to occupy. Quel generous. Now I want to see you get all of the food, fiber, minerals, water, and living space you need out of that 4 feet.

[roscoe]

Kharnet,

Thanks, just found the article. It is recent enough not to be indexed online yet. And we are somewhat OT, but . . .

The sample size is actually not bad - over 4000 students, and almost 1000 from the condom distributing schools. It is true that it is a cross-sectional study, but they controlled for demographic information, so it should give the same results as a longitudinal study (which are very expensive and therefore more rare). Longitudinal data was included, such as first age of sexual activity.

As for using interviews, how else are you going to figure out how many teenagers are having sex? Follow them around with night vision goggles?

And their conclusions pretty much followed the data, that students did not have more sex in schools that distributed condoms (in fact the reverse). The p value was between .05 (recent sex) and .001 (lifetime sex), which is pretty standard and not unexpected with a sample size of over 4000.

This does still not qualify as junk science in my book, given their modest conclusions. The junk may come in when people try to infer too much for political purposes.

fallingblock,

You have inadvertently made my point about extinction rates. Yes, the dingo did outcompete the thylacine, but the dingo was introduced to Australia by aboriginals by about 20-3000 years ago. Eventually the marsupials may have been outcompeted, as in South America when the isthmus of Panama rose, but it would have not been for millions of years, because there was no other way for dingos to get there. In fact, they may never have arrived. There is a good reason that Australia was the last refuge of marsupials, and that is that is geographically isolated irrespective of sea levels. Literally we would have to wait for plate techtonics. So, the eradication of the thylacine was a bit ahead of schedule.

CZ75,

I couldn't agree with you more, which is why I get so annoyed hen the Bush administration cuts back on 3rd world birth control funding. It has had a significant impact on birth rates in many places, and that helps us her in the USA.

[Khornet]

It's KhOrnet. Smile when you say that, pardner.

You're right, questionnaires are probably the only way to find out. But they are notoriously unreliable. Especially from such a group, on such a question.

So, if you have no reilable, verifiable way to collect your data, you just go ahead and use junk data?

And I wouldn't say the conclusions were modest; they were ridiculously certain given their data quality.

But you ARE right that people do try to infer too much. That puts the ball back in the researchers' court, though. Ya gotta do good science first.

[DRC]

I believe it's you that may be taking things a bit too litterally. Also I too believe this conversation is a bit silly. This is not rocket science so I think we will have to agree to disagree, however I will tell all other thinking people that if you do the math you will find that we inhabit and occupy much less physical territory than you think or are told.

If you want some idea just look at a map and think of all the space between towns and cities. Comparatively speaking some of the towns listed on maps would encompas less area than the dots representing them does. So what of all that unihabitted land? Does it not count because it's managed, farmed or ranched? No one but animals live there and it's open terrain. It's owned but not occupied.

I like the "managing" wild land ideology. It makes me chuckle to think that someone actually believes that they have some control over what nature does. Nature does inspite of human intervention not because of it. If it makes you feel good to think it or do it then by all means feel your best about it and if it pays well then by all means. But the world was here long before we got here and will be long after we're gone.

In the words of Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee "People don't own the land. They belong to it... It would be like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog they're on." or in this case like two fleas arguing over who knows best about what to do with the resources on the dog they're on as well as how much of the dog they actually occupy or how his tail should wag.

Take care,

DRC

[roscoe]

My apologies, Khornet it is.

Ahhh, the data. Now we ARE getting into the nitty-gritty. It doesn't really matter if a certain percentage of the questionaires are unreliable. With a big sample like that, the question is whether there is systematic bias in the data collection. I wouldn't think that there is any reason to believe that teenagers in either group are more likely to be unreliable than the other. In that case, the error of the two groups cancel each other out (statistically).

Maybe it is not as good as counting T-cells for replicability, but it is probably the only way to get at the information. If the question is important enough we should try to get some handle on the issue, and I think that the downstream effects of condom distribution is an important enough issue. I know that when my daughter turns into a teenager I want to be able to make informed decisions.

