Wilderness and Wildlife Conservation

Issues such as proposals to build the Keystone and Enbridge “Gateway” Pipelines, intended to carry Tarsands oil out of Canada, are receiving growing public scrutiny, and that often exposes bias or applies public pressure on isolated elitists, as some of our Federal, Provincial, and State politicians have become; it almost always surprises citizens when they see a verbally violent reaction from those exposed to the bright lights of accountability. When pressure from citizens – the typically disenfranchised, taken for granted, democratically and regulatory downtrodden, a generally silent, amorphous group like the citizens of Canada and the United States -  begins to mount, the threat this poses to special corporate and political interests is often enough to trigger a nasty, often derogatory and insulting backlash, one not uncommonly characterized by a sustained assault in the media.

We’ve just seen such behavior from Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and just a week ago we saw it from one of his right hand men, Energy Minister Joe Oliver, who raged about the “disgraceful” behavior of another elected member of Parliament who expressed considerable doubt about the so called “benefits” of the Keystone Pipeline.  Harper, in his recent outburst during an interview (15 January 2012) on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network, insulted President Obama, accusing him of making the decision to delay the Keystone Pipeline for “very bad political reasons”, after he’d earlier threatened him by saying the decision to approve the pipeline was a “no brainer”. He then attempted to intimidate Americans again, using the Iranian – Hormuz straits seaway fuss as a reason for the U.S. to abandon regulatory standards and processes, suggesting mid east oil is about to dry up. As he is wont to do, he did not point out that much of the Tarsands oil from a Keystone pipeline will be exported from the U.S.  He then used innuendo to attempt to force the U.S. to capitulate to corporate demands by threatening to take the Tarsands ball (oil) and go play with China! He then went on to belittle regulatory protection for North Americans, particularly Canadians, by emphasizing that scrutiny of costs and impacts are “delays” that are not fair to the “companies involved”.

To Harper-watchers this threatening attack on citizens and regulatory processes is no surprise. Harper is a person whose political mind was honed by the National Citizens Coalition, one of the most extreme corporate lobby groups in the world, and by a group of ultra conservative political scientists at the University of Calgary, where he became a rabid market dependent economist. Upon entering politics, he lay largely ideologically dormant for years until he succeeded in maneuvering a majority in the House of Commons for a very severe Conservative Party. Then he veered to the extreme right, as he’d been cultivated to do, attacking democracy and citizens with methodical determination.

Like the nastiest of all conservatives, Margaret Thatcher, Harper and the Federal Conservatives do not believe there is such a thing as “society”. This is a man and political party that do not view people as citizens; in their eyes, people are consumers and customers, or “clients”, and that means they are fodder for corporations. Harper and the Federal Conservatives are ideologues that believe that corporations know what’s best for the people; in true Orwellian fashion, they call that the National Interest.

Apparently “certain” interests from the U.S. are to be vilified if they support and collaborate with the Canadian People, an interesting perspective from a Prime Minister and government that worship globalization. But rather conveniently, other “certain” U.S. interests are to be met with quiet and triumphant fist pumping. Take, for example, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham and Congressman Bob Latta, who refer to environmental protection legislation as “an assault” on the U.S. They were amongst a number of U.S. legislators who were wined and dined through a rose tinted tour of the Tarsands, who then, not surprisingly, stamped their approval on this “sustainable” and “secure” activity.

Americans and Canadians should be aware that these pipeline battles are not about Canada and Canadians, or about Americans, although certainly all these people will be victims. These battles are about multinational oil and gas corporations and the poison pills they’ve been able to insinuate into the political system, people who spend enormous amounts of tax dollars and an inordinate amount of publicly funded time undermining democracy and attempting to divorce citizens from their resources and political processes. They have managed to escape democratic accountability because they have for half a century worked on convincing the people of North America that the oil and gas industry can walk on water and, when is so frequently necessary, they can and will step with impunity in the face of Canadians.

Harper blustered that Canada wont be the U.S’s “giant national Park”. There is not much doubt that various interests – the oil and Gas industry is a paramount one – have aided and abetted the Canadian governments determination to avoid protecting landscapes and all the vast and irreplaceable ecological benefits that these invaluable gems bestow upon Canadians. Americas National Park system includes over 33 million hectares (82 million acres) in 390 units in all but two states. Tens of thousands of Canadians visit those parks to escape industrialization, mechanization and commercialization. Canada’s National Park system consists of 38 units and 26 million ha (64 million acres) almost all established over two decades ago, and the country just happens to be 30 million ha larger than our southern neighbor! Worse yet, they are increasingly falling prey to a deliberate corporate agenda of commercialization and privatization. Add to Americas federally managed land base wildlife refuges (193 million acres; 78 million ha) and National Forests and Bureau of Land Management holdings (453 million acres; 183 million ha), landscapes which have no Canadian federal managed equivalent, and the disproportion between the countries is simply immense. Harper did get this one right; Canada is not in danger of becoming a “giant National Park”! The reality is, unless Canadians get someone with vision and leadership skills to “pull our bacon out of the fire”, there will remain few National Parks in this land “up north”!

