Conservamentalism

I’m a science-based environmentalist with socialist and vegan leanings.
That is why climate change pisses me off. It distracts from humanity’s real problems.

Good for you, Willis!

When they wanted to control you in your community they called themselves communists.
When they wanted to control you in your society they called themselves socialists.
When they wanted to control you in your environment they called themselves environmentalists.
What comes next?

Enviromental activist or active enviromentalist, there is a big difference.

Want a COMMON SENSE approach? The great George Carlin:
George Carlin – Saving the PlanetCargado por GodIsTruth. – Las últimas noticias en video.

My Dad was a logger/high climber most of his life also, and died in the forest. I spent a lot of time in the woods and have the same reverence that Willis feels. Well stated position sir.

“Conservamentalists unite! You have nothing to lose but your minds”
You just said it all buddy!, that’s like a well and newly concocted pacifist declaring war.
O My!, I pledge to God: “Help me from the GOOD GUYS that I’ll take care of the bad guys”
This is also like being a “progressivetalist”, a cheating leftist or a pseudo-marxist! or like a tea bagger drinking coffee. Wow!

The natives in North America always had a sustainable way of life and thanked every animal and the Earth for giving what they used or eat. They are the first Conservamentalists.
Conservamentalism is not a religion but a way of life.

Nice post, WIllis.
vboring (12:39:31) :
I’m a science-based environmentalist with socialist and vegan leanings.
That is why climate change pisses me off. It distracts from humanity’s real problems.
Just for balance, I’m a science based conservative and carnivore.
But I’m with you 100 pct. at pissed off over the way AGW has sucked all the air away from dealing with real problems.

Bryan:
“Is is shameful to discard any animal for the sake of harvesting their skin. Use it all or don’t use any.”
I’m sorry, but there is some illogic in your statement. Mind you, I used to “feel” the same way until I became a hunter at age 42.
My reasoning: Nothing is wasted in nature. Protein is a valuable commodity in every ecosystem I can think of, so there are always life forms that will eat the “leftovers”.
I am a hunter of the boreal forests of central Ontario, Canada. Mostly, I hunt deer, moose, and the occasional turkey. When we do a field dressing on a deer, and leave the majority of the internal organs on the forest floor, are we guilty of something in your way of thinking?
When I pass by a previous day’s “gut pile”, there is rarely anything left. the bears, coyotes, wolves, crows, hawks, etc. make short work of the leftovers. Scavengers don’t let much go uneaten. Bacteria take care of the rest.
So, I would say that whether sealers take the seal carcass for meat or leave it for other creatures to consume, the animal is just as dead either way. And nothing goes to waste.
And for the record, like Willis, I too say a prayer for the animal I harvest. In not too many years, we will all join in on nature’s protein recycling system.

I agree with every word written here.
I am not a vegetarian because I don’t just love mammals. I also love leccuce and carrots, and they are living beings too.
It’s a fact of life that we kill each other to live.
And since we are spilling our loony innards here, I think Man’s greatest tragedy is that we are the only single species genus on the planet (as far as I know). Our cousins died out Neanderthals etc. Therefore we are peculiarly alone. I think there is a deepseated psychological need expressed by our desire to know whether there is other intelligent life in the universe.
Because as human beings we are very lonely. There is just us.
Maybe this is why we seesaw wildly between thinking we are too important and thinking ourselves too little important.

I see a difference between killing a seal for its fur and killing fish so that we can have a supply of healthy food. The seal fur can be easily be substituted with synthetic garments, the fish not so easily.
I’m willing to have living things killed for my benefit so long as it is done as humanly as possible, used efficiently and there is not a non-living substitute available.
Regards
Michael

I would favor ‘conservation-minded’. Breaking it up into two parts seems to fit the mouth better, plus it has less of a chance of implying that I want to mandate that you become ‘conservamentalistic’ or else.
We say the Outdoor Code every week at Scouts.
“As an American, I will do my best to
Be clean in my outdoor manners,
Be careful with fire,
Be considerate in the outdoors,
and be conservation-minded.”
I believe it has also cut-down on unwanted pyrotechnics at Scout camp, but I may be mistaken on that.

I’m sure the Easter Islanders and the Greenland Vikings thought similarly when chopping down their trees …..
We don’t stop eating fish or stop chopping down trees – but we should think about the consequences of today’s actions on our future, and maybe cut back a little here and there. And maybe put in place polices for sustainability. It’s only common sense ….. Isn’t it?

Unintended consequences happen again. Thanx to PETA et all, the Canadian Government is not only fighting the ban of seal meat/fur from the EU, but has now set its’ sight on the Asian market for new sales. It has been estimated that this Asian market could be upwards of ten times the size of the EU market.
Let’s not forget what happened when Greenpeace tried the same thing with pelts back in the late 80’s early 90’s. By getting these pelts restricted for EU sales, they, GP, decimated a lot of northern communities, as this was their main economic source. Greenpeace quietly dropped the campaign when the results were brought to their attention.
We are in every way a part of nature. What ever we do, we do according to (our) nature. Nature has no feelings for what we do or becomes of us. Nature is a process, not an entity.

“I would define that as someone who thinks long and hard about the effect of our actions on the tangled web of life that surrounds us.”
I would agree with this wholeheartedly. But I think we need to be careful to not demonize people who just want to live thier lives and don’t spend much time or energy making sure they’re not overconsuming.

Agree with your position 100%. The one thing I don’t get though, is trophy hunting, whether for sport, horns or heads. It just gets me that some folk get all excited about having a Lion’s or Bears head mounted in their “trophy room”. I don’t really have a problem with culling if it is absolutely necessary and unavoidable, but for sport – naa!

First class article Willis, I agree 100%. Thank you.

Our forest here is in a state of environmentalist waste, meaning that it isn’t in much of a useage cyce.
Our forest here should be in a state of conservationalist usage, getting the most out of a sustainable yield.
Our land here is over 80% owned by the federal government. It’s obvious what interest group is calling the shots. It does not generate sufficient revenues to pay for it’s withdrawal. It could be managed a lot better, as any usage is better that watching it go up in smoke. The lands need to be returned to the private sector.

I enjoy eating vegies. That may be why I enjoy eating beef steak. The angus also enjoy eating corn and vegies.

Excellent post, spoken like a man who has truly spent much of his life in the wild. I suspect that most of the hard core enviros like Phil M. criticize because their only contact with the wild comes in a sterile, academic, and thus totally unrealistic sense.

