Posted by Carl Donohue on July 18, 2008 at 7:27 AM
Hey Folks,
I think a lot of you might be surprised to read my latest post on the oil from ANWR. I just returned from 2 weeks in the Refuge, and did some real 'hands on' study - I think this will be interesting, and somewhat surprising for a number of you folks.
[ul=http://skolaiimages.com/journal/2008/07/18/the-golden-oil-of-anwr-its-over/]Latest on ANWR Oil[/url]
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Carl Donohue on July 18, 2008 at 7:28 AM
Carl, an excellent adaptation to this serious subject. I had no idea this sweet crude was that pure , I would surely like to test it in some of my own coffee brews.
Posted by Simon Allenby on July 18, 2008 at 11:08 AM
Carl,
Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Warmest regards, Simon
Posted by Mike Roberts on July 18, 2008 at 12:50 PM
It all makes sense to me, except for the part about getting the Beatles back together. I think that may be a bit of an exaggeration.
Yeah, Carl, two of the Beatles are dead, and so is Donald Trump's hair. But otherwise, you nailed it.
Posted by Carl Donohue on July 18, 2008 at 6:16 PM
David Bostedo wrote:
'I've gotta get me some of that...Do you think it would be more enviromentally conscientious for everyone to fly or drive to northern Alaska? '
Actually, I've been working out a plan for this. Everyone should stay home, and I'll send them vials of the oil as they need it. :)
Hey Folks,
Thanks for the replies. For those concerned about the veracity of the claims concerning the Beatles, and Trump's hair, trust me - this stuff is really something else. Every word in the piece is the truth - "I Report, You Decide".
Carl, until I read your True Account, I had never thought of all that oil up there--no, I mean "down there"--all that oil polluting the underground, roiling around, possibly destabilizing the Earth's rotation (if you believe in the Earth's rotation, I think it's something those eco-freakos made up when I think about it at all), and I think you're right, absolutely right, to drill your own well and get that great stuff out of the ground before it sloshes around some more and ends up under Arabia or Persia or one of those infidel places and thereby causes damages to our national insecurity
p.s. could you please tell me where I can get a drill like yours, the ones I've seen in the stores are all made elsewhere?
Posted by Bill Chambers on July 23, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Amazing story Carl. Have you thought about a career with the National Enquirer, or even NBC? You reckon you might be able to find some oil down here in Florida?
Posted by Carl Donohue on October 15, 2008 at 4:51 AM
Hey Rob,
I shoulda known better than to go to a link with the words 'beck' and 'cnn' in it. Now if it was 'Jeff Beck' that woulda been different. :)
Seriously, this guy's such an idiot - it's theatrical news, hyperbole pandering to ignorance. Few things incite my ires more than this kind of BS, but particularly when it's masquerading as news, so I won't apologize for my response here. His stupid little 'I love Polar Bears, I really do' is childish, inane, incorrect, and insulting.
You think he's "right on", do you? Let's look, briefly, at how many times he's flat out 'wrong'.
1) His initial premise that we should ""USE proven resources and technology"
WRONG - there's nothing 'proven' about the amount of oil in the Wildlife Refuge. That's why people talk about "mean estimates" and "best estimates".
2) ANWR - 'the place we literally bought for its oil'
WRONG - Beck clearly needs a history lesson as well as ecology and geography lessons (or, more likely, a lesson in honesty). The sale of Alaska to the US by Russia ("Seward's Folly") was initialized by the Russian govt, largely because of their own financial woes at the time, as well as their recent defeat in the Crimean war - further, Russia feared losing the land to the British, who held Canada at the time, with no compensation at all. The US considered the purchase largely because of the encroachment of Russia, and to avoid potential squabbles and conflict - it was also a message to the British that the continent belonged to the US, not the Brits - the purchase was largely political. At the time, most Americans considered the land to be of little value beyond furbearing animals, which had already been hunted near to extinction. Most folks believed it foolhardy to spend money on a "wasteland", and it wasn't until nearly 30 years after the purchase that gold was discovered and some people changed their minds (particularly those who found gold). The purchase was based primarily on American expansion strategy, not Alaskan oil. People didn't even know oil existed there, nor, in the late 19th century, did they have any real use for crude oil. The strategic value of the purchase was vindicated in WWII, and again later in 1996 when I came up backpacking. :) :)
3) How can a guy with his own show on CNN, the most watched news in America, point to "the media" as though it's some invisible, abstract, external source?
