A few years back I wrote an article about the failures of the Endangered Species Act, but I only touched on the political implications of the Yellowstone wolf recovery program.
JD King, an aspiring filmmaker, has produced a documentary about the wolf reintroduction that was eye opening, sad, and scary all at the same time. I urge you to take an hour of time out of your busy life and watch this educational film about the effects that the wolf reintroduction is having on real people in the wolf recovery zone. JD also delves into the real agenda behind the program, and backs up his bold claim that “it was never about the wolves.”
The following link will take you directly to the movie on JD’s website, where you can watch it for free for a limited time, but don’t stop there. Browse JD’s website and learn more about him, his movie, and the people who were part of it. This is an extremely important essay, and I highly recommend it. In fact, while you’re there, buy a DVD copy of his movie or make a donation. He worked hard on this film, and donations will go toward making sure as many people see it as possible.
Few of us have a spare hour; I surmise that the film is about ranchers losing livestock to wolves. I don’t know anything about that; so I can’t comment.
This is the closest to an environmentally-related thread, but the conservative blogosphere has been conspicuously silent about the end to the global warming controversy. Yes, global warming is real.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html
We now know four things, beyond the shadow of reasonable doubt:
1. The earth is warming
2. Atmospheric CO2 is increasing.
3. CO2 is a greenhouse gas and the observed temperature increases are in line with calculations based on the observed increase in CO2.
4. The observed rise in CO2 is owing to human activity (burning of fossil fuels and deforestation).
This doesn’t prove that the documented rise in global temperatures was caused by the documented rise in CO2, but it is vastly more plausible that the two are related, as opposed to being separate and unrelated.
Meanwhile, California just became the first state to implement a carbon cap and trade regime:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-trade-20111021,0,1125437.story
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Wisdom: Where I live, the State released both coyotes and river otters into our area. One of their river otters just ate all the fish in my pond – there used to be over fifty catfish and bluegill in there. I spent hundreds of dollars and a year of my time stocking and feeding the fish in that pond and now I have to start all over. I wonder where I can send the bill.
@ Larry
Tell the left to quite making stuff up and conduct science the way science is supposed to be conducted and maybe we’ll listen. If global warming is so real and so urgent, why all the theatrics?
@ Wisdom
I checked the site out and I’ll probably buy the video. But I have one as well. Lefties think they own the environmental issue. I’m a big time SCUBA diver and I love the ocean. Every chance I get, I dive with sharks because I think they are incredible. First check out this story where 357 sharks were found dead on a boat in the Galapagos in June; they were killed for the fins. http://www2.nbc17.com/news/2011/jul/23/unc-researcher-357-dead-sharks-found-fishing-boat-ar-1233087/
200 shark carcasses were found on the ocean floor in Columbia, missing their fins as well. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2011/10/19/2011-10-19_shark_massacre_in_colombia_kills_2000_illegal_costa_rican_fish_tawlers_suspected.html
So, you can check out this website. http://www.sharkwater.com/
I’ve eaten shark and I actually like it, but to catch a shark, cut off its fins and throw it back is just unbelievable.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
The “Conservative blogosphere” reporting on other things is proof that global warming is real? Your boyfriend obama’s plight must be getting to you.
You complain when others here post an editorial to support a position, yet you just did the same.
To make things worse, it is quite incomplete and hardly settles the issue nor does it support most what you claimed.
As for cap and trade, just more suicidal stupidity based on the beliefs of deluded and narcissistic leftists like you. California deserves the pain it will suffer as a result.
So, reintroducing wolves is bad? At what point do you stop manipulating the predator/prey issues?
We have issues here with reduced deer populations thanks to coydogs. Yet, people piss and moan claiming we need to shoot more deer. Maybe the real problem is that we have too many people and not enough wildlife.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: Yes Larry, it is about ranchers losing livestock to wolves. Funny, considering the rest of your comment, that it is also about how junk science was responsible for the decision to reintroduce them where they did. Funny also, considering the real agenda behind Climate Change politics, that it is also about using environmental causes as a collar to control people and property.
@cml in maine: Was the reintroduction bad? Hell yes it was bad. Watch the movie. The exploding wolf population has decimated the big game herds. It has also bankrupted ranchers and cut beef production, which increases food prices. Why? Because people who don’t live here, and don’t have to live with the consequences of their decisions, forced the reintroduction on the people of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, just like what happened where you are in Maine.
The problem in both cases is the interference in wild game management by federal authorities. States are the historic owners of game within their borders, but federal wildlife officials have done everything possible to usurp their authority, and in almost every instance have made the general picture of game levels worse. Leave wildlife management to the states and the sportsmen, and you will see that game populations will increase dramatically.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim: While you have tried to make points there are a few questions that remain unanswered.
1. How warm did it get between the Ice Ages?
2. why has no climate model accurately predicted out 5 years let alone 10? Kind of puts a kink in your claim number three since the observed temperatures vs CO2 calculations are revised every year to repair the equations as they do not predict correctly.
For busy people on the go, for example doctors unnecessarily removing tonsils and limbs just to make big money, here is Burt Rutan’s take on Man-made global warming:
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm
Spoiler: He demonstrates that it’s a crock.
