It is not often that I turn a comment into a complete post, but this comment from Willis Eschenbach on the Trust and Mistrust article today, merits such a promotion. – Anthony
Which death is more troubling? (images: from NOAA, upper, Wikimedia, lower)
Willis Eschenbach
I am surprised at the visceral nature of the rejection of the term “environmentalist”. I had not realized it had gotten that bad. I don’t think I’d want to be one of those if that’s how people feel.
It also appears that the new preferred term is “conservationist”. But as I said, I don’t make those fine distinctions, so I’m not sure how that differs from the “e-word”.
So let me modify my statement, and say that I am a conservamentalist. 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 was fishing herring in the Bering Sea one season. I heard on the radio that the annual killing of the Canadian Arctic fur seals had begun, along with the obligatory protests that seem to be required these days.
We’d caught about fifty tonnes of herring that day, killing on the order of a million living beings. I remember thinking how if some creature has big soft baby eyes, it gets lots of sympathy. But if a creature is slimy and has cold fish-eyes, its death doesn’t matter. People hated the seal killers for killing a few dozen creatures, while I killed millions of creatures and was ignored.
If I had to pick one word to describe my position on the ecological webs that surround us, it would be “realist”. Life eats life to live. I am not a man who eats the meat and blames the butcher.
I’ve worked a good deal as a builder. I build with wood. I cut down trees to make room for the building I live in. I grew up in the forest, my step-daddy was a timber feller, the royalty of the logging fraternity. I’ve worked killing trees on an industrial scale.
And I’ll also fight like crazy to see the logging done right. with proper roads and proper setbacks, and proper slope limits, and reforestation. I’ve seen what bad logging practices look like and do.
So for me, a conservamentalist is someone who has thought hard about and balanced the needs for wood and cleared land, balanced those needs with the way that wood is harvested. I grew up in the middle of hundreds of square miles of virgin forest. I have a deep and abiding admiration for that raw wildness. And yet, I cut down trees. 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.
I was a sport salmon fishing guide a couple years ago, on the Kenai River in Alaska, as I described here. Kenai River king salmon are magnificent beings, fifty pounds or more of powerful, glittering, awe-inspiring fish. When one of my clients caught a salmon, I always thanked the fish in a loud voice for giving up its life for us. Life eats life, beings die so that I can live, and I can’t ignore that. I don’t let it keep me from fishing salmon, but I won’t pretend that I am not killing a splendiferous entity. Some of my clients understood.
Heck, I apologize to trees when I cut them down. Yeah, I know it looks dumb, a grown man talking to trees. But it doesn’t stop me from cutting them down by the scores if need be, I’m a realist. Life eats life. Me, I don’t take killing anything lightly, be it redwood or herring or salmon. Someday, I’ll be chopped down in the same way.
So I’m forming the Conservamentalist Party, our motto will be,“Conservamentalists unite! You have nothing to lose but your minds”.
Now, back to the climate…
bryan (12:40:42) :
“… Something similar was done in the 1800’s as Buffalo were killed for their skins and the corpses being left on the prarie to rot in the sun…..”
The buffalo are a very good case to really look into. The buffalo were killed in an attempt to to control (kill off) the American Indians by removing their food supply. Control of CO2 is just such an attempt but it is limiting our ability to manufacture goods as well as grow food. It will place restrictions on commercial fertilizer, irrigation and ruminant livestock as well as the transportation of food to cities. The USDA is already flying the idea of treating tractors as “commercial vehicles” with similar regulations! http://nonais.org/2010/03/02/feds-dot-farm-tractors/
The Buffalo Massacre
“The civilization of the Indian is impossible while the buffalo remains upon the plains. I would not seriously regret the total disappearance of the buffalo from our western prairies, in its effect upon the Indians, regarding it as a means of hastening their sense of dependence upon the products of the soil and their own labors.”
Interior Secretary Columbus Delano, 1873
“….It was also at this time that the U.S. Government desired to separate the Indians from the rest of “civilization” by placing them on reservations. In order to do this, the U.S. Army aggressively pursued a policy to eradicate the buffalo, intentionally extinguishing the Indians’ sustenance, which would force then onto reservations.
…when the Texas Legislature was discussing a bill to protect the buffalo, General Philip Sheridan defended the buffalo hunters and opposed the bill by saying:
”These men have done more in the last two years, and will do more in the next year, to settle the vexed Indian question, than the entire regular army has done in the last forty years. They are destroying the Indians’ commissary. And it is a well known fact that an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage. Send them powder and lead, if you will; but for a lasting peace, let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle.” http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-buffalohunters.html
General Sheridan was in charge of the army that was “dealing” with the Plains Indians.
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.