His references to the coastal plain as:
4) "mosquito infested" - WRONG .. the coastal plain, with it's regular coastal breezes, is one of the places wildlife seek refuge from the mosquitoes that inhabit the arctic. The bugs are almost ALWAYS worse in the mountains and foothills than they are out on the plains, where the regular onshore winds keep them down (and can also make paddling a raft northward an extremely tough gig) - that's one of the reasons the Porcupine Caribou Herd calve out on the plain (not the rafting, the bugs).
5) "barren wasteland" .. WRONG .. it's the biological and ecological heart of the refuge
6) "there's nothing there" - WRONG .. see Pt #5)
His little slide show of images from the coastal plain is silly -- bad photos are just that - bad photos. Here's the coastal plain.
7) Likening the coastal plain of the Wildlife Refuge to that at Prudhoe Bay and the (further west) National Petroleum Reserve ..
WRONG. The coastal plain in the Refuge is about 20 miles across. At Prudhoe Bay and further west it's over 100 miles across. The difference is critical - The Central Arctic Herd, who choose to calve west of the Refuge, have moved their calving grounds south from the shore, because of disturbances due the oil extraction development. The coastal plain in that area, being 100 miles wide, allows plenty of space for them to do so, with little impact on their calving numbers. In the Refuge, it's estimated by the only scientific studies done on the issue that such disturbances would have marked impact on calving success, due to the marginal room for alternative calving grounds. Read the CSR report on the place sometime.
8) He wants Congress to 'simply be allowed to vote on this .. WRONG - Congress have voted it down something like 8 times now (thank Gaia)
9) I get so sick of the ridiculous claims about how tiny the area proposed for drilling (Section 1002) is. If I poke you in the eye with a needle and then explain how the hole is only the size of a pinhole, and what a tiny fraction of your body that might be, it wouldn't diminish the damage I'd just done, would it?
10) Showing caribou herds in late August, well after the calving season, hanging around the pipeline as evidence that drilling won't affect the caribou herd at calving time in the Refuge is ignorant, and obviously assumes the viewer is just as ignorant (not to mention exploits that ignorance). If you actually want to understand something about the potential impact, read the CSR report - if not, continue watching this drivel and pretend it passes as informative. Similarly, to say a grizzly bear, walking along the pipeline, doesn't recognize the difference between a tree and a pipeline is absurd; (a) adult grizzly bears do not climb trees, (b) the arctic coastal plain is treeless, and (c) how on earth does Glenn Beck claim to know what bears can and cannot differentiate? This is precisely the Disney-esque, magical thinking-crap that spawned the blog post I linked to in the original post here.
Lastly, it's incredibly dishonest (not to mention insulting) to point to the Inupiat people of Kaktovik as a platform to support drilling in the Refuge - those people do not subsist off the caribou herd, their subsistence is based on the marine mammals - and simultaneously argue for legislation that opens the continental shelf to off-shore drilling .. The people of Kaktovik, as with all Inupiat tribes of the arctic coast, have consistently opposed off-shore drilling. If this idiot even begins to care about what the native people of the region believe (the nearby Gwich'n people, who DO rely on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for their physical, spiritual and cultural subsistence have consistently opposed efforts to drill for oil in the Refuge), he'd hardly support off-shore drilling. Of course, he doesn't care at all, he's simply using a group of people when it best befits him, and ignoring their existence when it doesn't.
