Saturday, June 9, 2007

Mexican wolves

I won't hide the fact that I'm pretty darn unhappy with the Mexican wolf "reintroduction" program. There's so many falsehoods being passed around out there that it is pitiful.

Most of the people who are pro-wolf (but who don't live in Mexican wolf country) are automatically pro-"reintroduction" program. They don't have a clue how the program is run, and they believe the propaganda out there that the locals who have to submit to the program - at very high personal cost (that's out of their own bank accounts, gentle reader) - are all anti-wolf.

Ain't so. People here in Mexican wolf country are anti-program, not anti-wolf. So when you start bashing people who are protesting this program (and they aren't all ranchers, contrary to what the propaganda tells you), you might stop a moment and ask yourself this: Where did you get the info that forms your belief? From shiny magazines with lots of money behind them? Or from the source, the people who are living with this program?

Are Environmentalists in Favor of Anything?

Dam the Salmon
By Shikha Dalmia
From the Wall Street Journal Friday, June 08, 2007
Printed in full at http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2007/06/are-environmentalists-in-favor-of.html

Al Gore has been hectoring Americans to pare back their lifestyles to fight global warming. But if Mr. Gore wants us to rethink our priorities in the face of this mother of all environmental threats, surely he has convinced his fellow greens to rethink theirs, right?Wrong. If their opposition to the Klamath hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest is any indication, the greens, it appears, are just as unwilling to sacrifice their pet causes as a Texas rancher is to sacrifice his pickup truck. If anything, the radicalization of the environmental movement is the bigger obstacle to addressing global warming than the allegedly gluttonous American way of life. . . .These dams provide cheap, renewable energy to 70,000 homes in Oregon and California. Replacing this energy with natural gas -- the cleanest fossil-fuel source -- would still pump 473,000 tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. This is roughly equal to the annual emissions of 102,000 cars.Given this alternative, one would think that environmentalists would form a human shield around the dams to protect them. Instead, they have been fighting tooth-and-nail to tear them down because the dams stand in the way of migrating salmon. Environmentalists don't even let many states, including California, count hydro as renewable. . . .Their opposition to nuclear energy is well known. Wind power? Two years ago the Center for Biological Diversity sued California's Altamont Pass Wind Farm for obstructing and shredding migrating birds. ("Cuisinarts of the sky" is what many greens call wind farms.) Solar? Worldwatch Institute's Christopher Flavin has been decidedly lukewarm about solar farms because they involve placing acres of mirrors in pristine desert habitat. The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society once testified before Congress to keep California's Mojave Desert -- one of the prime solar sites in the country -- off limits to all development. Geothermal energy? They are unlikely to get enviro blessings, because some of the best sites are located on protected federal lands.

Anyone feel like a BANANA?

One Still Free

You know, these days I'm pretty amazed at life. It's a bizarre world out there, if you read what's being said on blogs and in the news. I really am a lazy person in my heart and soul but I can't ignore the BS that people pass off as fact. It burns me that people will believe just about anything these days, which is incredible considering that we have the most powerful research tool that has ever existed on this planet at our fingertips, the web, which could be easily used to verify anything.

But no. People would rather believe the urban legends/hoaxes the receive via email and then pass them on to hundreds of their closest friends. People would rather believe everything they read in print, particularly when it comes in expensive, shiny magazines. They'd rather believe big PR campaigns then the small voices of victims.
People would rather believe what they're fed to believe rather than what they've checked out for themselves.

Well heck, then I'll just feed some belief systems too.

Heh, heh, heh.