[NatureNS] Canada's position on at-risk species 'unprecedented'

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
References: <CAA9nSY98EE_D0Q5cMRXmigOTk=OizhzhZSbC4tVO04fbjwEjNg@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 13:34:26 -0400
From: Rick Whitman <dendroica.caerulescens@gmail.com>
To: naturens <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Precedence: bulk
Return-Path: <naturens-mml-owner@chebucto.ns.ca>
Original-Recipient: rfc822;"| (cd /csuite/info/Environment/FNSN/MList; /csuite/lib/arch2html)"

next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
previous message in thread
Index of Subjects

&lt;DIV&gt;&amp;nb
--001a11c3daa4177a6a0509f4308c
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi Dave,
I would never actually tell you, or anyone else, that they should not speak
their mind. It's just that I have seen similar topics, which *must* be
recognized as "political", ruffle some feathers here. I'm not into setting
that in motion.

And actually, I truly believe that everyone here is rather intelligent, &
for myself, I'm totally happy for everyone to read this & make their own
conclusions. I think I know where the mainstream thinking will be.

Best, Rick.

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 1:10 PM, David & Alison Webster <dwebster@glinx.com>
wrote:

>  Hi Rick & All,
>     I am baffled by the notion that discussion might not be useful.
>
>     No doubt it is not possible to flick a switch and correct such
> problems. But why avoid discussion ?
>
>     One rather large hydra has as usual many heads but only one body; a
> civil service which has become threadbare as a result of attrition and, in
> some cases, never furnished with the necessary resources to do the mandated
> job in the first place; a large number of electric motors with the copper
> windings removed and sold for scrap.
>
>       Battles are now lost on a regular basis all for the want of a
> horseshoe nail and/or an ounce of common sense and the updating of
> regulations that have long since passed their best before date.
>
>     Amherst, due to public pressure,  turned down $500,000 for disposal of
> fracking water after being purified to drinking water standards. Why ?
> Largely because the public is rightly skeptical of industry assurances.
> Without government funded science, which is absolutely free of any pressure
> and consequently able to act as a reliable way to confirm or reject
> assurances by industry one can expect mob rule, informed by
> misinformation, to become commonplace. And this can only lead
> to economically destructive decisions.
>
>     In any case, a back of envelope calculation showed the potential
> dilution to be astronomical so there should never have been a fuss. But
> when democracy is used to establish the value of pi then 21 people who
> prefer 3 will beat 20 who say it is about 3.14159.
>
>     The same considerations apply to the Alton gas storage project now
> stalled, partly because there is a concern about adding Sodium to the
> ocean. Huh ?? If the company were to release their water, following the
> schedule which they propose, I really don't understand how there could be a
> problem. If done by instant feedback, mixing and release or shutdown could
> be automated. Once again, objective oversight by government funded science
> would avoid these foolish and destructive shouting matches.
>
>     About 10 years ago someone on the South Shore developed a way to trap
> and use a truly invasive species of crab (Green crab I think and used for
> Lobster bait) .He was fined for fishing Green Crabs without a licence
> and lost his means of earning a living when he should have been given some
> reward. But by the same agency he was denied a licence because it was not
> an established fishery so they could not issue one. A trace of common sense
> in the enforcement of regulations would predictably lead to better outcomes.
>
>     Some years ago the fur industry sleep walked into a Phosphate
> pollution problem. This could never have happened if anyone involved in
> advising this industry had known the first thing about the behavior of
> Phosphate in soil and in waterways. After more than a decade I am not sure
> that the "problem" has yet been solved. There is no substitute for direct
> access to lab resources as opposed to reading the 'how to do it'
> guide, often written by someone who has never done it. The only really
> reliable teacher is ground truth.
>
>     And, finally, on a personal level, a sad story of a stalled
> transaction which shows how we are heading. When I bought a woodlot in 1971
> the widow who was selling it had never seen it so I had to make a few phone
> calls one evening to find someone who could tell me how to find it, I
> searched the title back 100 years and this took about an hour plus a
> nominal fee. She arranged for someone to walk the lines with me and within
> a week I had the deed, registered for a nominal fee, and she had her money.
>     I received and accepted an offer to sell that lot on Aug 7 of this
> year. The buyer had cash set aside and was ready to fork it over. But it is
> still stalled in Migration. And cost of migration will likely exceed the
> initial cost by a wide margin. The familiar problem; set up a gold-plated
> system, provide inadequate resources to administer it and let the public be
> dammed.
>     Shortly after I bought the North Alton woodlot in 1981 I checked the
> ownership of one adjacent lot on an orthophoto map at some county planning
> office and noticed that my lot had the name of someone who had never owned
> it. When I asked to have the name corrected I was told that they could not
> correct it because funds for that program had been cut and not to worry
> because their maps don't mean anything anyway.
>
> End of rant for now.
> DW
> "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey" Oliver Goldsmith
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Rick Whitman <dendroica.caerulescens@gmail.com>
> *To:* naturens <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 11, 2014 7:16 AM
> *Subject:* [NatureNS] Canada's position on at-risk species 'unprecedented'
>
>  http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/canada/1256985-canada
> 's-position-on-at-risk-species-'unprecedented'
>
> Perhaps this should just be read on its own merit. You may draw your own
> conclusions. Discussion here might not be useful.
>
> Best,
> Rick Whitman
>
> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2015.0.5577 / Virus Database: 4235/8712 - Release Date: 12/10/14
>
>

--001a11c3daa4177a6a0509f4308c
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"ltr">Hi Dave,<div>I would never actually tell you, or anyone el=
se, that they should not speak their mind. It&#39;s just that I have seen s=
imilar topics, which *must* be recognized as &quot;political&quot;, ruffle =
some feathers here. I&#39;m not into setting that in motion.</div><div><br>=
</div><div>And actually, I truly believe that everyone here is rather intel=
ligent, &amp; for myself, I&#39;m totally happy for everyone to read this &=