Environmental issues are analagous. They are important (at least I think that they are) and we may have to recognize that conservation biologists are doing the best they can to collect good data and perform legitimate analyses. Some people will think that the inferences are too great, but there has to be some way to get a handle on the information out there. I don't doubt that quite a few people will argue that common sense is good enough. After all we know that we will never wipe out the Dodo, as many as there are, and that the earth is flat, just look at it.

Science is self-correcting by nature and so, if poor science is done, someone else will come along to correct them. I'll take what science is giving us anyday over the alternative.

[Malone LaVeigh]

DRC:

OK, I guess I'm stumped. Maybe if you showed some of the claims you're talking about I'd understand what you mean. Did someone claim humans physically occupy more space than they do? If so, what was their point?

It still doesn't mean anything as far as impact is concerned.

And BTW, "managing" wild land means planning and regulating the activities of humans on the land. If you don't think we have any influence, check out the difference between a monoculture fruit orchard and an old-growth forest. Or look at what happens when a road is punched through any landscape with a bit of slope to it.

[fallingblock]

It was that the Thylacine was driven out of its former range by a more successful competitor, the placental dingo. It was a 'superceded model' as mid-range carnivores go...only able to survive temporarily (on the time scale of paleontology) by inhabiting an island free of competing mid-size placental carnivores.

The dingo's introduction date is still being debated here, but there is increasing evidence that the dingo arrived via Indonesian fisherman who traded with the N.W. coastal Aborigines. There is even some evidence that cats entered Australia the same way.

As I type this, an old man 'Euro' (Macropus robustus) is gazing down from a flat slab of Heavitree Quartzite above our place.
Why have the large macropod marsupials boomed in numbers since the coming of European settlement...there are millions more red and grey kangaroos now than before 1778?

The answer is, simply, the activitiy of man. Man, in this case, was of tremendous benefit to the plains and hill macropods. It was for them as if some great cosmic benevolence had been bestowed upon them by the hand of man. Reliable water year 'round and vast areas of herbaceous browse replacing the seasonal water and hardscrabble woody forage of pre-European times.

Whether or not it "would not have been for millions of years"
that the extinction of the Thylacine occurred is debatable and irrelevant. It was doomed to extinction by the existence of much more efficient placental mid-size carnivores, and not by the presence of humans per se.

You wrote:
"There is a good reason that Australia was the last refuge of marsupials, and that is that is geographically isolated irrespective of sea levels. Literally we would have to wait for plate techtonics. So, the eradication of the thylacine was a bit ahead of schedule."

But, despite the overwhelming presence of humans and their many alterations and introduction of competing placental browsers and grazers such as cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, donkeys, goats, camels, deer, rabbits, hares, the large marsupial macropods are thriving. Why do you suppose that could be?

The race goes not to the swiftest in evolution, but to the organism which is most successful in any given habitat, and the game rules are always shifting. In the case of macropod marsupials, their very specialized reproductive strategy, adapted to cyclical drought and limited only by available water combined with their extremely efficient means of locomotion and nomadic habit insured that they, and not the introduced ungulates, were the most fit medium browser/grazer for Australian conditions.

Nature is neither a museum nor a zoological garden.. Species come and species go. The rate of extinction is higher now than at some times in the past due to the world-wide habitat occupation and manipulation by Homo sapiens. A supremely flexible and adaptive species, it is 'out-competing' nearly every other species for available habitat (although many microbes, insects and a few smaller vertebrate species are doing quite well, thank you). No big deal.

What are your options?

"Save the Planet"?

Get real...the planet is not under threat from anything humans can achieve.

"Reduce the extinction rate"?

How? Reduction and stabilization of the human population might achieve this over centuries...but you ain't got centuries to spare at current rates of species extinction...and barring some pandemic or world-wide warfare, human numbers are set to double within the next century.

Eventually, as demand for resources from the burgeoning human population increases, those nice little preserves and parks which the 'environmentally-aware' hopeful ones have establised will be stripped of their resources by sheer irresistable demand. Sure, you could establish 'deadlines' around the parks and wildlife reserves, as has been done in India, for example, but even that will fail...it's people who make the laws establishing reserves, after all.

