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environmentalists Archive

Monday

18

November 2013

0

COMMENTS

Legal Hunting is Proven Conservation Method

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Free Markets

A national furor, marked by the typical breathless outrage of social media, has erupted over a photo showing Huntress Melissa Bachman with a lion she hunted in South Africa.

Bachman lion

The usual suspects responded with angry tirades and petulant petitions demanding an end to legal trophy hunting.

While it’s understandable that not everyone can relate to what hunters gain from such kills – indeed, I have trouble doing so myself – such reflexive emotions shouldn’t drive policy. As it turns out, legal trophy hunting is a proven solution to preserving species and ensuring their survival against the existential threat posed by poachers and human development.

Simply put, all wildlife that is hunted for economic reasons poses a tragedy of the commons problem. Poachers have strong incentive to ignore laws and hunt prohibited animals to the point of extinction when their products can fetch high prices on the black market, and are unlikely to restrain themselves from depleting the resource. The effort to combat poachers is costly, and may be a hopeless battle, and it must compete against other policy goals for public resources. Regardless of the source of the threat to a species, committing sufficient resources to conservation will always be difficult, as the public sees no direct benefit for such spending. This is especially true in poor countries with more significant social ills in need of redress.

But there are other means of attracting dollars to the quest of conservation. The most powerful of which is providing an economic value to the species in question that will attract private owners and entrepreneurs with an incentive to maintain population levels and protect them from poachers. There is a reason why chickens will never go extinct, and it’s because they are incredibly tasty. They have economic value, which when combined with private ownership provides the strongest incentives for ensuring there is always a plentiful supply. Unlike the commons, private goods don’t run out because owners have an incentive to manage them properly.

For species that we don’t eat, what often provides economic value is the desire of hunters to hunt them, and their willingness to pay for the pleasure. Melissa Bachman, for instance, must have paid five figures just to attempt to kill her lion, and a successful hunt is far from guaranteed. This provides strong incentive to manage a healthy supply of lions and other game animals. An example of this process in action is provided by the Scimitar Oryx, which have essentially gone extinct in Africa, but were saved in Texas by legal hunting. Unfortunately, anti-hunting fanatics driven by emotion have put the species back on the chopping block by successfully pushing for a law requiring costly federal permits for their hunting. This has reduced the economic value of the species and eroded the very mechanism which has protected them from the same fate as their wild, African counterparts.

The emotional outcry that can be witnessed in any comment section covering the story is somewhat understandable (though I suspect many of these same people hypocritically eat meat and thus contribute to the routine killing of far more animals than a single hunter could possibly be responsible for), but it would be a disaster for the actual animals should their knee-jerk outbursts be catered to.

Friday

6

July 2012

2

COMMENTS

The Unspoken Cause of Destructive Forest Fires

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

In the wake of the catastrophic Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado, the usual suspects are gleefully rubbing their hands at the prospect of using the tragedy to advance the cult of Global Warming. But while the doom-mongers are quick to blame global warming, while only begrudgingly acknowledging that anecdotes are not scientific data, the real man-made problem goes largely ignored: litigious environmentalists.

Fires are part of our natural environment, and have been long before there were any humans to burn fossil fuels. Fires clear out old, dead plants and make way for new life. But humans quite understandably don’t like uncontrolled natural fires, because they also kill us. But we simply fight to reduce the regular natural fires in order to protect ourselves, we actually make major, catastrophic fires more likely. Without the clearing of dead plants, fuel for major fires builds up over time to dangerous levels. Man’s solution to this unintended consequence of our domestication of nature is to engage in our own efforts to prevent the accumulation of such kindling. At least, some of us do. Unfortunately, environmentalists fight to thwart these efforts at every turn, with disastrous consequences.

Scientists with the U.S. Forest Service found in a recent study that unnatural overgrowth in trees is responsible for most wildfires in the U.S:

Thinning overgrown forests to a more natural rate of between 50 and 100 trees per acre would be the most effective way of reducing the number and severity of intense wildfires, the study concludes.

