Food for thought

[djkimmel]

Don't Allow This to Be Another Silent Spring: Tell Lawmakers to Take Climate Action

by Sigourney Weaver

Rachel Carson has been on my mind lately. Maybe it's because we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring. Maybe it's because I have been given the honor of receiving the Rachel Carson Award from Audubon. Maybe it because spring has finally come to New York, and the sound of birdsong makes me grateful for her work.

But there is another reason I keep thinking about Carson these days: the current efforts to discredit climate scientists look a lot like the powerful resistance that met Carson's warnings about DDT.

Read entire opinion editorial on Huffington Post.

[bigjc]

Ok, but lets be fair to this issure...Worldwide millions have died due to the banning of DDT, was it really worth it?

And Climate Change??? REALLY???  The so-called experts still cannot make up their minds...is it global warming or global cooling?

Oh and when did Ms. Weaver (an actress) become a scientific expert?

[1javelin]

There have been professional societies that have lost very high standing members due to the societies acceptance of global warming.  It's not scientifically sound, it's a trend and it will continue to trend up and down.  We may have an effect on it, but that's the end of it.  The earthquake in Japan shifted land structures and even the rotational axis of the Earth.  This will have a bigger effect than anything we could do.

1jav

[djkimmel]

I just watched a documentary of an island country having to move their entire population because of rising sea levels. I read an interesting article within the past month about the options, cost and engineering involved in another fairly large island nation that will probably have to move their entire nation - something like 100,000 people if I remember right - due to rising sea levels. They looked at possibly putting a giant seawall around the entire island but the cost was astronomical - twenty billion or 200 billion or something like that!

Call it what you want. Blame what you want. But I don't think we can afford to pretend things aren't happening outside of a range of norms we can ignore.

I know I personally don't support any efforts to weaken the EPA, the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act. I would hate to see the return of flaming rivers and fish no one can eat. I can remember when we weren't allowed to swim in canals off of Lake St. Clair because it was dangerous. Heck, they've been closing the beach a few times the past few years. KVD even asked me about the latest at one of the national tournaments a few years back wanting to know if we were letting the Great Lakes slide maybe? I told him I wasn't.

Talk about it. See if we are doing enough or anything that we can. Protect our resources. Take care of them.

[bigjc]

Yeah, but Protecting Natural Resources and supporting climate change initiatives are two very different things!

[djkimmel]

Maybe. I think, as it has always been, the outdoors people need to work on that and determine when it is and when it isn't. Too much party politics can hurt our natural resources. Too much of anything that doesn't involve identifying what causes are and what, if anything we can do about them. As a race, we are pretty good at avoiding taking the blame when we need to even if I didn't personally allow something, or you didn't, maybe someone did and we are most likely the people who will do something about it. Because we love our outdoors!

[KLAKE]

Yeah, but Protecting Natural Resources and supporting climate change initiatives are two very different things!

Ignoring climate change could be considered supporting billion dollar corporations and their pollution initiatives......It could be said.



I think it's silly to ignore the climate changes. Maybe it will trend up, and trend down. But look around you. Consider what the earth, it's enviroment/air quality was like even 300 years ago, compared to now.
WE as people are doing nothing good, only bad


Unfortunately when politicians are involved, things do get taken too far......For instance the stories of lost jobs/displaced people to save an obscure insect, etc.


On a positive note, Muskegan Lake is a good example of local government's working with the federal government for positive changes.

[bigjc]

Since the very beginning of recorded history, we have witnessed crazy weather swings and natural disaster.

I am old enough to remember extreme cold winters in MI, as well as some that were almost fall like.  Just a few years ago, I kept my small boat out all year, and fished open water in Jan.

In any case, from the time that man began keeping weather data, we have seen both extremes.  To say that man is influencing weather patterns/climate change is a hypothesis ( and not a very good one in my opinion).  To suggest that it is fact is not only irresponsible and ignorant, it is BAD SCIENCE.

[djkimmel]

It seems that quite a few scientists in quite a few countries have moved beyond it being a hypothesis to 'we have to act now or pay the consequences.'

World on track for nearly 11-degree temperature rise, energy expert says

The chief economist for the International Energy Agency said Monday that current global energy consumption levels put the Earth on a trajectory to warm by 6 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2100, an outcome he called "a catastrophe for all of us."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/world-on-track-for-nearly-11-degree-temperature-rise-energy-expert-says/2011/11/28/gIQAi0lM6N_story.html

More and worse hurricanes, and other extreme weather patterns. More severe drought scattered across the world. Huge ice sheets melting and not fully returning each year or at all. I did see this was again one of the hottest years worldwide on record. Island nations at risk of having to move entire populations or put up 20 foot walls around their entire country in one case.

As a worldwide race, we tend to ignore or refuse things too often for various reasons until it is too late or almost too late. This is a pretty big one if we are doing it again. I think we should be willing to look at all the evidence, regardless of the sources, and figure it out. The evidence is piling up pretty high now that we are in a steadily upward warming trend over a long period - about the last 300 years, which means low-lying countries and lands should prepare to be underwater. Maybe for a long, long time.

