Sunday, May 31, 2009

Lawsuits Are Not Environmentalism

The truth about Center for Biological Diversity
Copyright © 2009 CR Edmunds

When the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) asks for donations, most people likely think they’re contributing to projects that will improve the environment. But it just ain’t so. CBD has become a money-making litigation machine. They aren’t out there with shovels and seeds, working on the environment, they’re paying lawyers, sneaking onto private property to spy on conditions and – if they don’t find the conditions sufficiently bad to claim the property owner is ruining the environment- they’re publishing phony photos of "environmental devastation". No actual environmental work going on that CBD is doing - just about everything they do these days is rather to support litigation.

Yeah, it may seem like CBD’s litigation is for the good of endangered plants and animals, but when you start looking at the results of what they do you start noticing the real cost to humans and environment alike. This is because CBD activities, particularly litigation, are not environment-driven, but rather CBD agenda-driven. They’re not shy about their plans to evict private property owners from their own land, to create Gardens of Eden in their Sky Islands. No matter that some of the species in the areas being touted as endangered aren’t endangered (or never even lived in the place – look at the weird Mexican wolf situation). No matter that so much of the litigation results in grinding the US Constitution into the dirt. When they win note that someone else always has to bear the burden of environmentalism – never CBD. No, CBD lawyers and CBD personnel are all living nice, safe, well-funded lives, while the rest of us pay and pay and pay – either by losing property, losing our rights, or by being scammed for the donations CBD says it needs to “protect the environment”. All that money, effort, suffering by property owners – and none of it for actual environmental work, just lawsuits. Paperwork, that’s all it is – but it’s not solving problems, it’s causing more.

Humans are a legitimate species on this planet, too – a fact that CBD and other radical, terrorist environmental groups ignore. None of their projects, their agendas or their litigation truly take into account the human right to live and thrive on this planet.

God created the Garden of Eden to have people in it. It was Satan who caused people to have to leave that Garden. Kinda makes you think about CBD, doesn’t it?

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Here’s a list of articles about recent litigation by CBD. I might add to it over time – I can only look at this information for so long before it makes me sick. Not that the critters involved don’t need protecting, but CBD is doing nothing for them, only filing lawsuits. Lawsuits are not environmentalism!

Loggerhead turtles lawsuit with Oceana Inc. and Turtle Island Restoration Environmental Law360 - http://environmental.law360.com/

Two ocean species of turtles lawsuit with Oceana and the Turtle Island Restoration Network Twilight Earth - http://www.twilightearth.com/

Ocean acidification impacts lawsuit Switchboard, from NRDC - http://switchboard.nrdc.org/

Desert Lizard lawsuit http://www.yumasun.com/news/lizard-50356-habitat-yuma.html

Global warming impacts lawsuit against six (6) federal agencies. Global warming is a THEORY, people! http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/global-warming-01-15-2009.html

Coal-Fired Power Plants lawsuit www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/05/13-4

Improper jaguar killing lawsuit www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/jaguar-05-12-2009.html

Stop beach driving lawsuit www.rzrforums.net/public-lands-advocacy/11153-center-biological-diversity-lawsuit-oceano-dunes.html

Desert tortoise lawsuit with the Sierra Club, and the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility www.globalclimatelaw.com/tags/center-for-biological-diversit/

Force the DOI consider listing the American pika as threatened or endangered lawsuit http://greenoptions.com/tag/center-for-biological-diversity

Snowy Plover http://bit.ly/pJWb1

California red-legged frogs and San Francisco garter snakes; notice of intent to sue. http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/5035

Nevada water project lawsuit. http://www.lvrj.com/news/39421007.html

Protect wildlife and roadless areas in CA, with 6 other environmental groups. http://tinyurl.com/nodgau

Block thinning of trees in AZ lawsuit (note that because the thinning was stopped, the result was one of the largest forest fires in the US) http://www.forphoto.com/issues_info/local/thinning_lawsuit.php