There must be something wrong with me, but I don’t find the baby seals in the picture at all cute, and have no instinct to protect them.
I once refused to sign the save the seals petition of some animal rights group. The activist collecting signatures became aggressive asking “So you’re happy (word stressed) to see baby seals clubbed to death (words stressed)?”
His self righteous indignation, and the affront my refusal to sign brought out in him was so funny, all I could think of to answer him with was a simple “Yes” then smile and walk away. It is not my job to minister to those in dire need of a BJ, they were that way before I got to them. Wind them up further, I say, mock away! Let them seek their own cures.
Besides, nothing on offer convinced me that his petition was anything more than a futile waste of his time and that of everyone he persuaded to sign it.
Did i want seals to die? Baby or not, not particularly. I’ve got nothing against herring either – I don’t eat fish. But what I do enjoy is discovering more facets of Willis Eschenbach.
Willis, you really ought to write a book.

On a visceral level, I feel more for a dieing seal than a dieing fish because I am biochemically programmed to. As a social animal, I am programmed to be in tune with the suffering of my peers. Since seals are genetically similar, of course there is going to be some crossover between a seal’s and a human’s expression of suffering. And it touches me. Maybe if fish screamed more I would feel just as bad for them, but they don’t so I don’t. That is irrespective of how little of their flesh is used after the killing. Without the visceral feedback the same emotion just isn’t there.
On an intellectual level I can train myself to feel just as much for the life of a fish as the life of a seal. I’m the best self-programming machine yet. Think Pavlov, or A Clockwork Orange – I can juxtapose two ideas in order to elicit a visceral reaction in one that, previously, was only elicited by the other. If my culture is awash in the idea of animals and humans as bound peers, my culture is doing the job of ensuring that some portion of that visceral reaction normally reserved for humans is applied to other living things (even objects).
And my culture did. I realize that this isn’t everyone’s culture – that’s why the term culture shock exists. Nature is, almost, my peer. For some cultures, nature *is* a peer. There are people like me who respect/love nature in and of itself. It doesn’t have to be performing any function for me. People unlike us need some logical reason for not killing or disrupting nature, and that reason usually comes down to “Well if you do that, you’re only hurting yourself/your loved ones.”
Understanding this, it isn’t a leap of logic to understand why people like me would support an idea like anthropogenic climate change. It’s the biggest “you’re only hurting yourself” reason out there. For now.

Willis you need to get over yourself.
EAT MOR CHIKIN!

Great post, Mr. Eschenbach, and no… Nothing at all wrong with talking to the trees and animals. Myself, I say a prayer before meals in which meat is served, especially beef. Maybe a lot of people don’t think so, but I think cows are beautiful creatures and deserve as much for filling my need for protein.
bryan (12:40:42) : “Use it all or don’t use any.”
Really, now? That’s an interesting philosophy. Maybe you can show me how well you practice it some day. In the meantime…
I find it funny that what the Indians (I know, I know… Native American. But I don’t like being called that when Indian sounds much cooler!) did is/was praised while something like hotdogs are called eventual cancer (or whatever they’re supposed to cause due to the grossness of how they’re made). That’s the card I play whenever a perfectionist criticizes modern ways. Why was it okay for Indians to use every last bit but not the Western-invented hotdog?
Besides, the idea of the never-wasetful Indian is a myth. Several mass buffalo graves have been discovered over the years in which bone and hide were left behind in favor of the meat. Among the mess were found spear and arrow heads. The bones of entire herds had the look of being scraped in a hurry, clealy indicating that at times the Indians favored meat over hide and bone trinkets. So it was a lot of waste, a lot left behind. I’ve no links to back this up, but it was shown on the Discovery channel about, oh, five years ago iirc.
And there is a very simple explanation for why there is waste and why there will always be waste. The fact of the matter is, there is never going to be enough capital to make all things into something at all times that people would want or need. This is true whether we’re talking about money in a capitalist society or simply effort per man in a hunter-gatherer tribe. Competition of limited capital deems that waste a nessecity at least some of the time, if not most of the time.
The trouble I have with conservationism/environmentalism is that it isn’t. It’s perfectionism. Any little thing that can be said about our modern way of life automatically damns the activity as irredeemably wasteful. And so long as something hasn’t been said about, say, hemp, then we should all abandon our wasteful, imperfect ways for the as yet uncriticized one.
But I’m not stupid. I know nothing is perfect nor ever will be. I realize there will always be waste. I realize why that will always be so. I don’t need someone telling me to clean up and perfect my ways. My ways are good enough, else I would not exist, plain and simple.

So much of this ends up as just another form of increasing government revenues. Carbon caps in the end just becomes another 25% increase on our electricity bills, 30% more on what we pay for cars, 33% increase in the running cost of our factories and offices.
None of these are called taxes, but the net effect is the same. Governments all like this since they believe they are better than the private sector in reallocation of resources. They can run car companies better, they can loan mortgages better, that’s why we should be happy that we have so many smart people in our government managing our money and allocating it to where the need is greatest.

Trees make great compnions too.

Being a realist, not killing more than necessary, and preventing the exhaustion of natural resources are all well and fine.
Apologizing to the fish and talking to trees is religion. As I noted before, your “stewardship” has distinctly religious overtones.
The last thing we need on this planet is more mysticism. Get over it.

In fact, what exactly is the point of this post? Besides the obvious recanting of your exploits in the fishing and timber industries?
Warmistas tend to portray all climate sceptics as right-wing cranks. But we aren’t all like that by any means. It is important that sceptical sites actively support those who are left-leaning and/or liberal and/or environmentally concerned.
Your blog entry [snip] and merely regurgitates material from an undergraduate environmental ethics course.
In other words, far in advance of most of the population? Replace the topic and see how stupid that comment sounds: — your entry merely regurgitates material from an undergraduate quantum physics course.
We can’t all work at PhD level ethics like you obviously do. Let us get up to your grand level slowly, huh?
If scepticism about AGW is to succeed it has to be able to replace the alternatives offered with a politically and economically workable framework. Taking environmental concerns into how we deal with global climate changes is part of that.
Just shouting the warmistas down by calling them “Socialists” or “criminals” is never going to be an effective method.

IMO Willis said it succinctly and got it exactly right, when in thread start he sez:
”I just want to see things done carefully and with forethought, see them done properly with respect for the consequences. I don’t elevate some mythical “Nature” above humans, and I don’t forget nature either.”
If you think about it objectively, the above is good common sense.
The world would be a lot better off, if this kind of commeon sense was not so UNcommon. . . .

