Comments OutdoorsPro has made

  • It's good to clean up

    I think it's great that campuses, towns and companies are cleaning up their pollution.

    What i have a problem with is student activists who can't get the support of more than 10% of the student body, assuming to speak for everyone.On Students tell Penn State they want Kyoto now! posted 3 years, 6 months ago 5 Responses

  • 10 percent! Woohoo...

    So these students managed to get an entire ten percent of the student body to support their cause and now they think that all policies should be changed to suit their whim.  

    You'll have to pardon me if i'm not all that impressed.On Students tell Penn State they want Kyoto now! posted 3 years, 6 months ago 5 Responses

  • Enough is enough

    I'm a pretty conservative type of guy on a whole bunch of issues, so it should come as no surprise that i take a conservationist stance on this one...

    I also happen to disagree with Canadian policy on many things, most notably the anti-jihadist war, etc.

    But...you folks need to keep your water to yourselves.  We have gotten way too wasteful with our water and taken way too much for granted.  We've already damned up nearly every single river in the Lower 48--wrecking fisheries in the process.  People who want to live in the desert should learn to live with a lot less water.  

    There comes a point where some of our lifestyles reach a point of absurdity.  

    Keep your water, keep some of your rivers wild and tell the US to get used to it.On Where's tomorrow's water? posted 3 years, 6 months ago 15 Responses

  • Typical Corporate-controlled Dems...erm...wait...

    So where's all the vitriolic comments about how typical this is of Deomcrats to be bought and paid for by corporate interests?  You know, how they're selling out America for the sake of share-holder profits?

    Or is that argument reserved just for Republicans?On Point, shoot, go to jail posted 3 years, 6 months ago 8 Responses

  • Common Sense Should Decide

    I'm assuming that this is a homeland security sort of thing...

    Still, while we should be wary of anyone suspicious who is documenting these types of plants, common sense should come into play at some point.  If you're a local and can offer a decent explanation, there shouldn't be a problem, as long as private property is respected.

    This is a problem we've created ourselves.  In everyone's rush to avoid any appearance of being "judgmental" (surely the single biggest sin if you consider youreself a liberal), we've abdicated all personal responsibility for what happens in our own neighborhoods.  As a result, lawmakers feel they need to do something to fill the gap and come up with silly laws like this.

    If i see a plant in my neighborhood doing something fishy and decided to document it, i fully expect that others might wonder what i am doing and investigate.  I should be willing to explain, without getting all upset about it, even if it is cops who do the asking.  It's called being part of a community.

    On the other hand, if i get all upset about it and start acting like my rights have been violated simply because i had to explain myself, especially in this day and age, then i have no one but myself to blame for silly, draconian laws like this.On Point, shoot, go to jail posted 3 years, 6 months ago 8 Responses

  • Enviros against mass organics

    This is an issue i've been following for years, and with Wal Mart's increasing of the availability of organics we're certain to see one of the ugly sides of the environmental/green movement:  Their snobbery.

    While most greens see the adoption of their stated goals as a good thing, there is an strong element that is so self-righteous about their shopping habits that the idea of being able to buy organic foods at a place like Wal Mart offends them.

    I'm all for buying locally produced foods, but sometimes it's just not possible or affordable.  I can't always afford the co-op and frankly, i sometimes tire of the attitudes there, not to mention the "spare changers" that always hang out near the entrance.On Wal-mart's organic bomb posted 3 years, 6 months ago 40 Responses

  • Media Hype

    My guess is that the public is just way too tired of the media hype that comes from every single pronouncement on Global Warming.  

    Back in the seventies we were supposed to be worried about the pending ice age.  Then we were suposed to see warming trends everywhere.  Now, we have to deal with record cooling in some areas and record highs in others.

    Sure, climate change is complex and of course there will be changes up and down around the globe with any climate change.  It's just unfortunate that the reporters who cover the issue know nothing about climatology and atmospheric science and are only concerned with ratings.

    Hype, hype, hype, from the reporters and scientists.  And we wonder why the public is becoming less and less interested.On Facts are inert posted 3 years, 9 months ago 11 Responses

  • A couple points

    I watched the show on Fox News about global warming tonight, and i just had a couple observations:

    I realize the point they were trying to make, but standing near the terminus of a glacier during the summer, pointing to the streams of meltwater as an example of how badly the glaciers are melting is a little bit disingenuous. In the summer time, temperate glaciers will ALWAYS have some impressive streams, creeks and rivers flowing from them. They're glaciers. It's what they do.

    Glaciers, especially valley glaciers, have two primary zones: The accumulation zone, where snowfall exceeds snowmelt and the glacier is actually built. Lower downhill is the melt- or ablation zone, where the ice melts. Without a melt zone, the glacier would only build, and build, and build--eventually the glacier would cover the entire Earth. Thank goodness glaciers melt, eh?

    A glacier may advance or it may retreat. It may even be static, but unless something is really going wrong, they always melt at the bottom, even during an ice-age. Actually, the only difference during an ice-age is that it doesn't melt as fast as it builds, BUT IT STILL MELTS.

    At one point during the show, they were standing on the Mendenhall Glacier, only about a mile from the very bottom, pointing to surface melt (a mill creek) as an example of how the glacier was melting and retreating. I know that spot well, because i spent most of last May within a quarter of a mile of that spot, on the other side of the ice. Let me tell you, if there isn't a serious amount of melting and water flow on that spot during the summer, you better not plan on moving to Juneau, 'cause it won't be there long!

    Yes, yes, most of the glaciers in Alaska and around the world areretreating. Yes, the average surface temps on the planet have been increasing over the last couple hundred years. But another example they gave is equally silly:

    They had some great shots of the Hubbard Glacier, used to illustrate the type of flooding that often occurs with glaciers. They sometimes damn up creeks, rivers and other waterways, often their very own meltwater. Since ice floats on water, eventually all the lakes created will get deep enough to float their ice-dams and break free. This happens on the Hubbard and is causing much controversy up there as people debate whether or not we should do something about it.

    But here's the one key piece of information they left out of their report: The Hubbard Glacier has created its dam because it's ADVANCING. Again, filling and draining lakes is what glaciers do! If they advance or retreat, they will always dam waterways, then release them. Actually, without that very type of action (on a much grander--nay, biblical scale) we wouldn't have had the Missoula Floods, which formed the Willamette Valley and one of the richest farming areas on the West Coast.

    But that type of accurate information would have probably distracted from the sensational point they were trying to make.On Fox runs non-BS documentary on global warming posted 4 years ago 3 Responses