There's one of 2 reasons for the kind of reductions this idiot and his nefarious ilk make - either he's so stupid that this is actually how he thinks, or he cares so little about honesty that he'll dribble any absurdity to prop up his destructive worldview. It's disgusting.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/07/24/beck.energy.crisis.cnn -- If you believe this crap, you will believe anything !
Posted by David Taylor on October 25, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Carl-
Great info as always. The problem with todays culture is that many people blindly go along with what they hear (or rather, who they hear it from). If they like a certain news media outlet/personality, they accept everything that comes from that horses mouth without doing any fact checking of their own. Whether it is politics, economics, foreign policy, RACISM/BIGOTRY, or "drill baby drill" - it really is disheartening. It really is left to "us" to help educate people, so that they can make a rational and informed decision for themselves. Then, at least if we don't agree with their final decision, we can't say that they were uninformed/misinformed (or even worse - ignorant). Great initial blog post, and very good follow up on here. Keep up the fight.
Posted by Larry Fischer on October 29, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Carol,
I respectfully disagree with your presentation. Conservation is WISE USE, not non-use.
Like it or not, petroleum is now our energy base.
Should we seek alternatives? Yes. That will take time. And the ability to travel, to take photos if you will, requires petroleum. I wager that a significant portion of camera body's and lenses have some petroleum products...
The acreage of Anwar is very small; if I recall correctly, under 2 sq. miles.
I've been to Alaska 9 times and the Alaska Pipeline is a marvel. Caribou and other wildlife don't mind the pipe. Heck, they even stand under it for shade since there are no tree on the North Slope. And the radiant heat helps in the winter.
Everything living impacts the environment. Who was it, Morganbrot? (fractals) that developed the theroy of "butterfly wings" which eventually caused a hurricane? So, unless you wish to be a purist and walk to Alaska for photos,without defecating anyplace, be careful of overstepping (like I just did).
Kindest regards,
Larry
Posted by Carl Donohue on October 29, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Hey Larry,
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate reasoned discourse. I'll try to offer my own in reply.
Larry wrote:
'Conservation is WISE USE, not non-use.'
I half agree, I'm a big believer in wise use. But I'm also a believer in non-use. And I'm also a big believer in using less. Your statement implies this is an either/or situation. It's not. 95% of the Alaskan north slope is open to drilling. Ninety Five percent. It's not only unreasonable, IMO, to say 5% should be off limits, should remain off limits, and be left, as much as possible, as is; it's probably, at least, responsible, at most, imperative. We need wise use. We also need non use, wilderness, and we also need less use, ways in which we cut down our consumption.
Larry wrote:
'Like it or not, petroleum is now our energy base.
Should we seek alternatives? Yes. That will take time. And the ability to travel, to take photos if you will, requires petroleum. I wager that a significant portion of camera body's and lenses have some petroleum products... '
The status quo is no argument either way. Like it or not we're in a war in Iraq, too, but I wish we weren't, and I think we should leave. The fact that we're there doesn't mean we should continue to be there. Petroleum is indeed our energy base, but that's not, IMO, a reason to extract every last ounce of oil we can from under the soil. It's probably a very good reason to pursue alternative energy sources, as well as ways to simply use less energy. As for the time factor, best estimates put the time frame at 10 years before any oil from the Wildlife Refuge would come online, from the moment a Congressional Act allows drilling to be permitted there. 10 years buys an awful lot of time for us to change the way we go about our business.
And your point about the camera, etc, is a good one. One of the things I do on this particular trip is take al the gear we have with us, and put it into 2 piles; products made from an oil base, and those not. It's pretty disturbing to see a small cotton towel or similar sitting on a rock while the raft, the flotation gear, the tents, almost every piece of clothing, etc, etc lie 10 yards away in another pile. The point, to me, seems to be that we're FAR too reliant on oil, in ways we often don't even see, and we need to make some changes. Extracting more oil doesn't seem to be a movement for change, IMO.