Susan C. (12:57:10) : You are more than two decades out of date – baby seals have not been taken in Canada for some 25 years. Too much PETA and Sea Shepherd propaganda is still widely circulated. Without culling, the seals decimate the fish populations; I live near a salmon run and the seals simply gorge themselves but are too cuddly to be eliminated. The protected eagles have a grand time too – it’s tough to be a fish.
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.
Where do I put “endangered species”????–right next to the mashed potatoes !!!!!
Of course, after being properly barbecued…
Trees make great compnions too.
Earth Day is a good example of how the environmental movement has become hijacked:
“Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future.
Earth Day 2010 can be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs. Earth Day Network is galvanizing millions who make personal commitments to sustainability. Earth Day 2010 is a pivotal opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join together and create a global green economy. Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for Earth Day.”
Earth Day used to be about the environment, and about real-life issues, such as pollution, poor forestry practices, etc. Now that has all fallen by the wayside, in favor of a complete fantasy. It’s a travesty.
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.
Trees make great companions too. 🙂
one day a bacterium will be eating me
In some ways, the Environmentalist image has been tarnished the same way that the image of Muslims has been tarnished. There are plenty of nut cases using the name and there isn’t any practical way to tell the nut cases from the rest of those who share the same category name.
I too have long discounted anything published by ‘environmental’ groups because there are enough of them who believe that the end justifies the means and that deliberate deception is ok if might motivate people to take their desired action.
I don’t have a way to tell the lies from the truth unless I have access to the background information, and often that is being supplied by the same people and cannot be trusted either.
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.
Willis Eschenbach (20:55:17) : thank you sir- I’m the son of an Old Eastern Oregon Cowboy /Logger. Pop Punched cows and cut trees with a “Misery Whip” before Chainsaws. Pop had that reverence for life- instilled on him from his Native American
mother.
“If you don’t want to eat it-don’t shoot it!” Pop’s hunting motto…
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. . . .
So sad to see trees die
http://www.break.com/index/hippies-wail-for-dead-trees.html
Where is the outrage?
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)
Environmentalist thinking, reasoning & actions are identical to that of an alcoholic; diseased, mentally disordered, progressively doomed to fatalistic choices.
Many years ago, people thought we should save the habitat of the spotted owl. Today, environmentalists are against all harvesting of lumber.
Many years ago, people reacted to the smog in our cities & wanted improved air quality. Today, environmentalists believe we should ban carbon dioxide.
Many years ago, concerned nutritionists believed we should eat less red meat. Today, PETA & many environmentalist believe no one should eat meat… all “animal killing should stop.”
How is this like alcoholism? For the alcoholic, you start having fun with alcohol. Then you have fun & some problems… then you have no fun & only problems.
Once the environmentalist got the taste of power, it was fun, then it was fun with trouble… now environmentalism is only trouble.
They are drunk with their powerlessness over power. They are fanatically egotistical. Fanatically unmanageable in there quest for control over what we breath, how we eat, how we heat our homes, how we use our land…
Just as the drunk… they are spreading wreckage where ever they go, what ever they do.
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.
People are one of the few animals that manufactures food for itself. Even though people will sometimes eat food items with minimal processing, there almost always is some processing/manufacturing. Even eating a carrot from your garden usually involves washing the dirt off of it. On almost every part of the earth, people manufacture foods with whatever raw materials are available.
I would suggest that a word be created to fit our eating habits. We are not herbivores, or carnivores, or omnivores. We are factorvores. We take things that are not edible, and manufacture edible foods. For instance, there is haggis and lutefisk . . . OK, maybe those are a bad example. How about cured olives? Raw olives are inedible, but after extensive processing/manufacturing, they become a delicacy.
More back to the topic, I think the basic question is whether people have the right to modify their surroundings. And I think the answer to that is a resounding yes, because that is how people have survived, and sometimes thrived, in this world.
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…)
Susan C. (12:57:10)
Yeah, you are exactly right, Susan. I meant the fluffy white type baby Harp Seals … here’s a picture of the ones I was talking about.
Like I said, if you want Hollywood types to protest your death it’s much better to have big bunny eyes … I’ve updated the head post with this picture, thanks, Susan.
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.
I thought people like you were the problem.
Shona (13:24:19) :
Single species genus – don’t forget the dear little Platypus, who is the only member of the genus Ornithorhynchus. Because it’s one of very few mammals that lay eggs, and one of very few mammals to be venomous.
I used to often stop by the local creek on the way home from school to see if I could see the platypus that inhabited a slow-moving bend in it. They’re elusive little fellows and tough to spot.
PaulsNZ (12:37:33)
Assumptions, what is it with the web and assumptions? You assume I don’t eat meat … why?
One of the best posts ever!