Well I don’t deliberately damage or destroy anything; living or not, unless I have some specific purpose in doing that. #1 being food. And I do not differentiate between flora and fauna, when it comes to food. I don’t want to rejoin my ancestors up in the fig trees; besides hwo do I know that fig trees don’t scream, if I wrest one of their children to be from the cradle, and devour it, before it had a chance to become a new fig tree.
In an ideal world, we would have an infinite supply of non-polluting energy, and we could manufacture our own food out of rocks and dirt like Gaia does. Then we wouldn’t need to kill either flora or fauna.
I won’t kill what I won’t eat; unless it has designs on me so I have to for self preservation.
But then think what a mess we could make out of pristine mountains, if we butchered them, and turned them into man made (izzar anthropogenic) food.
Bottom line might be a Sierra club mantra. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.
But how many of us get up from the table in a fast food restaurant, and walk out leaving our messy tray and dishes on the table; even though the local practice is to empty the junk in the trash/recycler, and place the tray/dishes, in an easily rcognizable location.
So thus we teach our kids to not clean up after themselves, and they carry that into the outdoors.
But when my ancestors discovered they could let the little monkeys gather the figs, and then kill their a**** and eat them, as well as killing the gazelle, and thereby becoming a grass eater; that is when we; the various “human” species started to pull away from the competition, and overpopulate Gaia’s laboratory.
So I don’t feel bad a bout eating meat, or fish, or anything else that is nutritional to sustain myself; and to me a seal is as much a meat as is any sheep. We raise sheep for their outer coats, and for their meat; so I don’t see pinnipeds being any different; except they aren’t so easy to mass produce, so it is not a sustainable choice of food.
Destroying multi-tons of prime bait fish stocks (like menhaden) to make snake oil; “food supplements” is however a totally wasteful enterprise in my book; they serve us better in the long run, if we leave them be to sustain healthy manageable food fish stocks.
If some doctor can point out to me how you identify a human that is taking Omega-3 food suplements from one who isn’t, then maybe I’ll think about the merits of it. But right now it is just a wasteful fad, and one that is much more destructive than any possible experimentally observable merits.
So far as I know, I do not contain any Trans-Uranic elements; so that makes me “natural” , just like everything else around me; and my “needs” are as natural as those of a brain coral.
I happened to catch the “deal or no deal” show last night; part of teachers week. The purveyors of that show have cut costs by eliminating all the high paid model “babes” (except two), and simply made the studio contestsnt candidates, their “models”. Wonderful; no salaries; no fancy costumes; just peopel wearing what they want to.
The player turned out to be a near brain dead school teacher (glad my kids aren’t in her class); and all she wanted out of winning the half million dollars prize was a pet monkey.
Well this one pretty much could be a pet monkey for somebody else. In her first three number choices, she succeeded in wiping out the 250k safety net, and then the 500k big ticket. from there it went from bad to worse, till she had a top prize of 10k and a $200 safety net. At that point she might as well have said that she had nothing to lose by playing out the hand, with just three small numbers of 200 or less, and the 10k.
The banker tricked her mind by offering her $2500, which she took, having previously had a maximum offer of 9k, and a low of 1500.
So she did walk out with 2500, but left the 10k in her case, that she had fought so hard for. That has to be the worst dealt hand I have seen on that show; but I thought it poetic justice for a supposed school teacher who just wanted a pet monkey.
So is our maintenance of pets an environmentally sound practice; or does Gaia’s natural wild life suffer because we have our pet fetishes ?
And to answer Willis’ original question; no Willis I don’t find the massive fish kill any more palatable than the seal; but in either case, I would hope for full and purposeful use for the now defunct animal; including using either for food (if you are going to kill it anyway).
Luckily with sheep, we actually can enjoy the coat, and still keep the sheep.
In NZ, they have 4 million people and 60 million sheep; so we do know sheep. (maybe 75 million total livestock in all; most in the world)

Pat Moffitt
Thank you for taking the time to research how conservation was derailed and corrupted into a political hammer.
Back in the sixties I wished everyone could respect nature as I did… Be careful what you ask for you might get it… Now I feel like I am trying to stop a run away train with my bare hands and it is head for a cliff.

I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK
I sleep all night and I work all day
(He’s a lumberjack and he’s OK
He sleeps all night and he works all day)
I cut down trees, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat’ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea
(He cuts down trees…)
(He’s a lumberjack…)
I cut down trees, I skip and jump
I love to press wild flow’rs
I put on women’s clothing
And hang around in bars
(He cuts down trees…)
(He’s a lumberjack…)
I cut down trees, I wear high heels
Suspenders and a bra
I wish I’d been a girlie
Just like my dear papa
(He cuts down trees…)
(He’s a lumberjack…)

There’s a difference in kind between eating a soy bean and eating a steer. The soy bean is not sentient. Where sentience of fellow travelers on the wheel of life should become a moral concern isn’t the easiest thing to demarcate but warm blooded is a good rule of thumb. The days when humans were obligatory omnivores is, for the vast majority of the 6 billion people on the planet, long past. Eating flesh is hedonistic these days rather than a matter of survival or even good health. I have no particular problem with hedonists but I do have a problem with being in denial about it. If the shoe fits, wear it.
Granted everything dies and we ourselves will eventually be eaten by something or even if we are cremated we return to the air and soil and nourish something in that manner. Again, there’s a difference in kind between being eaten young or eaten old. Ask yourself if you’d rather give up your life at age 20 or age 80. The way I figure it a cow should get the same opportunity to live a full life that you desire for yourself.
I’m not a particularly religious person but I figure there’s a better than fair chance that since I became self-aware once it’ll happen again but it’ll be a random lottery when it comes to what species I’ll be. So when an animal crosses my path if it’s hurt I help it, if it’s healthy I leave it be, and if it’s sufferering at the end of its days I bring its suffering to a swift end. If there’s any justice in the universe the next time I might open my eyes as one of the animals that have crossed my path. If that’s the case I should be in fine standing with lots of good karma. If I *were* particularly religious, especially a believer in the God of Abraham, I’d be very rightly concerned about whether I was living as God intended everything alive to live as outlined in Genesis, with no killing or death or destruction and being given seed bearing herbs as food, or whether I was wallowing in original sin by taking part in the death and destruction and flesh eating that followed the Fall.
Proceed at your own risk. My ass is covered for most eventualities.

Leif Svalgaard (14:45:56) :
“one day a bacterium will be eating me”
Haven’t they already?

Very thoughtful post, Willis.
Mr Alexander Feht, above, doesn’t want more ‘mysticism’ around.
Denis Dutton’s ‘Art Instinct’ links the need for art back to our evolutionary roots. But what if we are also wired to need something larger than ourselves?
I’m coming around to that notion myself…and a simple respect for the great web of life is as good a place to start as any.

From Michael in Sydney (13:27:38) :
I see a difference between killing a seal for its fur and killing fish so that we can have a supply of healthy food. The seal fur can be easily be substituted with synthetic garments, the fish not so easily.
I’m willing to have living things killed for my benefit so long as it is done as humanly as possible, used efficiently and there is not a non-living substitute available.

The problem with this viewpoint, of course, is that you end up consuming all the non-renewable resources in order to make “synthetic” boots and coats. It is completely unsustainable.
If you use leather (skin) and fur instead, you are surrounding yourself with the natural products of the ecosystem. Such products are completely renewable and ecologically sound. After all, the Native Americans used them exclusively.
A true environmentalist wears fur, not highly processed oil, and other chemicals that destroy the environment.