Larry wrote:
'The acreage of Anwar is very small; if I recall correctly, under 2 sq. miles. '
With all due respect, this is another of those twisted miscreant lies you've no doubt heard from those who favor drilling. The wildlife Refuge is 19 million acres. But Section 1002, the area under threat, is the coastal plain, at about 1 million acres. Different proposals have allowed different size drilling pad footprints, but that's a dishonest, if not merely ignorant, measurement. That was the point of my comment above, when I said "If I poke you in the eye with a needle and then explain how the hole is only the size of a pinhole, and what a tiny fraction of your body that might be, it wouldn't diminish the damage I'd just done, would it? " Impact shouldn't be measured by volume alone, no?
Larry wrote:
'I've been to Alaska 9 times and the Alaska Pipeline is a marvel. Caribou and other wildlife don't mind the pipe. Heck, they even stand under it for shade since there are no tree on the North Slope. And the radiant heat helps in the winter. '
Caribou cows, when calving, have clearly been determined to dislike the development. I mentioned this above, too. The caribou of the Prudhoe Bay area are (a) not calving around the pipeline, and (b) have a wide coastal plain that allows them movement away from the developed area for their calving season. This is not the case with the Porcupine Caribou Herd in the Wildlife Refuge. This is all laid out clearly if you want to read it in the CSR report for Congress.
Larry wrote:
'Everything living impacts the environment. Who was it, Morganbrot? (fractals) that developed the theroy of "butterfly wings" which eventually caused a hurricane? So, unless you wish to be a purist and walk to Alaska for photos,without defecating anyplace, be careful of overstepping (like I just did). '
IMO, this is a wonderful argument against drilling, not for drilling. We do need to realize the depth of our impact, and the scale of what we do. I don't think we really have any concept of the real impact of our culture on the environment. As such, we'd do better to cut down our impact, to consume less, to live a quieter life, to live more harmoniously with the world around us. Opening up the last remaining area of Alaskan coastal plain to oil and gas extraction doesn't seem to fit any of those models, IMO.
Cheers
Carl
Posted by David Bostedo on October 29, 2008 at 3:13 PM
Everything living impacts the environment. Who was it, Morganbrot? (fractals) that developed the theroy of "butterfly wings" which eventually caused a hurricane? So, unless you wish to be a purist and walk to Alaska for photos,without defecating anyplace, be careful of overstepping (like I just did).
Just a couple of clarifications....it's Benoit Mandelbrot who was associated with fractal mathematics. Edward Lorenz (proponent of Chaos Theory, of which fractals are a part) popularized the "butterfly effect".
And double checking myself on Wikipedia just now, apparently he originally referred to Seagulls wings, and later started using Butterfly instead.
Anyway, Carl, I agree that more drilling won't really be good. The problem is that no matter how much people (society, government, business, etc) say that this drilling is to tide us over while we work on alternative sources, it's going to take an awful lot of motivation for that to actually happen; Otherwise the oil availability continually pushes progress in other areas further and further into the future.
The single best motivation for society would probably be to run out of oil. But that could be a disaster, and isn't likely to happen too quickly anyway. The other possible motivation is monetary - either rising oil prices, or the ability to profit from not using oil. (Which is where people cutting usage and being "green" would come into play. I'm assuming people wouldn't quit using oil purely out of the goodness of their hearts.) Finally, government programs in either the "running out" case or the monetary case could definitely push things that way. That's where being opposed to the ANWR drilling comes back in.
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 4, 2008 at 6:39 PM
Carl,
You are well informed and I really appreciate your seasoned comments.
I cherish the moments I've had in the wild, by myself. I'm not as ardent as some but I've been out there for 2-5 days, alone, listening, thinking, just being more "aware" than I am in my daily routine. That is invigorating; I think most will agree. I hope generations to come will have the option to do that.
I don't know the answer. I just know that over-reaction is not the solution. And can we tell the upcoming generations that they can't do what we've done?? How does that work?
Modern society has deterioriated, in my opinion, in the only way it matters: morality and ethics. The caveat is the concept of "morality and ethics" must be shared by most people and that simply is not happening. I put forth that righteous ideas are what make cultures great--not money. What is righteous? That's the question. But I put forth that the money-trail is all that motivates most people.