The biosphere will adjust to the overwhelming presence and domination of Homo sapiens...but only those species which successfully adapt to the new habitat regimes will survive.
Why get your knickers in a knot over the inevitable?

[Sir Galahad]

I have a solution. Radical environmentalists should all remove themselves from the planet. That'll free up the resources they're using and they won't have to see the rest of us use them.

Some of the most successful species on the planet got where they are by living with or near human habitation. The sparrow, the starling, the house finch, the crow, the raven, pigeons, and racoons. Add to this the exploding population of deer feasting on lawns and corn crops and then throw in the coyotes feasting on garbage and pets left outdoors. Part of evolution and survival of the fittest is how a species adapts to other species. It either builds countermeasures, copes, or does not survive. And it has been that way LONG before the first Aeschulean hand-axe was knapped from stone.

Many radical environmentalists are running on a "messianic" personality complex: "I am going to SAVE the planet from those bad people!" You can only save the planet if you become a convert to that doctrine. But you have to belive that the planet NEEDS saving. What a load of malarky. But it SELLS products. It adds a whole extra two dollars to an "organic" veggie burger. These people are dupes! Suckered by the biggest Madison Avenue marketing ploy ever. All to sell "organic foods" and "sustainable products" to fools soon parted with their money. Yes, P.T. Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every minute. And they grow up to wear hemp clothing and eat tofu hot dogs.

[fallingblock]

"Some of the most successful species on the planet got where they are by living with or near human habitation."
****************************************************

That is the sure 'path to the future' for non-human species.

The 'nature purists' may object to rats, starlings and cockroaches outlasting elephants, whales and snow leopards, but, barring a human catastrophy, it's gonna happen regardless.


"Many radical environmentalists are running on a "messianic" personality...."
****************************************************

The losses of adherents to traditional religions in the West have been more than made up by the burgeoning numbers of new "Environmentalists".....

It seems almost the perfect secular faith...but it is scarcely more 'scientific' than the religions it is replacing were.

As a matter of concern.. because "Environmentalism" involves demanding real time political decisions be made concerning resource policy and human development, this new faith could pose a serious threat to the stability of society.

It's one of the lessons of history which humans seem to have trouble with - when faith is allowed to substitute for reason and fact, poor decisions often result.

[Khornet]

You mean there are two data sets of equal unreliability so we can get the truth by comparing them? Hmmmm....

Yes, the issue is supremely important. That means getting it wrong is a disaster. So good intentions of researchers just aren't good enough. It's not good enough to go with what we have if what we have isn't very good. However important the isssue, a wrong answer is still wrong. And 'going with what we have' means imposing tremendous costs on the basis of suspect data, like accepting the malaria deaths because our intentions are good: we LOVE the earth after all. Better if we loved truth.

But this has been a fun discussion, eh? I get up every morning looking forward to this forum. I learn so much. Thanks!

Khornet

ps-- Roscoe, in case you don't know, is the Catskill town which is the Mecca of American flyfishing, dear to the heart of us devotees of the long rod. A fine name.

[DRC]

Let me simplify,

Environmentalists believe that everything that man does destroys the environment. Environmentalists believe that man is spreading like a plague or wildfire across the land destroying eveything in his wake. None of this is true however, there are those few that have little regard for all things great and small but they are the few not the many.

My point regarding man and land occupation has to do with open land and the lack thereof occupation. If you take the total area of all cities and towns (where the majority of people live) in any given state the total occupied territory with houses, building and a multitude of people make up less than 10% of the land mass of that state. That means that 90% of that state is open terrain (owned by someone but not developed to any major extent for any purpose) So in the state of Texas 240,549 square miles are unoccupied open terrain. That's a lot of area to cover before one could make the arguement that man is encroaching on and destroying the environment.

"It still doesn't mean anything as far as impact is concerned."

This could be debated on either side ad nauseum unfortunately. The impacts being reported or studied have as much information to disprove as prove any of it so it depends on what one is willing to believe.

"And BTW, "managing" wild land means planning and regulating the activities of humans on the land. If you don't think we have any influence, check out the difference between a monoculture fruit orchard and an old-growth forest. Or look at what happens when a road is punched through any landscape with a bit of slope to it."

