A third of avian species on land could disappear this century as a result of climate change 7

Comments View as Flat

1. 

   stevenearlsalmony Posted 11:24 pm
   10 Dec 2007

   What are the environmental groups doing?...............Preventable biodiversity loss is occurring and the great environmental organizations in this world appear to be doing little else than pandering to their big-business benefactors, whose industrial activities play a large part in the massive extinction of biodiversity.
   When are the environmentalists going to stand up, speak out and support the good works of Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri and 2000 IPCC scientists?
   It is quite evident that leaders of the environmental movement recognize that the current scale and rapid growth rate of the global economy cannot be sustained much longer, much less forever, on a planet with the size and make-up of Earth. Many intellectually honest and courageous people possess this knowledge of Earth's limitations, and are beginning to stand up in larger numbers now and speaking out loudly so as to share their understandings with others. But where are the leading environmentalists?
   Given the purposes of the rich and powerful, of course, speaking out in intellectually honest and courageous ways is not the kind of human behavior that supports these leaders' pervasively proclaimed view: only we know how to live. Afterall, many of us have heard one of these not-so-great leaders say something like, "Our way of life is non-negotiable. There is no other. It is either our way of life or else............"?
   These leaders hold a monolithic, potentially pernicious view of the way the world works and, consequently, may present themselves in our time as a formidable challenge for humanity. The global challenge presented to humankind by this leadership could be every bit as formidable a global challenge as human-induced global warming.
   Here we want to objectively identify an overlooked but primary aspect of the distinctly human-forced predicament that is presented to humanity in these early years of Century XXI. I would like to submit that too many leaders among us, all espousing their insistence upon their one right way to live, present themselves to humanity and to life as we know it as a global challenge.
   Through 'talking heads' in the media and bought-and-paid-for politicians, super-rich powerbrokers have predominantly established their view about this world and what about it is most important to them. Can they say what they intend more clearly? What more can they say to be better understood? They report their message ubiquitously in the mass media.
   These leaders are making themselves crystal clear. They are all about endless economic growth, come what may. For any of them to so much as suggest an alternative to the maximal expansion of human consumption, production and propagation activities now threatening to engulf the Earth, would be politically inconvenient, economically inexpedient, socially disagreeable and religiously intolerable.
   Nevertheless, it appears worth noting that their "24/7" message via mass media endorsing unrelenting economic globalization could soon be generally recognized as a scientifically unsupportable fabrication. Their contrived, consensually validated 'necessity' for unbridled economic growth could be eventually seen as fraudent as well as an willful exercise of governmental and corporate malfeasence, all of it based upon the selfish interests of a tiny minority of wealthy and powerful people.
   These wealth accumulating and power-driven leaders and their not negotiable view of the right way for all human beings to live, I am supposing, will shortly stand out as an ominously looming threat to humanity. One day this threat will be given the attention it deserves. Sometime thereafter, this threat will be acknowledged and addressed in an intellectually honest and courageous way. Then the global threat posed by a small number of people advocating evermore patently unsustainable economic growth, come what may, will be confronted by the family of humanity.
   Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
   
   AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
   
   http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

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2. 

   stevenearlsalmony Posted 2:46 am
   11 Dec 2007

   Perhaps the time for change is at hand............Finally, we have some worthy leaders, ones capable of intellectual honesty and courage.
   Thanks are due Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri for providing uncommon and desperately needed leadership.
   Until just now, the world has been dominated by a tiny minority of wealth accumulating and power-driven leaders. I am able to suppose for the first time that these self-proclaimed masters of the universe will shortly stand out as an ominously looming threat to humanity, every bit as serious a threat to human wellbeing as global warming. One day the threat they present to humanity and the integrity of Earth will be given the attention it deserves. Sometime thereafter, this threat will be acknowledged in an intellectually honest and courageous way. Then the threat posed to human and environmental health by a small number of people advocating evermore patently unsustainable economic growth, come what may, will be confronted and overcome.
   Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
   
   AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
   
   http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
   
   

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3. 

   Biodiversivist Posted 1:53 pm
   11 Dec 2007

   Here's a hankie.Am I the only one who finds it amazing that Arnold won't sign a bill banning lead bullets "in Condor habitat" thanks to pressure from the hunting lobby? This is the political system that is going to save us? Condors are on the edge of extinction for God's sake. We should ban lead bullets, period.
   Loved these titles though:
   Carrion Baggage
   
   Beak news
   
   All dressed up and nowhere to go.
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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4. 