That having been said, how do we ratchet back to that with which we should be "happy"? I don't think we can. One never misses that which one never had but the converse is not true. It would seem that entropy is the order of the day for us, our planet, etc. The only answer I again put forth, to stem the rising tide, is "wise use" for as long as we can. Non-use, due to the character of humanity, will never be on the table without totalitarian effort, and that throws the baby out with the bath water.
What a pickle.
"He who knows not, that he knows not, knows not; he who knows that he knows not, knows."--attributed to Socrates via Plato.
Larry
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 4, 2008 at 6:57 PM
I found this helpful: The Law of Contradiction
Square of Opposition (Aristotle)--(method derived from The Word of God and the Mind of Man by Ronald H. Nash, ISBN0-87552-354-4, ) pg. 43-44; 71.)
The Square of Opposition indicates the logical relationships between 4 basic kinds of categorical propositions.
Contradictions lie diagonally in the square between A and O, and between E and I.
A, E, I, O
(A) All S is P (E) No S is P
All petroleum use is bad No petroleum use is bad
(I) Some S is P (O) Some S is not P
Some petroleum use is bad Some petroleum use is not bad
Once again, a violation of the law of non-contradiction exists between A and O, and between E and I propositions. When two propositions are contradictory, it follows that if one is true, the other is necessarily false; and it one is false, the other is necessarily true.
So, where does that put us in "use" or "non-use", drilling or not-drilling?
Larry
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 5, 2008 at 4:50 AM
Hey Larry,
I think you can probably see the fallacy of your position here. All 'use' is not the same, just as places are not the same, as all people are not the same, and as all potential outcomes are not the same. To reduce drilling to 'use' is somewhat disingenuous.
"I don't know the answer. I just know that over-reaction is not the solution.
Sometimes we're just as guilty, if not more so, of under-reaction. If you want to look at "over-reaction", look again at the ridiculous pantomime of the Glenn Beck video posted above.
And can we tell the upcoming generations that they can't do what we've done?? How does that work? "
I'm not sure what you mean here. Wouldn't a better question be 'how can we leave them a world deprived of the wild that we evolved within, the wild that shaped our humanness and taught us how to be'? How do you answer 'why are there no more polar bears'?
"That having been said, how do we ratchet back to that with which we should be "happy"? I don't think we can. One never misses that which one never had but the converse is not true. It would seem that entropy is the order of the day for us, our planet, etc. "
Interesting series of leaps there - I'm not sure I follow, but I'll try. I doubt we can, or should, "ratchet back". But if we identify that which makes us unhappy and continue to pursue it, ever more maddeningly, how healthy is that? how sane is that?
"The only answer I again put forth, to stem the rising tide, is "wise use" for as long as we can."
How do you define "wise-use"? I'd incorporate not drilling, not logging, not mining in any definition of that term just as importantly as I'd include utilization of the landbase we live upon. I can't see how completely consuming a non-renewable resource is 'wise'. How 'wise' was the plunder of the Great Plains that left no bison? You seem to be somehow under the misconception that "wise-use" is some kind of carte blanche permit for "all use". It isn't. By construct, "wise-use" restricts use.
"non-use" doesn't mean 'doing nothing'
"When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone." - The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu -- Read it. :)
"Modern society has deterioriated, in my opinion, in the only way it matters: morality and ethics. "
Really? On a night as momentous as Nov 4, 2008, you'd make a comment like that? Seems likely that our society just took an enormous step forward, in one of many ways that matter, IMO. Rather than a "deterioration", I'd say in many ways exactly the opposite is true. If you honestly believe this statement of yours, and I know many people do, I'd ask to which time period would you like to return to, to an era where morality and ethics reigned so well? 10 years, 25 years, 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000? 5000? Seriously, when, and to which culture do you defer this esteem?