Related…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d24b56MmIts&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0]

Dear Willis,
I can completely agree with your reasoning. I am a biologist working (amongst others) with rats and mouses. I am doing reseach for cancer cures. I have killed at this moment about 2500 rats for my research. Does this make make a monster?
Without the type of research I am doing there would be not a single cure for cancer.
Sometimes I hope (in vain) that this message gets through into the nutcases that oppose this type of experimenting (before they are struck with cancer, that is).

Baby seals are cuter than fish, but if it were spiders instead of seals or fish, no one would give a damn, nor would they care if only 10% of the carcass was used and the rest left to rot.
It’s all subjective

I understand where Willis is coming from. As a farmer, you don’t take more than you need, and what you do take you are thankful to have. You think carefully about outcomes from actions before you proceed, and where possible you work to help….say for example, managing invasive weeds.
The reason most environmentalist/green organizations in my country gather little respect from people like me, is that they have strayed from that basic approach. Painting with a broad brush, they are either emotional about issues while having little or no practical understanding, or they are deliberately anti-human and work with hostile, closed minds. I know that there are some exceptions, but by and large those are the elements that steer the movement’s many varied groups.
They punch well above their weight, and gather more media and political attention than they deserve. Sadly, a lot of the time this leads to outcomes that do not help the environment, or even outcomes that affect the environment negatively. All too often, their yardstick is just to measure success by how much they exclude or hamper humans. Damned if I know how to change all that, but something clearly has to.

Thank you Willis.
(Not read all of the posts here.)
I love the term “realist” because it is all about the reality of life and death. It is also about perspective. Your comparison of herring and a few seals is timely.
I live in Alberta, home of the much-maligned tar sand (oils sands) where 1,500 ducks unfortunately died last year. The event was hit with a storm of protests and media coverage. As unfortunate as that event was, it was minor compared to the tens of thousands of bats and birds we kill in Alberta with our horrid wind farms.
And don’t even get me going on domestic cats that eat something like half a billion small birds in North America annually. ☺
“In Canada, 5 million pet cats kill about 140 million birds and
small animals each year. ”
http://www3.sympatico.ca/samgreen/webcats.html
That quote is probably not accurate, but that is not the point. The point is, we never hear about this stuff and yet “tar sands” bird deaths are plastered across the globe on YouTube and never put into perspective.
It is all about reality and perspective.
Clive

Right on, again, Willis. I’m part of the forest products industry and damn proud of it. BTW, the word “conservation” was coined by Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot and it meant “wise use” to those guys. It did not mean “preservation,” like many today think.

As the terms Environmentalist and Conservationist have been denatured by modern extremist practitioners, might I suggest one of the following:
Steward
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/steward
1. One who manages another’s property, finances, or other affairs.
2. One who is in charge of the household affairs of a large estate, club, hotel, or resort.
3. A ship’s officer who is in charge of provisions and dining arrangements.
4. An attendant on a ship or airplane.
5. An official who supervises or helps to manage an event.
6. A shop steward.
7. A wine steward.
intr. & tr.v. stew·ard·ed, stew·ard·ing, stew·ards
To serve as a steward or as the steward of.
husbandry
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/husbandry
1 archaic : the care of a household
2 : the control or judicious use of resources : conservation
3 a : the cultivation or production of plants or animals : agriculture b : the scientific control and management of a branch of farming
If these don’t strike a chord, please, find alternatives. There are a lot of us who don’t believe in waste and abuse of anything, but, can’t identify with the modern versions of that which we used to identify.

Lost in this discussion of conservation versus current environmentalism is who pays. Hunting and fishing licenses paid for vast tracts of land across the US and the salaries of of the wildlife biologists. There is also the 10% Wallup- Breaux tax that is added to the wholesale price of all hunting and fishing equipment in the US and returned to conservation type efforts. Sportsmen groups like Ducks Unlimited have purchased or leased significant amounts of wetlands. It was sportsmen who fought against the depletion of salmon stocks, striped bass and any number of game animals long before it became fashionable. It is sad that the sector that has paid its own way -that was at the front lines from the beginning are vilified by those that pay nothing. Environmentalism is too often “this is what I want and this what you will pay to give it to me” Users fees insure wildlife management will survive long after environmentalism is no longer fashionable.

Well, I know that the more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the more plants will grow. (Michaelis-Menten kinetics backed up with empirical data) So, driving a car makes me environmentalist or not?

Al Gore’s Holy Hologram (12:43:28) :
When they wanted to control you in your community they called themselves communists.
When they wanted to control you in your society they called themselves socialists.
When they wanted to control you in your environment they called themselves environmentalists.
What comes next?
—-when they want to control all your money they call themselves capitalists—–

End of the IPCC: one mistake too many – April 7, 2010
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/views/story/0,4574,380103,00.html?
Opinion
Published April 7, 2010
End of the IPCC: one mistake too many
‘Climategate’ suggests a conspiracy to commit fraud by a small gang of influential UN panel scientists
By S FRED SINGER
THE United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acknowledged they made a mistake in their projection of 2035 as the date when all the Himalayan glaciers would melt. But the Himalayan blunder is not a one-off mistake; it is only the latest of a long list of errors that have dogged the IPCC over the past 10 years. And by now, after the ‘Climategate’ flap of last November, ‘Glaciergate’ seems to have opened the floodgates with reports on ‘Amazongate’, ‘Natural-disaster-gate’, and many more. […]
[Reply: please post the link and just the opening paragraph(s), or key parts of long articles. ~dbs, mod]

peterhodges (17:11:43) :
—-when they want to control all your money they call themselves capitalists—–
Wrong, a true capitalist knows that if he has all the money, then there is no more wealth to be generated. Basic economics.

Smokey
Maybe someone already said. FYI. In Canada, it has been illegal to kill those small white ones for something like 15 years. Yet WWF et al still use them as their poster seals.
The Canadian Weather Chanel today had an item on how AGW was endangering seals. What a crock of crap. And of course they featured the cute white pups. Argghh!
Clive

James Sexton (17:26:09) : Basic economics.
well, basic economic theory anyway. unfortunately, it seems actual economics works more like i described it. i.e. tell John “Competition is a sin” Rockefeller or the folks who own the fed they are not true capitalists.
while i agree with your sentiment, i guess i am saying that monopoly-capitalism as practiced today is incompatible with freedom

Alexander Feht (17:41:06) :
I was going to type something witty and sarcastic, but on second thought, I’d like to thank you for stating the obvious, yet unpopular point of view, apparently. I’d have thought that most had a more pragmatic view here. Willis is correct, in my view, a herring’s death is a much as a seal’s death. I just don’t view it as necessarily a sad or bad thing. Odd that it seems many here will deny the existence of a higher power and the eternal soul of man, yet, many here will speak to the “spirit” of an animal. Very odd.

peterhodges
i.e. tell John “Competition is a sin” Rockefeller or the folks who own the fed they are not true capitalists>>
Well Peter, no need to be vague. Step up and spell it out. Just what does this Rockefeller guy have a monopoly on and just who are these “folks” that you say “own” the fed? Could you be more specific?