It is generous of the Prime Minister to grant Americans the “right to make their own decisions”. But apparently what’s good for the goose is bad, bad for the gander! Those pesky upstart Canadians, how dare they speak up at the Enbridge/Gateway hearings. And how dare they take a global, or even continental, view of what are continental and global issues. Why this could “morph into a public free for all”, shrieks one industry loyalist. Just because multinational corporations pour billions of dollars into influencing decisions, even taking outright control of Canadian sovereign land and resources, and TransCanada spends millions coercing Americans to abandon their citizen and property rights and sign off on Keystone, since when do “peasants” have the same privileges? Or could those citizens actually have “rights”? It appears, at least according to Harper and Oliver, that Canadian citizens have no right to insist on a regulatory review, let alone participate in one. There is no “we the people” in Canada according to the oil and gas industry, the Fraser Institute or the National Citizens Coalition, or their disciples like Harper and Oliver. Harper has further signaled he intends to enforce his corporate agenda, making sure regulatory affairs are “done on a timely basis,” not so subtle code for “we will neuter those who think the oil and gas industry should not be given a free ride.” He has pinned his reputation and welcome in the boardrooms of Canada and America on making Canada a leader in a conservative war on environmental and health regulations; another pseudonym for turning the oil and gas industry loose in an essentially lawless political landscape.

These are interesting and dangerous times for democracy and “we the people.” As citizens, including the majority that did not vote for the eventual ballot box “winners,” Canadians (and Americans, for that matter) face ever more formidable resistance to our ability to exercise our right to direct the actions of government, and then to hold them accountable. Citizens, we the people, haven’t until more recent times, expected or recognized oppression by those that have been elected. But my, how times have changed. Now it’s us against them.

Dr. Brian L. Horejsi

Ecologist, Conservation Scientist

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

b2horejsi@shaw.ca

23 January 2012

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Please visit the website for The National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy,  learn about this project, read the Public Review Draft and weigh in with your comments. The following is a very brief excerpt:

From the Arctic to the Everglades, impacts like rising sea levels, warmer temperatures, loss of sea ice, and changing precipitation patterns are affecting the species we care about, the services we value, and the places we call home.

In addition to ensuring the sustainability of these resources, along with their many ecological, economic, and recreational benefits, we have an obligation to safeguard our nation’s natural heritage in a changing world.

In an unprecedented collaborative effort, federal, state, and tribal partners with input from many other diverse groups from across the nation are working together to develop a common strategy to respond to these challenges. The National Fish, Wildlife, and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy will provide a unified approach—reflecting shared principles and science-based practices—for reducing the negative impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, plants, and the natural systems upon which they depend.

Our Vision

Ecological systems will sustain healthy, diverse, and abundant populations of fish, wildlife, and plants, which are well adapted and continue to provide valuable ecological services in a world impacted by unprecedented and accelerating global climate change.

Purpose

The purpose of the Strategy is to inspire and enable natural resource professionals and other decision makers to take action to conserve the nation’s fish, wildlife and plants, ecosystem functions, and the human uses and values they provide in a changing climate. It provides professionals and other decision makers with a basis for sensible actions that can be taken now, in spite of the uncertainty that exists about precise impacts of climate change on living resources. It further provides guidance about what actions are most likely to promote natural resource adaptation to climate change, and describes mechanisms that will foster collaboration among all levels of government, conservation organizations and private landowners.

Guiding Principles

We adopt the following principles to lead and implement the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy:

• Build a national, not just federal framework for cooperative climate response.
• Respect jurisdictional authorities and foster communication and collaboration rather than prescription.
• Provide a blueprint for collective action that promotes collaboration and communication across government and non-government entities.
• Adopt a landscape/seascape-based approach that integrates best-available science and adaptive management.
• Focus actions and investments on natural resources of the U.S. and its Territories.
• Identify critical scientific and management needs.
• Engage the public.
• Integrate strategies for natural resources adaptation with those of other sectors.
• Identify opportunities to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation efforts.
• Act now.