I call it the “Barbra Streisand Syndrome”. People who are very talented in one area often convince themselves that their expertise extends to other areas. Research shows that it doesn’t, and our good liberal Dr. Larry is a perfect example of that phenomenon. I have no doubt he could perform a cystolithotomy or a lithotripsy with the best of them, but he obviously doesn’t know sh*t about so-called
global warmingclimate change.To confirm the CO2-forced AGW hypothesis, you need to demonstrate several things:
Other than the first and last requirements on that list, none of the others have been met.
There’s also the “Streisand Effect,” whereby attempts to hide something lead to the opposite of the intended outcome, changing the thing one wants to hide from something obscure into a large phenomenon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
People always want to know why you don’t want them to see it; when a scientist hides his data from the public, for example, it tends to snowball.
That Streisand woman is a rich source of examples of what not to do, I’d have to say.
Great movie.
J.Box wrote/continues to write stories about a game warden in Wyoming. Great stories that show the stupidity of well-wishing do-gooders interfering with nature. Worth a read! Books would make great movies, but are politically incorrect and would hurt the feelings a PETA, grizzles bears, and wolves.
In the novels, the liberal elite and burkenstock set meet their match with the real thing…. Wildlife!
Wonder how many ranchers will support Obama.
Wow. I think I’m one of only a few commentors who actually watched the documentary. Scary stuff. In ’95 when I was young, stupid and in an “environmental” AAS degree program. (Yeah, I heard a few drum circles there. Raise the roof OWS! LOL!) I totally bought into this BS. I think I signed one of the wolf reintroduction petetions. Arghhh. I’ve grown. My first enlightenment was that the best way for me to help the environment was to go into private industry and help them comply with the rules, but then the rules got out of hand. There is no way to comply with all of the rules and that is the way the Feds want it. You meet one and it requires you to fail at another (solid waste, air, water, etc). They will always have something over you. At one point, I just decided to do the best I could do for the real world environement and screw the rules. I used to wonder why some of the regs made things worse, but it was always a means to an end of more rules and loss of rights to the business or the private citizen. Damn. We are screwed.
I’m in Emergency Management now…
Always amazes me when the burkenstock set and tree buggers fing out the truth about their dreams. hunting and fishing are not for me,but I grew up with hunters and fishermen. Most could not survive a case of poison ivy.
Want another good read? Try Tiger, a Story of Vengence and Survival. Valentine is the author. About a Siberian tiger. Nail biter.
MotherNature has a balancing act. If you mess it, you have problems. Look at the issues with kudzu. Import species that don’t have natural predators to keep them in check and you end up with overpopulation.
It’s also amazing that the burkenstock set has not gone looney with all of the carnage from wind farms. These giant windmills are killing tons of birds and they don’t discriminate between crows and bald eagles. All equal-opportunity fodder for the gods of wind power.
Good comments, has hiccup.
Opps. I meant most of the burkenstock set could not survive a case of poison ivy.
@cml in maine: Yes, there ARE too many people and not enough wildlife, but until the govt. lets us shoot people, what are we to do? Personally, I like animals more than people, BUT I also know that unless there is a Human-specific virus coming, there’s not much we can do to alleviate the present circumstances, except to quit trying to play God.
That has never worked, it has just FUBARED our environment, spearheaded by well-intentioned IDIOTS.
One more thing—, FU*K THE EPA!
About this earth warming up a bit. If it is of if it isn’t, man is a mighty arrogant animal to think he can control the earth too. Someone tell me how you will stop the rain from falling, and the wind to stop blowing and the sun to stop shinning. It’s about who can get the power and the MONEY. How many acres under roof does Al Gore live in, how about his own airplane, think he travels in a little mini cooper? Yeah, he’s real damn serious about this CO2 business. It’s always about thee and not me.
Thanks for the movie Wisdom. I am one of the few among us that has trapped wolves and tracked them. I can say with assurance that Farley Mowat’s book was one of the biggest crocks of manure ever published on nature. His silliness and lies started the tree huggers’ nostalgia for wolves. Like the man from Nebraska mentioned, these same people could never survive in the real wilderness; actually, they would perish on a trap line in a few days.
I regret that I didn’t photograph cattle and wildlife after wolf attacks. The public might have a different opinion of wolves if they could see a bull with his nut sack ripped off, or a cow with her udder ripped away, or a calf with its anus and tail eaten off in one bite. In all these instances, the cattle were left standing in a state of shock; until, a merciful bullet from me sent them over the divide. Wolves will often kill a bull moose or a Black Bear for sport or perhaps for blood lust, because many times they just kill the animal and keep moving. Not exactly the eaters of field mice that the nitwit Mowat portrayed in his book.
In BC, the wolf is hunted and trapped. The problem doesn’t seem as dire with wolves or eco-terrorists and control freaks. I enjoy listening to the wolves sing at night in BC and the Yukon, but I keep my rifle next to my bunk.
Oh, by the way, the wolf will eat, and after he runs out of elk and the cattle are kept close to home, tourists will seem quite tasty, especially the soft ones from big cities. You may trust that I will fall off my horse laughing.