Actually the post I was going to submit before I decided to simplify it said just that. "Land management is people management and restriction..." Also, we have an influence in the environment but not to the scale environmetalists would have us all believe because of the shear vastness of open terrain. Environmentalists do tend to preach doom and gloom even when they have no clue of the outcome, so in that case their guess is just as good as ours and vise versa as to what the outcome would be. What I will say to that is that those wanting to do the developing typically have to do more research to find out what impact they may have on an evironment or ecosystem so they have something to present in order to get approval and permission to develope anything. Environmentalist have to do little more than put pressure on officials incharge of granting approval or permission to prevent it from happening but some do some studies as well but again it's what or whom one is willing to believe.

Take care and I hope that clears some things up. If it doesn't then I apologize that I cannot make it any simpler or any more plain than that.

Take care and nice talking with you again. I always enjoy our discussions.

DRC

[Malone LaVeigh]

My point regarding man and land occupation has to do with open land and the lack thereof occupation. If you take the total area of all cities and towns (where the majority of people live) in any given state the total occupied territory with houses, building and a multitude of people make up less than 10% of the land mass of that state. That means that 90% of that state is open terrain (owned by someone but not developed to any major extent for any purpose) So in the state of Texas 240,549 square miles are unoccupied open terrain. That's a lot of area to cover before one could make the arguement that man is encroaching on and destroying the environment.You are saying two very different things, the first of which is true, but meaningless, and the second of which is not supported by the first. The second, which I think is your main thesis, may or may not be true. We disagree, but your opinion is as good as mine. I will try, however, to present why I believe as I do.

Given your definition, I'll take your word on how much land is "unoccupied" in Texas. It does not however follow, given your definition of occupation, that the unoccupied land has to be "covered" before one would argue that "man is encroaching on and destroying the environment."

I'll hold off if you don't mind on addressing the possibility of "destroying the environment", as I doubt that we could come to an agreement on who claims such a thing or what they mean by it, and I don't want to get into another semantics match. I am just arguing that the "unoccupied" land is serving a multitude of purposes and is being managed by the owners of that land. I know for certain that a lot of cotton is being dry-land farmed in East Texas. I suspect a lot of the range land is still being managed for cattle production. There's a lot of good hunting in the hill country around San Antonio.

My point is that this is not a big blank spot on the map just waiting for people to move in start pouring slabs. People are sparce in those areas because the resources needed to support populations, that primarily means water these days, are just not there.

A person living in a city requires a certain acreage of land elsewhere to grow the grains and other foods they eat and which are fed to the animals they eat. They need a certain amount of watershed to collect the rainwater that enters the hydrologic cycle and gets to some point that they can use it. They also require disposal sites for the wastes that they generate.

Just because some places look empty doesn't mean that they are not being managed to the limit of their ability to produce. I have good reason to believe that much of the world's farm and wild land has been managed beyond it's carrying capacity, but that would be opening another can of worms.

Regards,

[roscoe]

Khornet,

Yeah, I love a good debate too. Of course, being a liberal on this site is to be a bit outnumbered; it makes me feel like Jerry Quarry against Ali. I very much a appreciate your debating style; I see a lot of foaming at the mouth about soul-stealing, dog-kicking, apple-pie-stomping liberals around here.

Anyway, it is not that the data is overall unreliable. I wouldn't say that a priori there is any reason teenagers would answer untruthfully to an anonymous questionaire. Some may lie, but we accept a certain amout of noise in any data set. That is the point of interpreting a distribution and the various statistical tests associated with describing them and comparing them to each other. The question is whether the bias is in a particular direction. In a big sample like this a few liars shouldn't skew the answers, at least not in one sample more than another. So we are still comparing oranges with oranges. Various statistical tests and the alpha levels used in them are designed to take this into account.

For me, roscoe is always associated with Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. People just don't talk like that anymore. I assume Khornet is K-hornet?

fallingblock,

Your attitude is just a bit too nihilistic for me. I mean, why fight for anything if the earth is destined to end up a frozen hunk of rock and ice hurtling through the void of space in a few billion years? Me, I'll go down swinging. Frankly, I fight to save wildlife because I like to spend my time waaay out there, away from everybody. And I don't mind walking for days to get there, as long as there is wilderness there when I arrive. And I like the fact that it is wild. Give me wolves, bear, owls, snail darters, leaches, mosquitoes, mastadons, thylacine, whatever.