   Nucbuddy Posted 3:26 pm
   11 Dec 2007

   Solid-copper bullets vs copper-jacketed leadBiodiversivist wrote: We should ban lead bullets, period.
   Everywhere? I believe they are talking about copper-jacketed lead bullets (the lead is exposed when the copper-jacket peels back during impact). The only feasible alternative is solid-copper bullets, and they are pretty expensive. A couple of copper-bullet links:
   
   http://www.barnesbullets.com
   
   http://www.dakotaammo.net/products/corbon/dpx.htm
   Apropos google:
   
   google.com/search?q=corbon+dpx+rifle+expensive
   
   

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5. 

   amazingdrx Posted 3:38 pm
   11 Dec 2007

   IronicallyThe anti-wind crowd still uses bird kills as a reason to oppose wind.  Even though the Audobon Society has sided with wind on the bird kill fallacy.
   This proves it again, the big risk to birds is GHG climate change, the cure for it is wind to a large extent.  Along with a complete renewable smart grid, plugin vehicles, and conservation.
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

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6. 

   caniscandida Posted 8:22 pm
   11 Dec 2007

   bullets; what kills birds; catsThe first sub-category of items in the "bullets" category of Products at the Barnes Bullets site lists boxes of bullets at from like US$30 to US$35 per box of fifty.  That strikes me as downright cheap, if the hunter knows what he or she is doing.  Think of all the other, bigger expenses that the hunter has had to pay, for the joy of stomping out to the para-wilderness for a few days in order to shoot at and hopefully actually kill a fellow living creature or two.
   But ain't that just so American?: We demand our pleasures to be dirt-cheap, on-tap 24/7/365, and having no nasty consequences, at least so far as we personally are concerned.
   Amazing,
   
   I agree entirely that bird-conservation groups are wrong-headed if they simplistically condemn electricity-generating tall windmills.  It would make much more sense if they demanded the destruction of all tall buildings with glass windows.
   In fact, habitat loss is by far the hugest threat to the well-being of bird species.  Global warming basically amounts to just another contributer to habitat loss, so far as birds and many other kinds of wildlife are concerned, even though it has a very different anthropogenic origin.
   (I think it is the Black Guillemot, Cepphus grylle, whose summering on islands in the Beaufort Sea has already been disrupted by the GW-caused absence of ice there.)
   But we bird-lovers are therefore all the more worried about other kinds of threats to birds, such as hunters and their cheap-skate all-American nasty habit of using lead shot.
   One of these other kinds of threats is cats, and our worries on that front have led to an embarrassing, nearly violent schism between cat-lovers and bird-lovers, and pro-environment ethicists and pro-animal-welfare ethicists.  A good overview, based on a recent celebrated case in Texas, appeared two Sundays ago in the New York Times Magazine:
   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02cats-v--bird ...
   Being a peace-lover and aspiring peace-maker, plus a lover of both cats and birds, I do not want to see either birds or cats hurt or abused.  But since the cats seem to have more powerful, full-throated supporters on their side, it seems more chivalrous that I should publicly take the side of the birds, those beautiful little latter-day dinosaurs.
   So, Mr. Stevenson, the Cat-Slayer, of possibly more than one cat, did indeed murder for a Cause that is Pure.  But nevertheless, he did wrong; that was not at all the way to deal with the problem of the feral cats under that bridge feeding on the nearby piping plovers.
   In Portland, Oregon, a larger, more compassionate understanding seems to have arisen, for the benefit of both cats and birds.  Hopefully that attitude can prevail elsewhere.
   Steven,
   
   as you wrote elsewhere, "Im lo achshav, eimatai?  Im lo attah, mi?"  Coraggio, mon ami.
   
   Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.

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7. 

   lorna salzman Posted 11:31 am
   12 Dec 2007

   Salmony is right about the enviros failureAs a long time environmental activist and former green candidate, I am outraged at the lack of leadership and political action in the environmental movement. Not only have ignored the biodiversity crisis but they have bought hook, line and sinker the same pathetically weak positions on global warming as our miserable congress is taking, in its feeble attempts to look busy on this issue. Even Al Gore has picked up the timid chorus on CO2 reductions: 80% reduction by 2050. Come on, Al,  you know it will all be over by then. We have maybe ten years. However, the scientific community must assume more responsibility and instead of regarding itself only as a  source of expertise, it needs to become advocates of ecological sanity. We need a Million Scientist March on Washington. We need scientists speaking out loudly, without compromise, to the public, the media and especially to congress. We need political leadership from those who know the truth and are willing to say so. They can't keep their opinions to themselves or within their academic institutions. They need to get out onto the street and tell it like it is.
   Lorna Salzman.

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