Talking to trees, thanking fish, I’m starting to get worried about you Willis!
But I like your story.
Of course 90% of the city people don’t understand a word you’re saying.
Last week I visited a school and in the entire class there was not a single kid who could explain where milk is coming from.
Our modern city life first made the masses a stranger to nature and today they are becoming a stranger to agriculture and farming as well.
Kids grow up in an urban jungle with shops and supermarkets.
Most of them have never visited a farm or a natural park.
Even holidays are now limited to full service family resorts.
It won’t take much time before we can tell people anything because they know nothing!
That’s why we are in a mess in the first place.
I say keep up the good work, we can’t do without it.

Willis, I may share some of your opinions, but, this sort of rhetoric is seen as weakness by AGW proponents. They view you as that much more of a traitor that you would share part of their world view and not the rest. You have betrayed the true religion with your non-belief that man and his industry are evil. You see what I mean?

I don’t necessarily think that one life can be equated to another. I don’t think it is an axiom that a herrings life is equal to that of a seals. Of all the life forms on this planet I think there is a continual spectrum (given variation between and within species) of awareness. If we think it is natural to equate the value of one animals life to that of another then it would be logical to equate the life of a dolphin to that of a bacteria as they could be linked progressively to each other by other life forms. If you don’t believe that the life of a bacteria is equal to that of a dolphin then there has to be somewhere along the spectrum where you place a cut-off line or grey area and this would not be objectively placed but subjective. It becomes very hard then unless you think all life is equal to argue where that cut-off is.
Also I was wondering if you had ever tried to cut down the biggest tree in one of your forests with one of your herrings?

Willis Eschenbach (17:46:36) :
u.k.(us) (17:04:40)
Willis,
I agree with all you said, but showing the seal pup is not the way to win the war.
Well, I’m not in a war, so I’m unsure of your meaning. My point was that the death of a fish-eyed herring and the death of a bunny-eyed seal pup are equivalent, regardless of the bunny eyes. I was attempting to illustrate the illogical nature of protesting the death of a single seal pup, while ignoring the death of a million herring. That’s environmentalism gone way off the rails, in my book. Which is why I’m a conservamentalist.
==============
Make no mistake, whether you call it:
“environmentalism gone way off the rails”, or
Catastrophic AGW “Theory”, it is a war.
A “war” against the latest Utopian fantasy, we are being subjected to.
BTW, I thought I was the only one that apologized to things I kill 🙂

‘Northern Early Asian Immigrants’ you say ?
I saw some research indicating some of them travelled from the East, along the fringe of the retreating ice, from Greenland &/or Scandinavia. Similarities in primitive toolmaking, distinct from Asian characteristics.

I’ve given up trying to define myself in a way that nobody else can co-opt the term and twist into something that I find distasteful.
So I’ve settled back to things like “Homo sapiens sapiens” and Top Of The Food Chain.
For those of The Book, the key words are “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
There are responsibilities and duties in there and I accept them.

Is it just me, or “what up with that” James Hansen and his April 5th post on Huffington Post , what the ??? “Obamas second chance?”

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know why the seals were harvested?
Has anyone wondered what would happen to the seals if they were not?
Did anyone check out what happened to their natural predators?
And last, is it better for an animal to be immediately killed with a tool devised for the purpose of instantly killing, or to die in agony of starvation?
Things are not always as they seem.

Wow, that is one ADORABLE little seal pup.

Nasif Nahle (18:06:58) :
Most plants won’t grow. The success of a plant to survive under CO2 concentration stress depends on a sole adaptation. If the plant has it, good! If the plant doesn’t have it, well… it will not grow more than other plants.
Some plants like Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) starts enhancing its growth under CO2 stress, but it declines its growth some weeks or months after the carbon dioxide in its environment was increased:

Oh please…. Most plant won’t grow? And you just cherry picked a paper? Have you read the paper, BTW?
Let me copy and paste just one sentence of the Abstract:

Enrichment of atmospheric CO2 is a generally recognized technique of increasing growth rates.

And of course it is. For 1 paper where you find no increment of growth you can find hundreds of papers proving that CO2 increments result in plant growth increments.
Here are a few:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/r/rubiscoag.php
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject_r.php

Please, less emotion, preaching, finger-pointing, and noble posturing on both sides of the climate debate. Let’s be honest for a moment: while we argue passionately about fur, fish or a few degrees Celsius, mankind is cheerfully overpopulating our way toward oblivion.
Every single environmental issue originates in human population pressure. Until we seriously address this, the rest is just meaningless tinkering.

Sorry for the double posting:
Here are 6 papers, also using Nicotiana tabacum as the plant being tested, and in all 6 of them plants increase their growth a mean of about 60% (dry weight) when the CO2 concentration was increased by 300 ppm.
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/n/nicotianat.php
Maybe something went wrong in the experiment on the paper you cited.

Christoph Horst (18:38:49) said:
“Animals don’t think in categories like that (to say nothing of plants). They don’t think at all. They don’t know the meaning of the word “category.” Or morals. They aren’t even indifferent to that kind of thing, because they don’t know what indifference is. They aren’t even aware of themselves.”
This is stupidest thing I’ve read in many years. Clearly, Christopher, you know nothing about animals, and live in a day dream fostered by religion or some such. Animals DO think, they ARE aware of themselves, and those who live with humans demonstrate extraordinary abilities and awarenesses, including morals and ethics.
Years ago I read an asinine book by some bible-thumper that claimed animals didn’t REALLY feel pain, and that what we perceived as suffering was nothing more than unconscious reflex actions. The author had to concoct this theory in order to reconcile his religion with the observable world, and to justify all those animal sacrifices in his religious textbook. Incidentally, this is the same argument put forward by human abortionists to spin away the obvious suffering of their human unborn victims.
_____________________________
Larry Sheldon (19:03:01) said:
“For those of The Book, the key words are “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
“There are responsibilities and duties in there and I accept them.”
Larrry, IT’S A BOOK. It isn’t reality; it’s a collection of plagiarized tribal myths. To live your life by a story compendium and to base your treatment of other sentient beings on said compendium is beyond unconscionable. You are exactly the kind of person I was referring to in my original post. It isn’t your duty to reproduce yourself ad infinitum or to subdue and control all the other beings on this planet, and your acceptance of such an imaginary duty tells me you are far less evolved than the the poor animals you disparage. What an ego. So the Universe revolves around YOU, huh?
I’ve spent most of life rescuing sentient, intelligent, self-conscious, but horribly abused and neglected, animals from people like you and Christopher. Every cent I have goes to veterinary care, most of which would never have been necessary if it weren’t for spiritual snobs of your kind who think themselves special, unique, superior, blah, blah, blah.
Reply: Biblical references to humans’ relationships with non-humans will no longer be discussed, nor biblical reference to sentience or non-sentience. If you need to go down the path of sentience or consciousness discussions please discuss in terms of Behaviorism, ie Skinner. This is not a blog to debate religion. ~ ctm