Even if we want to say we are not the cause, something still has to be done to figure out what the cause is and what we can do about it, whether it is reducing any influence we may be having or figuring out how to move 100,000 persons off of an island that will be underwater soon. Maybe even moving persons from low-lying parts of our own country to higher ground if this long-term trend keeps trending up.

We have had some changes in the past over 1,000 of years but that still doesn't negate being prepared to do something if this present, steadily warming trend keeps going. Especially if there is something we can do the slow it down or steady it out. Based on ice melt in the poles and fast-shrinking glaciers, we are going to see increasing higher water levels. That has been a long trend, not a month to month, or year to year trend. The scientists keep saying that we will see more wild swings in weather as this trend continues actually.

[bigjc]

Dan,

my point simply is that I was taught that to be scientific, you start w/ a hypothesis, and when it is PROVEN, it becomes fact, but this debate, has somehow skipped right to fact, because enough scientists say that it is so.

This is a formula for bad science!  Either it can be proven or it cannot, but it cannot be considered fact until then.

[Skulley]

There is an interesting article in the latest addition of Michigan Outdoor News pertaining to climate changes and pollution and how it is effecting Lake Erie.  The edition is the December 9, 2011 edition and the article is on page 11 and it is Mike Schoonveld's column.  Very informative and it gives you a pretty good idea what's going on in our Great Lakes.  I looked on the Michigan Outdoor News website and the column was not posted as of yet.  I am sure it will show up there eventually.

Bottom line is we have to take better care of our resources and not let big companies, big government, and big money win.  If we do, our resource will be lost forever.


BD                 

[djkimmel]

Yes

[motocross269]

This isn't directed at anyone specific just a growing trend that is pretty obvious....

It is a shame that Conservation and protecting our resources has become a political agenda........You have a bunch of Rush Limbaughs that have about as much scientific background as I do passing judgement on credited scientists.....

I will stick with the people that have made it their life's mission to know the ins and outs of Biology and Nature........I don't know too many extremely wealthy biologists so I don't really see any warped motivation to their theories.....

Do we really want to let the movers and shakers make our environment and our kids future be a Democrat vs Republican issue......??

[Skulley]

This should certainly not be a partisan or non-partisan issue, however I would agree that this type of thing should stay out of the political arena.  However and unfortunately it has gone in that direction of politics.  That being said, it is important to us all that we write, call, email our legislators in Lansing as well as Washington D.C. to let them know what we want.  We elect them to represent us.  Unfortunately that's not always the case as we are seeing plenty of legislators, Democrat and Republican vote in favor of their own self-serving interests.

Some one on this forum once said to me that certain individuals don't have the time or the money to enter into politics.  I don't have the time or money either as I am not a wealthy man, however, it is important to get involved some how.  If you want to support the environment as I know all the anglers on this forum want, then it is important to for us all to speak as one and not make excuses as to why you can't.  It really doesn't take money.  What it takes is a voice.


BD                           

[KLAKE]

This isn't directed at anyone specific just a growing trend that is pretty obvious....

It is a shame that Conservation and protecting our resources has become a political agenda........You have a bunch of Rush Limbaughs that have about as much scientific background as I do passing judgement on credited scientists.....

I will stick with the people that have made it their life's mission to know the ins and outs of Biology and Nature........I don't know too many extremely wealthy biologists so I don't really see any warped motivation to their theories.....

Do we really want to let the movers and shakers make our environment and our kids future be a Democrat vs Republican issue......??

Well said. Just didn't want to say it myself, since I'm new around here.

[djkimmel]

There is too much at stake here to not be involved and remember what is most important in common to most of us.

[Skulley]

Touche' DK.  It's up to us as the constituency to set that political agenda by voicing our wants and needs.



BD                     

[Bender]

A couple years ago I attended a lecture by Dr. Curt Stager since he is a professor at the college where my wife was on the faculty. He is a geologist and took a slightly different view of the situation than most scientists because he studies long term climate change, where 1,000 years isn't a very long time. He talked about all of the historic swings and compared them to the current trend. He laid out a different view than the normal crap we hear about how bad it is to drive an 8MPG car and things like that, and really puts things into perspective within the "big picture". It looks like his next lecture is in Lake Placid, NY on January 21 so if you are in the area I advise you to attend, either way you feel about the subject it's not bad to view his scientific data and form your own opinion.

[motocross269]

Good healthy debate between scientists has been going on for centuries.....That is a good thing....It is when maybe not so educated people try to make it a political agenda or base their opinion on the bottom line profits that we start having issues...

[djkimmel]

Yes. I always try to gather all the data available and when I have done interviews in the past, I talk to both 'sides' meaning the actual researchers and scientists. If I want to read opinions of all the other parties, I can do that, but life is short...

I've sat in rooms at tables before where people who had dogs to hunt tried to convince me on emotion what I should believe. That is way too risky when it comes to our outdoors and environment.