The Forest Service study is the largest ever conducted on fuel treatment effectiveness. The study provides a scientific basis for establishing quantitative guidelines for reducing stand densities and surface fuels. The total number of optimal trees per acre in any given forest will depend on species, terrain, and other factors, according to Forest Service researchers.

David L. Peterson, a researcher with the U.S. Forest Service‘s Pacific Northwest Research Station and one of the coauthors of the study, reports there are two reasons to engage in forest thinning. Removing smaller trees from a forest stand promotes the growth and vigor of the remaining larger trees. Forest thinning also reduces the continuity of live and dead plant material (fuels) from the soil surface into the forest canopy. The latter practice reduces the likelihood a wildfire will propagate into a crown fire.

Yet efforts to engage in this life-saving practices face significant opposition from environmentalist and anti-logging groups. A GAO study in 2003 found that, of the thinning projects open to appeal, 59% were challenged by environmentalists. Even more appalling, “Forest Service officials estimate they spend nearly half their time, and $250 million each year, preparing for the appeals and procedural challenges launched by activists.”

In all likelihood these challenges have only increased since 2003. Just scanning recent news reveals a number of such frivolous suits being filed across the country. Just last month the Forest Service was calling for more natural fires. AP described the current state of U.S. forests thusly: “A combination of decades of vigorous fire suppression and the waning of the timber industry over environmental concerns has left many forests a tangled, overgrown mess, subject to the kind of superfires that are now regularly consuming hundreds of homes and millions of acres.”

So the next time an environmentalist tries to blame man for causing a fire by burning fossil fuels, tell him that he’s right, people are indeed to blame. Namely, it’s the environmentalists who routinely oppose and obstruct anything – whether it be logging, controlled fires or other thinning initiatives – that could reduce the risk of superfires.

Saturday

11

June 2011

0

COMMENTS

The World is as Empty as Tom Friedman’s Head

Written by , Posted in Economics & the Economy, Energy and the Environment

Pop pseudo-intellectual and China fetishist Tom Friedman apparently went somewhere and had a thought, as he is wont to do. This time, in a column titled, “The Earth is Full,” he has determined that there’s too many plebes and they’re fouling up his precious Gaia (Hat-tip: NewsBusters).

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

…We’re currently caught in two loops: One is that more population growth and more global warming together are pushing up food prices; rising food prices cause political instability in the Middle East, which leads to higher oil prices, which leads to higher food prices, which leads to more instability. At the same time, improved productivity means fewer people are needed in every factory to produce more stuff. So if we want to have more jobs, we need more factories. More factories making more stuff make more global warming, and that is where the two loops meet.

As if Tom Friedman wasn’t insufferable enough already, now he’s dabbling in the Malthusian claptrap, too? No Tom, the Earth is not full, and the world’s population is not a problem. In most developed countries, birth rates are below replacement level, and elsewhere in the world they are declining as well. Estimates suggest the world population will peak around 2050 at 9 billion or so, then begin to decline. Meanwhile, the entire population of the world today could fit in the state of Texas and it would about as dense as New York City today.

As for resources, there’s considerable capacity currently not being used (see American government paying people not to farm), or being used stupidly (see ethanol). Moreover, technological development will continue to allow us to provide more for less, as it has done throughout history. Simply put, this is Paul Erlich level nonsense.

The economics is also head-smackingly stupid. We do not build factories to create jobs, we build factories to meet demand. Moreover, as productivity has increased (he managed to get one thing right), workers have moved into the service sector and work in other industries, such as health care. On the other hand, technological development, while increasing productivity, also reduced pollution.  There’s a reason why the developing nations have much worse environments than developed nations, and that reason is prosperity. Wealth is cleaner than poverty.

“And why do you people want so much crap, anyway?” wonders the man with the multi-million dollar mansion. Hey Tom, Al Gore’s calling, and he wants his hypocrisy back.

Tuesday

24

May 2011

0

COMMENTS

Warmists Jump at Chance to Tie Latest Disaster to ManBearPig

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Sunday’s tornado in Joplin, Missouri was historic:

The National Weather Service says the tornado that swept through the southwest Missouri town of Joplin was a highest-rated EF5 storm, with winds greater than 200 mph.