Thank you Mr. Eschenbach for writing this post! Though I am a daily “lurker” here on WUWT, I felt compelled to write a comment.
I am not the standard WUWT reader. I am a 31 year old, female, skeptic, left leaning independent who’s former career included working on an oil rig as a geologist and cleaning up contaminated sites for reuse. I have seen environmental protests from the small scale to the large-a couple people with signs to a whole community of people with shot guns!
In 5 years as a geologist, I saw protests beginning to change from peaceful and informational to violent and irrational. While I once considered myself an environmentalist, this shift has caused me to take a look at my views and actions and make changes as I did not want to be identified in the same breath as someone who would hurt someone else or destroy property to keep a tree from being cut down. I felt I was not doing enough good in this world and decided to end my geology career and become a science teacher at the middle school level to help young people challenge the accepted understanding of what science is and how they impact their surroundings.
Mr. Eschenbach, thank you for giving a name to the actions and beliefs that I have made a part of my daily life. I am excited to say that I am a conservamentalist….ok, at the very least, I am glad you gave a name to what has given me peace at my roll here on Earth. By the way, I too talk to my plants when I am working in my garden and thank them for growing for me. I thought I was alone in that and, therefore, a little off of my rocker!

Shona (13:24:19) wrote :
“I am not a vegetarian because I don’t just love mammals. I also love leccuce and carrots, and they are living beings too.”
That reminds me of a bit of political backlash that a hiking friend, Paula McMasters, embroidered onto her hat:
“If you like plants, don’t eat them!”

hendrik (16:12:22) said :
“Dear Willis,
“I can completely agree with your reasoning. I am a biologist working (amongst others) with rats and mouses. I am doing reseach for cancer cures. I have killed at this moment about 2500 rats for my research. Does this make make a monster?
“Without the type of research I am doing there would be not a single cure for cancer.
“Sometimes I hope (in vain) that this message gets through into the nutcases that oppose this type of experimenting (before they are struck with cancer, that is).”
Yes, it DOES make you a monster. Experiment on humans with cancer; they will let you, but do not inflict disease on innocent animals and then torture them in search of a cure.
According to you, I’m a nut case. According to the Dalai Lama, I’m on the right track. You arrogance is amazing. You claim that without “the type of research” you are doing “there would be not a single cure for cancer.” Really? And how many millions upon millions of animals have been tortured and sacrificed for the supposed cures it has produced? Have YOU or your findings cured anyone of anything?
[I’m deleting this rest of this. Ethics of medical research may be a valid topic, but when we get into terms such as “supposed cures”, dismissing modern medicine outright, the discussion is not a rational discussion. I’d probably lean against allowing much more of this. ~ ctm]

Dave Springer,
If you were more religious you would realise that the instructions in Genesis changed radically when God sent the flood and wiped out the natural riches that allowed an easy vegan diet. After the flood Noah’s descendants had different instructions.

Juanslayton,
wrong on both counts.
BigGubmint TAKES this land from private citizens and charges us money to be allowed to enjoy a small part of it.
Environmenalists use contributions to buy land to preserve from exploitation and then lease the mineral rights to buy more land.
How long do you think it will be before normal citizens will not have access to any of this land at a price they can afford??

peterhodges (17:47:04) :
James Sexton (17:26:09) : Basic economics.
well, basic economic theory anyway. unfortunately, it seems actual economics works more like i described it. i.e. tell John “Competition is a sin” Rockefeller or the folks who own the fed they are not true capitalists.
while i agree with your sentiment, i guess i am saying that monopoly-capitalism as practiced today is incompatible with freedom
Agreed, sort of. My apologies. I was on the phone for a protracted period of time conversing about American football. I’d have liked to responded more intelligently before I consumed so much beer. The connotation you tried to convey is true, sort of. Monopolies in themselves are not necessarily a bad thing. I know many will disagree with me, but it doesn’t make it not true. It is the abuse of a monopoly that is bad. (Rockafellers, to my knowledge, hold no monopoly.) In fact, I’m not sure there is a good example of a monopoly today in a capitalist society. Bell was one, but we broke that up for a more complex and expensive form of communication. It has been said that Bill Gates is a monopolist, but that’s only because we’re too lazy or stupid to be able to use an alternative form of an OS.(As I type this on a Vista infected machine.) Regardless of his fiscal morality, he’s done the world a huge favor. We would not have this wonderful forum today without the likes of MS, Intel, or IBM. All of whom have been accused of monopolistic behaviors, and yet, were integral in the advancement(maybe) of mankind. But those capitalistic ventures were created to make capital, not to control all aspects of mankind’s life. On the other hand, totalitarian communism or fascism……..both state sponsored control of life. Well, until we find a more perfect way, I’ll stick with capitalism. I prefer a Gates or Rockefeller over a Stalin or Pot any day.

Reply: Biblical references to humans’ relationships with non-humans will no longer be discussed, nor biblical reference to sentience or non-sentience. If you need to go down the path of sentience or consciousness discussions please discuss in terms of Behaviorism, ie Skinner. This is not a blog to debate religion. ~ ctm
Anthony, you should have known it would go down this path. ctm, you should have jumped earlier.
The reason why we call them animals, is because they’re NOT PEOPLE.
Reply: There are multiple moderators. This is volunteer work. I’m not here all the time. Sometimes the food fight breaks out while I’m in the bathroom and I have to come back and be all adult ‘n stuff. ~ ctm

or provide a different thread/website? for those that wish to go down this path. For me, it isn’t why I’m here, but feel obliged to respond to the ignorant/condescending articulations. And……. I’m morally compelled according to my beliefs.
Reply: Have fun. ~ ctm

Too many comments to read at bedtime, but I must say “Conservamentalist” is an awkward locution.
How about a simple “Conservator”? My dictionary widget defines it as, “A person responsible for the repair and preservation of works of art, buildings, or other things of cultural or environmental interest.”
I’m not for ‘-ists’ any way. Years ago a friend named Todd Kelso, now gone, used to complain about ‘-isms’, claiming he was an ‘anti-ism-ist’.
I wouldn’t mind being a conservator, and I think Willis is one, already.
/Mr Lynn