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She’s Alive… Beautiful… Finite… Hurting… Worth Dying for. Video on YouTube literally shrieks about our own personal responsibility in the destruction of our natural environment. Beautiful footage, agonizing conclusions.

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By Frosty Wooldridge

A book review: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife by Dave Foreman

Part 1 of 5: Humans devastating habitat and poisoning it

The Bible said, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it and take dominion over all living things on land and in the seas.”At the time of the Bible’s inception by a desert tribe known as the Jews in the Middle East, less than 100 million human beings walked the planet, give or take a few.  Humans used nets and spears to subdue fish, fowl and beasts. In 2012, as the human race thunders toward adding another three billion of its already prolific numbers to reach 10 billion by mid century—38 scant years from now, thousands of scientists have warned of our impending predicament. Nonetheless, we human earthlings plunder oceans, seas, air, land and water.

At the same time, starvation stalks humans in Somalia, Bangladesh, Mexico, Congo, Sudan and India.  Over 18 million human beings die of starvation annually around the globe. (Source:  World Health Organization, UN Population stats)

© Frosty Wooldridge

But what about the other “earthlings” numbering perhaps 30 million separate species around the globe?   What about their plight as humans maraud this planet by mercilessly killing habitat and poisoning the oceans? How many species suffer extinction daily around the planet?  Dr. Norman Myers, Oxford University, United Kingdom, substantiates 80 to 100 species end their time on this planet every day via human habitat encroachment.  Humans kill species at such a prolific rate that it is deemed the “Sixth Extinction Session.”  The first five sessions arrived as ice ages, meteors and other deadly events.

Harvard University biologist Dr. E.O. Wilson said, “The worst thing that will probably happen—in fact is already well underway—is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.”

Long time conservationist Dave Foreman wrote a penetrating and compelling book: Man Swarm and the Killing of Wildlife. This book cannot be dismissed.  It cannot be ignored.  It cannot be put down once started.  Foreman shows the unraveling the wild world at the hands of humanity.  For anyone that thinks unlimited human growth can continue, this book knocks out all the myths perpetrated by economists, religious leaders and pro-growth advocates.

Foreman dedicates his book to his friend Hugh Iltis, “Whose stout heart and sharp mind has always seen that the population explosion leads to the death of wild things and the loss of wilderness.”

In my own media battles on the population/immigration/environmental front, I have had to contend with big time radio talk show hosts who support unlimited growth, i.e., Ernest Hancock of www.freedomphoenix.com .  Top television news personalities such as Diane Sawyer and Charlie Rose will not touch the subject, but report about the consequences—never making the connection.  Newspapers like the Denver Post’s Vince Carroll remain convinced that unlimited growth is beneficial. The Los Angeles Times encourages as much growth as possible even as California chokes on its toxic air, gridlocked highways and crumbling infrastructure. It adds 1,700 people daily and 400 vehicles.  Even small town newspaper editors like Jonathan Thompson of the High Country News advocate for unlimited growth. Bob Shieffer of “Face the Nation” and David Gregory of “Meet the Press” scamper away from the topic like gazelles. Every National Public Radio host avoids the topic at all costs. Only last year did Thomas Friedman finally write, “The Earth is full.”

Friedman’s commentary didn’t make a dent.  I’ve written 100 similar commentaries.  The USA adds 8,100 people net gain daily while the planet hosts another 240,000 new babies 24/7. Result: an added 78 million humans annually on an already environmentally devastated planet in 2012.

From my own work, I unequivocally state that human overpopulation in America and around the world is the most evaded, avoided, ignored and suppressed issue of our time.  It’s also the most dangerous predicament of our time, but don’t let that stop us from increasing our numbers at breakneck speed.

“We must alert and organize the world’s people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Over-consumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”   Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Oceanographer While you may hear a lot about “carrying capacity”, you never hear about carrying capacity for all the other creatures on our planet.  It’s like they don’t exist or are unimportant.  Foreman loves wild things and I love them, too.

Foreman writes, “We have come on like a swarm of locusts: a wide, thick, darkling cloud settling down like living snowflakes, smothering every stalk, every leaf, eating away every scrap of green down to raw, bare wasting earth. It’s painfully straightforward.  There are too many men for Earth to harbor…we are crippling Earth’s life support system by such a flood of upright apes is bad news for us.”

Dave Foreman’s book will rock your senses. It will affect your children. It will change all life on this planet if humans continue their endless onslaught around the globe.

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com He is the author of: America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. Copies available: 1 888 280 7715

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