The twister that struck Sunday was the deadliest single tornado to touchdown since the National Weather Service began keeping official records in 1950. It’s the 8th-deadliest single twister in U.S. history.

Needless to say, this has the Warmists in a tizzy. In a snark-filled op-ed for the Washington Post (Hat-tip: Reason), environmentalist Bill McKibben sarcastically observes:

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Mo., you should not wonder: Is this somehow related to the tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, Ala., or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that (which, together, comprised the most active April for tornadoes in U.S. history). No, that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. … But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.

If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.

Diane Sawyer also suggestively mused, “Is this it, this is the evidence of a kind of preview of life under global warming?”

Yet as I previously highlighted, actual scientists have said there is no evidence to connect these storms to any supposed warming:

A top official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rejected claims by environmental activists that the outbreak of tornadoes ravaging the American South is related to climate change brought on by global warming.

Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said warming trends do create more of the fuel that tornadoes require, such as moisture, but that they also deprive tornadoes of another essential ingredient: wind shear.

“We know we have a warming going on,” Carbin told Fox News in an interview Thursday, but added: “There really is no scientific consensus or connection [between global warming and tornadic activity]….Jumping from a large-scale event like global warming to relatively small-scale events like tornadoes is a huge leap across a variety of scales.”

With this latest tragic disaster, Carbin has now been forced to shoot the nonsense down once again, this time by pointing out that there has not even been an increase in tornadoes in 2011, rather they have just hit more populated areas:

Carbin: “There is no indication of an upward trend in either intensity or numbers. We’ve had a lot more reports of tornadoes, but most of those tornadoes are actually the weak tornadoes, the F-0. When you take out the F-0 tornadoes from the long-term record, there is very little increase in the total number of tornadoes, and we don’t see any increase in the number of violent tornadoes. It’s just that these things are coming, and they’re very rare and extreme, and they happen to be hitting populated areas. So right now, no indication of an upward trend in the strong to violent tornadoes that we’re seeing.”

But don’t expect the facts to stop Warmists like Bill McKibben from drawing connections where none exist.

Friday

11

March 2011

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 34

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Tragic earthquake edition:

Hours after a massive earthquake rattled Japan, environmental advocates connected the natural disaster to global warming.  The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Staffan Nilsson, issued a statement calling for solidarity in tackling the global warming problem.

“Some islands affected by climate change have been hit,” said Nilsson. “Has not the time come to demonstrate on solidarity – not least solidarity in combating and adapting to climate change and global warming?”

“Mother Nature has again given us a sign that that is what we need to do,” he added.

The Global Warming faithful were quick to point to this latest natural disaster as evidence of their deity.

Today’s tsunami: This is what climate change looks like

It’s often difficult to visualize what climate change-related disasters might look like, but the images pouring out of Japan are yet another reminder of the specter of storm surges supercharged by more powerful weather and rising seas, and even climate-change caused tsunamis.

Nature sends a grim warning

What these events prove is that climate change is real.

And then there’s the twitter commentary:

AliceTMBFan said “2 hours of geography earlier talking about Japan has left me thinking…maybe global warming is way more serious then we thought…”

Arbiterofwords tweeted “I’m worried that Japan earthquake, on top of other recent natural ‘disasters’, is a sign we’ve passed point of no return for climate change.”

MrVikas said “Events like the #Japan #earthquake and #tsunami MUST keep #climate change at forefront of policy thought: http://bit.ly/cZe8To #environment

Tayyclayy noted her frustration by tweeting “An earthquake with an 8.9 magnitude struck Japan.. And some say climate change isn’t real?!”

DanFranklin postulated “Never really believed all this global warming talk, but after the earthquake in NZ and today in Japan. Maybe we’ve ruined the world.”

And TeamIanHarding tweeted “While Japan witnessed an earthquake we were talking about the problems that global warming leads to in school. Think. Pray. And change.”

Sunday

12

December 2010

0

COMMENTS

Not Exactly Confidence Inspiring

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Just in case we needed more reason to doubt the so-called climate authorities, we have it (via John Stossel):

Some people will sign anything that includes phrases like, ”global effort,” “international community,” and “planetary.” Such was the case at COP 16, this year’s United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico.