Christoph Horst (18:38:49) :
The original sin committed by environmentalists and many others who bear warm feelings towards the environment is to impose human categories upon nature. Categories such as good, bad, deserving, “sustainable”, morals, worth, love… Animals don’t think in categories like that (to say nothing of plants). They don’t think at all.>>
So certain are we? How many animals kill for sport? Besides humans, weasels. There are probably other examples… but not many. In summer, my dog likes to sleep on the lawn in the back yard. We have a local bird called a Grackle. They pick up pebbles off the road, fly to a tree branch, very carefully line up the shot… and drop it on the dog’s head. When one scores a direct hit, the whole bunch start cackling. Ever sit in a canoe on the lake watching a bear rip through your camp site? They are very good at taking the lids off of jars. I do not think anyone sat down with a bear and “showed them how”. Ever see a dog corner a racoon on a beach? The racoon will fight, but slowly retreat into the water. Once the racoon has suckered the dog in far enough it will climb abord the dog’s head and hold it under until it drowns (good thing for stupid dog he was over his head, but not over my head). I had the neighbour’s dog show up in my yard once, barking like crazy. Tried to shoo her away and she lunged at me, bit the bottom edge of my pant leg, and started dragging me. It was half a mile to the neighbour’s place and they weren’t home. There were some three month old puppies and one of them had it’s head stuck in a tin can. That dog knew she couldn’t help the puppy but that she could go and get someone who could. On a trout lake, loons will follow the fishermen about. When you try and release a small one, the loons come up from the below and take the fish right out of your hand, they know it is too exhausted to swim away and avoid them, and no one taught them that, they figured it out on their own.
As a rule, animals don’t kill except to eat or in self defense. If that isn’t a sense of morals, I don’t know what is. They reason, they amuse themselves, they problem solve. No not to the extent that we do, but suggesting that they don’t think at all and aren’t self aware? Observation suggests otherwise.

“Biblical references to humans’ relationships with non-humans will no longer be discussed, nor biblical reference to sentience or non-sentience. If you need to go down the path of sentience or consciousness discussions please discuss in terms of Behaviorism, ie Skinner. This is not a blog to debate religion. ~ ctm”
Bring it up with Larry. I don’t believe in the bible. As for sentience, who cares what Skinner had to say on the subject? This is 2010, and we’ve progressed.
Editing out anything I’ve said that might strick someones conscience or ability to empathize with animals is interesting. Is this really what “science” has come down to? Defending ancient scientific truisms (“animals can’t think”), just to appear scientific?
The religious posters attacking Eschenbach or trying to “correct” him are part of the subject at hand. If they’ve made religion an issue, how can we suddenly pretend otherwise? His own post strays into this area.
Incidentally, are moderators supposed to judge letters based on their personal beliefs or on their relevance to the threads?
Just wondering.
Reply: Don’t take it personally because my inline response appeared in your comment. My response was for everyone involved. This means the end of the Biblical discussion even if you did not start it. Don’t get defensive. Nothing you said was deleted. ~ ctm
Reply 2: Oops, I was mistaken, some of your medical testing comment was deleted. I was focused on the religion ones. Yeah well, moderation has a subjective side, and there are certain subjects we can decided are too inflammatory for a particular thread. I often censor comments I agree with because they could launch flame wars and off topic discussions. I did make a negative comment in your deletion, because you went from a potentially valid question to being completely dismissive of modern medicine. ~ ctm

“The prairies were fertile grounds for thousands of years, and when white folks went to the prairie, they turned it into a dusty heap in less than a century. That’s not some greenie hyperbole, that’s history.”
There are more trees and green areas now than before “white folks” settled here. The Native American’s (Indians) moved from site to site, spoiling everything in their path. They only took because it never occurred to them to give back. The environment was saved because Native American’s were not very successful at population growth. THAT’S history.

Sorry.
I really and truly did not mean to trip a religion alarm–I was looking for a way to make the point.
Which is this:
For some reason (whose nature I am willing to leave to individuals) we humans wound up in charge here.
There is no mandate to eradicate humans to protect the snail darter.
If the humans didn’t get the seals, the polar bears would.
If the humans didn’t get the fish, the whales would.
That’s the way the system works.
And part of my point was that they way the system works involves responsibilities and duties 0n me and my kind.
I don’t fish unless I am hungry.
Hanging deer heads on the wall and throwing the rest in the garbage (or putting it in the freezer until it is too old to eat and then putting it in the garbage) is, I think, just wrong.
I do not endorse waste of resources of any kind (including letting oil seep out of the earth and float away like it does in the sea off of California).

[no taunting ~ ctm]

Calling the locals “Indians” was OK by me, because it was the result of a typical bozo European mistake and kinda funny that way. But that’s just me, I can see how being mistaken for someone from another continent might rankle a man. Plus people always gotta ask “You mean Indian with a dot or Indian with a feather”, that could get old real fast.

They call themselves “indians”, so I go with it. All the signs for their reservations put up by them signify “indian”. I agree that “native american” doesn’t do it. I was born here, so I’m a native American.

Urederra (19:30:34) :
Oh please…. Most plant won’t grow? And you just cherry picked a paper? Have you read the paper, BTW?
You could assure that for a single species (what it is real cherry picking), not for all plant species. 🙂
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/37/14724.full.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5973/1642
Read any book on plant physiology. You will see that there is a big difference among C3, C4 and CAM photosynthesis on taking and using the carbon dioxide when it is at of high concentrations, so in the air as in the water.

Reply: Have fun. ~ ctm
Uhmm, yeh, thanks. That was a hoot. :D. The first headline I saw was asking “What is your vision of a perfect mate?”…………..With the beer in me and all, well, criminey ……………….hahaahahahahaha…..

Willis,
You are right on with this post.
I have noticed from reading this blog that you are a sort of lightning rod for the assorted and varied views on AGW and it’s implications or lack thereof.
Hello Phil M and please feel welcome here as I respect your conflicting views as posted here as valuable arguments in this important and crucial topic.
Now as for conservamentalism as you call it, let’s not forget humanism. I bring this up because of the disturbing consequences suggested by environmentalism, that is, that being human and pursuing human interests we are manifestly destroying planet earth. We are not destroying planet earth. CO2 is not destroying planet earth. Planet earth is doing fine.
Let’s keep the debate focused on humanity and how we can all pull together and get everyone on the planet up to the same level of wealth and freedom shared by us on this blog.

James Sexton (21:57:55) :
davidmhoffer (21:24:49) : How many animals kill for sport?
You, uhmm, ever watched a cat and a mouse?>>
Yes I have, another exception. And I have paid personally with my entire summer’s wages when I was in high school because MY dog killed 200 chickens at my neighbour’s place. Instead of KILLING her, I tied a dead chicken to her collar for three weeks. Yes it stank, and she never played with chickens again, which is what she was doing, not intentionaly killing them. Your dog got “lead poisoning” because it was PLAYING with the chicks and didn’t understand it was killing them. The dog was PLAYING and took a bullet to the head because you didn’t understand that is what happened and couldn’t be bothered to train the dog not to do it anymore? And you call ME down? And yes I know what bull bovines can do. They can become very agressive when they feel threatened and they can do a lot of damage, but they are reacting out of fear or anger. Have you ever broken up a bull fight? You go on horseback because the horse is smart enough to help you break up the fight and keep you and him safe. You don’t go on a motorcycle. I know someone who did. The funeral was three days later. You don’t even go in a half ton truck. You would be amazed what an enraged 2800 pount Charlois bull can do to a truck. If you approach an enraged animal, it is taking out its fury (and fear) on what ever is nearby. And yes, mountain lions will kill. So will bears. They are territorial, and like humans, will defend it, and will attack if they feel threatened. That is not the same as killing for sport.
I never said humans and animals were equivelant. I said the notion that they can’t think, and aren’t self aware was wrong. Nor is it the same for all animals. There’s a big difference in cognitave function between a rat, a monkey and a herring.