North Fork Eel River lawsuit http://www.wildcalifornia.org/pressreleases/number-20

Raptor habitat (as compensation for wind turbine kills) lawsuit https://www.earthislandprojects.org/news/new_news.cfm?newsID=649

Bighorns lawsuit http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090325/NEWS01/903250314/1144/news01

Ely NV travel management appeal http://tinyurl.com/ccwdop

Freshwater turtle harvest lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/naorbl

Not enough land designated “critical habitat” lawsuit http://tinyurl.com/n4th92

Enough! I can’t stand to look at more of these.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Defenders of Wildlife... or irresponsible animal dumpers?

News release from Defenders of Wildlife today says: "Raised in South Salem, New York’s Wolf Conservation Center, she [a female Mexican wolf] was released with excitement into her native habitat in Arizona late last year."

Doesn't it occur to anyone at DoW how unfair it is to wolves to raise them among humans, in captivity where they never learn to hunt, in a very different (humid) climate and then release them to act "wild"?

If anyone did that to a dog, it would be a crime that could be prosecuted. What is different between the Mexican Wolf Program and any other irresponsible animal dumper?

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Vulcan Logic and The Good Of The Many

Copyright © 2009 CREdmunds

Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and his dispassionate logic, said that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few or the one" at the end of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. A noble thought indeed, but putting it into practice necessitates having a clear idea of what the “good of the many” actually is.

In the USA, the good of the many is based on the rights of the individual. That is, the “many” is a collection of individuals, the rights of each collectively protected by the Constitution.

Currently in this noble country of ours, we have a situation that threatens our Constitution and our American way of life, and it is based on a warping of the notion of the “the many” to mean a homogenous group of like-thinking people. This new point of view is promoted by special interest groups - in my opinion the most dangerous threat we have to this country today.

What are special interest groups? They would be the well-funded, powerful groups that want each of us to think and act like they want us to - like zombies instead of independently thinking individuals - so that their decision makers (you know, CEOs and such) can afford to live in the lifestyles they have become accustomed to. (Check out my article Global Warming Zombies from November, 2008.) These groups don’t care what damage they do to the rest of the country - or the world - to achieve their ends.

How can you identify a special interest group? Let me count the ways.

First, special interest groups are just that - their interests are unique, and narrow-based interests rather than the interests of the many. Their point of view does not represent the truth for all (and in my opinion may not represent the truth in any shape or form).

Second, special interest groups use fear tactics to achieve their goals. While they say they are working for the betterment of all - which should be enough motivation for people if that was really true - they use the whip of predictions of disastrous results if they aren't supported or don't succeed in their work.

Third, special interest groups put a lot of money into spreading their own version of the truth and dire predictions of disaster. Since most people will not act unless they are personally involved, generally the public just believes the propaganda they read and hear, and pretty soon it's "universal truth". Then the special interest groups get to do whatever they want.

Fourth, special interest groups will file lawsuits at the drop of a hat - even if they don't plan on following through. Since most people avoid lawyers and courts, people figure that if a group is willing to sue, they must be right.

Fifth, special interest groups also seek to implement legislation, usually legislation that involves other people losing their personal and property rights.

Sixth, special interest groups generally don't do any actual on-the-ground work themselves in the field they are supposedly improving.

Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, special interest groups put out that they are working for the betterment of all, but almost always their "truth" requires that other people give up something or change in a fundamental way. In the movie, Mr. Spock was telling Kirk why it was right that he, Spock, should sacrifice himself “for the good of the many”. Special interest groups don’t give up anything for their cause. The sacrifices always come from others.

Isn’t it time that we all used Vulcan logic to look more closely at what special interest groups are doing to - not for - the people of this country, and to our Constitution? Isn’t it time that we all started defending our rights as individuals, a fight that would truly protect the good of the many? I’m pretty sure if we don’t, to paraphrase Spock in Amok Time, that we, the people, may discover that the freedom we are having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as the freedom we are wanting.