…It was euphemistically entitled “Petition to Ban the Use of Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO)” (translation water). It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused.

Despite the apparently not-so-obvious reference to H2O, almost every delegate that collegian students approached signed their petition to ban that all too dangerous substance, which contributes to the greenhouse effect, is the major substance in acid rain, and is fatal if inhaled.

Perhaps together, the footage associated with these two projects will illustrate to mainstream America the radical lengths many current U.N. delegates are willing to go to carry out an agenda no more ethical, plausible or practical than the banning water.

Monday

25

October 2010

0

COMMENTS

Environmental Red-Tape Hinders Border Security

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Energy and the Environment, Waste & Government Reform

No matter your position on enforcement of the US border, this report should demonstrate how ineffective government is, as a general principle, at executing the tasks it chooses to take on:

Several White House agencies charged with enforcing environmental laws are preventing thousands of Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border from disrupting illicit trafficking operations, according to a study by the investigative arm of Congress.

The report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that about 15 percent of the 26 Border Patrol stations in the southwestern region say the Interior Department and the Agriculture Department have prevented them from catching illegal aliens coming over the border.

…Under federal law, before Border Patrol agents can build roads or establish surveillance posts on this land, they must first receive permission from the land managing agencies. This process can take months while the land management agencies conduct tests to ensure the environmental safety of the land and its species, the GAO report said, resulting in the souring of actionable intelligence with the ranks of the Border Patrol.

Environmental law is a convoluted mess unparalleled in its ability to produce bureaucratic red-tape. We’re getting to the point where one can hardly take a step without first clearing it with four different agencies, conducting three environmental impact reports, defending against two lawsuits from environmental groups, and then after all that, learning that there’s some endangered partridge in a pear tree that will prevent you from proceeding. The weight of our excessive bureaucracy is dragging all aspects of government and society down.

Friday

22

October 2010

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 30

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Just because I don’t talk about it as much anymore doesn’t mean our collective lives are no longer in danger. The ongoing series highlighting our impending dooooooooooooooooooooooooooom continues:

Of all the questionable lessons our schools are imparting to young kids, the idea that Legos are destroying the planet might just be the most absurd.

“Riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., Rafael de la Torre Batker, 9, was worried about whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos,” reported The New York Times in May. Where once we dispensed practical advice to children about children about consumerism, “waste not, want not” is being supplanted by the lesson that want (sic) a new toy makes children part of an apocalyptic death cult.

…the Environmental Protection Agency, in conjunction with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is now paying Leonard to produce more propaganda.

Leonard describes herself as an “unapologetic activist,” and isn’t shy about painting hyperbolic doomsday scenarios for children where corporations and consumerism end up destroying life as we know it. Such anti-capitalist radicalism doesn’t seem to concern many educators.

In Leonard’s 20 minute Story of Stuff documentary, she explains the production of consumer goods by starting with natural resources. “Extraction which is a fancy word for natural resource exploitation, which is a fancy word for trashing the planets,” she says.

As if that weren’t bad enough, she embraces a largely discredited and radical Malthusian view regarding resource development. Leonard intones darkly that “we are running out of resources and we are using too much stuff … In the past three decades, one third of the planets natural resource base has been consumed – gone.”

Don’t let the children forget: “Doooooooooooooooooooooooomed!”

Saturday

2

October 2010

0

COMMENTS

Sunday

20

December 2009

0

COMMENTS

Environmentalists Target Toilet Paper

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment, Free Markets

The latest assault on the western lifestyle by the loony green fringe finds our soft toilet paper in the cross-hairs:

The issue over tissue in the bathroom — the really super-soft stuff — is more like the fight about the big SUVs loved by many Americans.

Anti-green, according to environmentalists. Politically incorrect. Why should Americans use luxurious toilet paper made from old-growth trees when much of the world gets by with a far more basic and often recycled product?

Americans use luxurious toilet paper because America has long promoted a system of liberty and free enterprise that has made us much more prosperous than the rest of the world.  Rest assured, if they could afford better, they’d be using better.

These nutbags won’t be satisfied until we’re living in the stone age again.

Hat-tip: John Stossel’s Take