@ Christopher Horst
Imagine having a conversation about morals with Adolf Hitler. Quite frankly I trust my dogs to make moral choices superior to that of many humans. It’s all a matter of how they’re raised whether human animals or non-human animals. My dogs don’t kill living things they but rather, like me, protect living things and they make very well reasoned choices on when, where, and how to do it well outside their previous experience or training. Humans are animals and run the gamut in moral character from Mahatma Ghandi to Genghis Khan. I’m not really aware of any non-human mammal so adept and willing to kill their own kind. Dogs don’t torture other living things unless some sadistic human taught them to do it but humans will not only torture a dog they’ll torture other humans. Tell me again which is the moral animal?
I admire Willis’ awareness of taking the lives of other living things. The apologies to trees are to keep him aware of his actions not to make the tree feel better about it. Apologizing to whatever is being harvested is traditional in many native American cultures although as far as I know the Aztecs didn’t apologize to the victims of their mass ritual human sacrifices so it isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a universal practice in native American culture. I don’t mean to single out meso-Americans. History is replete with examples of human atrocity. The games and spectacles in the Roman Colosseum come to mind. Humans murdering humans, animals killing animals, animals killing humans were entertainment for 50,000 screaming grinning spectators who flocked to see it. Have some moral conversations with those folks and you’d find yourself a member of the cast instead of the audience.

Urederra (19:30:34) :
For example, some C3 plants would enhance their growth at high concentration of CO2, but almost all C4 plants would not take advantage of the same condition. Actually, many C3 plants won’t be benefited by the high concentration of CO2 if they lack of an efficient symbiotic mechanisms with microorganisms which fix the N from the soil. CAM plants growth enhancement is barely 12% and stops its enhanced growth when photosynthesis stabilizes. The latter happens also to C3 plants and those few C4 plants which enhance their growth at merely 21%.
We cannot deduce from experiments over few species that all plants benefit from high concentrations of CO2. The same happens with temperature, light, water, etc. Excessive exposition to light, for example, directly damages the plants.

Willis Eschenbach (22:43:22) :
April E. Coggins (21:16:11)
I don’t feel a bit guilty about being at the top of the food chain. …..
The problem with that theory is that one person dumping junk into a big river makes no difference. …….
But one day I realized that when a million or so Danny Boone Juniors live together,……. it’s an ugly plastic blizzard …
(Abbreviated for brevity, not significance.)
Of course, you’re right. OTOH, if one thinks about it properly, if we took it out of the land, it should go back in the land. If we are raping the land as some have indicted here, then it stands to reason that we should put it back. Sequestering our waste, obviously, is a failed perspective. Given that man does not create, but only modifies, and given that everything degenerates, April isn’t too far off. Plastics are problematic, but most else is better served on the ground.
Heh, I’ve got to go to work early tomorrow, but this has almost been a hoot.
Willis, I don’t think you intended all of this, but maybe you did. Some could perceive this as divisive in nature. I find it comforting to see so many people of diverse mindsets, here because of the obscene bastardization of naturalism created by the CAGW alarmists. We’ll work the rest out later, but for now, we’ve more important things to set straight.
Cheers to all.

A few years ago I would have proudly described myself as an environmentalist. Sadly, I have become very sceptical of much of what passes for environmentalism these days. This to me is one of the worst effects of the “climate change” movement – environmentalism has become a bit of a dirty word. In the past few days we have seen evidence of what was once a shining example of concern for the environment – Greenpeace – turning into yet another bunch of “climate change” extremists.
The obsession with CO2 has distracted attention from good old-fashioned environmental causes. We are told that measures to limit CO2 will have positive effects on other environmental problems, but I think it is more likely to be the other way around – if we deal with the immediate, tangible problems, such as deforestation and loss of habitat, this will do more to help regulate climate than any pointless, futile attempts to limit CO2.

@ vboring (12:39:31) :
“I’m a science-based environmentalist with socialist and vegan leanings.
That is why climate change pisses me off. It distracts from humanity’s real problems.”
Vboring, there is no joined-up logic in your statement – in fact the more I read it, the less sense it makes. Furthermore, I would suggest that as a socialist you ARE humanity’s real problem.

where, WHEN, and why.

Willis Eschenbach (22:52:21) :
regeya (21:20:36)
“The natives in North America always had a sustainable way of life and thanked every animal and the Earth for giving what they used or eat. They are the first Conservamentalists.”
Here’s a related curiosity. One of the less known stories of the prairies is that the Early Asian Immigrants didn’t live much on the prairies until the coming of the Europeans. This was because buffalo are very hard and very dangerous to kill if you are on foot.
The Early Asian Immigrants *did* “hunt” buffalo on foot — they’d stampede a herd over the edge of a precipice.
Fifty to a hundred dead and crippled buffalo in a heap at the bottom of a cliff provided a lot of meat, hides, and sinew at a very low risk to the hunters — and provided a lot of leftovers for scavengers.

regeya (21:32:46) :
@Jack:
‘ “Environmentalist”
‘The word was demonized by the right wing scream team.
[…]
Amen.
Right, the “right wing scream team” caused every “Environmentalist” organization I’ve heard of to essentially make Environmentalism’s chief cause the CAGW hoax.
But a few years ago one Environmentalist had already told me that I couldn’t call myself an “Environmentalist” because I didn’t want to tear down all the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers to “save the Salmon”, which is a gigantic fiasco as is. That after I’d purchased 200 acres of land 30+ years prior, situated almost entirely within a legal Wilderness, partially to preserve it from development or commercialization and later took him on as a partner!
I guess the “right wing scream team” must have finally got to me./sarc.

Willis, another keeper 🙂 I’ve always been taken by an aphorism I read in a magazine once many years ago: “There is but one sin — disrespect for life”.

@ Dave Springer (15:39:59) :
“There’s a difference in kind between eating a soy bean and eating a steer.”
There sure is! Where I live (Tasmania) soy beans mostly come from Asia. The steers eat the grass outside my back door. Their manure grows my vegetables.
So if I eat imported beans trucked here from overseas and buy my vegetables at the supermarket I’m saving the planet. But the planet is doomed because I prefer to eat what I can grow locally. Hmmmmmm….