Some of the most amazing and beautiful things in nature are poor generalists and can only survive under specific circumstances. Are we to just push them off the ledge? I think we have it in our power to figure out ways to preserve nature while we thrive. No one has convinced me that Americans (or Australians) need to mine sensitive areas or cut down old growth for us to live comfortably. If we put certain areas out of bounds, the free market will figure out ways for us to make out just fine.

[fallingblock]

"Your attitude is just a bit too nihilistic for me. I mean, why fight for anything if the earth is destined to end up a frozen hunk of rock and ice hurtling through the void of space in a few billion years?"
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Well, I did come across as a bit hopeless there...but my concern is that far, far too much emphasis and resources are being placed on "endangered species".

The concept of 'indicator' species assumes that a status quo exists and is desireable, let alone attainable.

The wealth and effort poured into 'saving' (for some lesser or greater geological instant) ought to be going into solid research and habitat acquisition for the many genuine survivor species.

It's not in a few billion years I'm concerned about, it's the next fifty or so...all the crucial decisions on how to balance human numbers/need, which ideally ought to have been done at least fifty years ago, MUST be made. I don't see it happening.

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Me, I'll go down swinging. Frankly, I fight to save wildlife because I like to spend my time waaay out there, away from everybody. And I don't mind walking for days to get there, as long as there is wilderness there when I arrive. And I like the fact that it is wild. Give me wolves, bear, owls, snail darters, leaches, mosquitoes, mastadons, thylacine, whatever.
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Go for it, roscoe. I've been doing it for the past thirty years in three different countries....maybe I'm just tired?

I was raised on a farm, and you know what the most signal event I can remember from my childhood fascination with nature was?
A neighboring farmer, Orville Tranbarger (yeah, funny names in Indiana!) plowed up a mastodon tooth in his bottom field. I looked at that tooth and could sense the immensity of geological time. When I learned that Honey Locust trees were thought to have their fierce long thorns as a defense against the long-gone browsing Mastodons...well, you get the idea.

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"Some of the most amazing and beautiful things in nature are poor generalists and can only survive under specific circumstances. Are we to just push them off the ledge?"
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Agreed, but sadly, roscoe, we don't have to push...they're goners once their habitat goes, and there just are not enough piles of money around the world to put things back the way they were. And the situation is very, very rapidly deteriorating for most of those "hanger-on" species.

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" I think we have it in our power to figure out ways to preserve nature while we thrive."
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We can agree to disagree there, I hope. My own experience has not led me to this conclusion, given the exponential increase of human population with rapidly rising expectations of affluence.
Sure, that may mean only a scooter instead of a pushbike in China...but a billion and a quarter scooters...

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"No one has convinced me that Americans (or Australians) need to mine sensitive areas or cut down old growth for us to live comfortably. If we put certain areas out of bounds, the free market will figure out ways for us to make out just fine."
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"Need"? Whom and what shall determine 'need'?
The comfortable first-worlders or the struggling "I'll work for a bowl of rice crowd"?

If the areas you put 'out-of-bounds' contain significant resources, I guarantee they will not remain out-of-bounds when the demand for those resources reaches a certain critical point- that point being when the politicians have to choose between massive instability/unrest or opening the resources.

The history of humanity is pretty conclusive in this area....there are no Pleistocene megafauna here, in Europe, or in the U.S., and it was not because the climate wiped them out.

It took the Maoris just about 400 years to grow from a few boatloads of settlers to occupy all the inhabitable land in N.Z., and they fuelled that growth primarily with moa and other flightless birds. It's simply the way ourspecies operates.

I remain to be convinced that their is habitat on this planet for 12 billion humans and many, if any, of those 'poor generalists' species to occupy at the same point in time.

But one thing's for sure. It's a beautiful rock we live on and there are still plenty of places to get out and enjoy the beauty. Just don't leave it for your retirement.:)