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 5, 2008 at 8:59 AM
Carl,
You seem to indicate that the altering of the environment is bad. It might be, but it is a matter of fact.
The only way you will stop it is to eliminate humans so the "wild" will survive. So, if the premise, the environment will be altered, is accepted, the only question is how, how rapidly, and who makes the choices? You said wise use, in your opinion, would include not drilling, not logging, not mining. Carl, Carl, that is infantile. So much stuff you now use is the result of those processes you say should not be done. That, my friend is a contradiction and invalidates your argument, especially if you live in a house with wood framing, if you have a TV which requires electricity (probably from coal-powered generators), plastic from petro, rare elements for the picture tube and circuits, rubber tires, plastic or metal for you glass frames, etc. etc. etc. Come on......
Consider that the problem is the distruibution of natural resocurces. All the people in the world could stand shoulder to shoulder in Houston, TX. They could all live in Texas living on once acre of ground. So, if we are to use items from the earth, it necessarily follows those items must be extracted from the source. And if that source is abundant in one location it will have to be done intensely at that site for distribution to those without. Or, one sets up a one world government with new found morality and ethics, apparently, and in your words, driving this last election, to distribute to citizens as is deemed necessary by the powers that be. That's been tried and it does not work. Morality and ethics is first personal, then corporate. The former drives the latter. And consider that "civility" is at an all time low, and the people elect those of like "type" which will turn that "type" back on to them (Gouveneur Morris paraphrased from The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States by B.F. Morris). And when the people allow the most dangerous place in America to be the womb, I don't want those people making my decisions. Why? Because they will eventually take away everything, including your camera. But, after last night, perhaps I no longer have a choice. So much for "change", which has yet to be defined.
That will end my ranting; we won't alter each other's minds. Have a great day taking great pictures with great equipment brought to you by free enterprise.
"the fisch"
Posted by David Bostedo on November 5, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Larry - A small point :
-- Texas is about 268,820 square miles
-- 1 square mile is 640 acres
-- Texas is about 172,044,800 acres
-- There are about 6,700,000,000 people in the world
-- You would need almost 40 Texas's to give everyone in the world 1 acre. That's 3 times the size of the US
The distribution of natural resources is a tougher one than you're supposing.
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 5, 2008 at 12:06 PM
David, "iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another".
I did have my figures wrong.
I'll have to dig to find the original. I'm sure I misquoted. I think it was written by an author, Larry Burkett?
Anyway, the principle remains the same, and the figures would be about 1220 sq. ft. per person (check me out), the size of a modest home, and probably more than many people around the world own now.
The point is: It is the resource v. the locale that must be addressed. Again, those areas which have resources, like ANWAR, if we are to share the "wealth", must be intensely utilized by mining, cutting, or drilling for those who don't. To have people arbitrarily spout off that we need to keep an area wild, while we bathe in abundance, isn't fair. As an example, Africa south of the Sahara has enormous mineral and petroleum wealth but the warlords won't allow any development. So, the people fight wars, suffer genocide, and basically are at the whim of those who wish to control. Control of resources by a few, for whatever reason, is arbitrary and capricious. The Greek concept of the dynamic tension of the longbow serves in a free society, ie. those for and those against. The market is usually wiser than the dictator. I'm still an advocate of wise use; not use. Thanks for the head-up. the fisch
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 5, 2008 at 1:36 PM
Larry wrote:
"You seem to indicate that the altering of the environment is bad. It might be, but it is a matter of fact."
Hey Larry,
No, not at all. Altering the entire environment, beyond redemption, is bad. In my opinion.
"You said wise use, in your opinion, would include not drilling, not logging, not mining. Carl, Carl, that is infantile."
I think you misinterpreted, and/or I wasn't clear about this: What I said stands; wise-use should include not drilling just as it includes drilling (utilization of resources). We all eat, we all require shelter, we all live in this world, and nobody does so without a footprint. But that footprint doesn't need to obliterate the earth. In fact, it's imperative that it does not.
"Morality and ethics is first personal, then corporate"
I don't understand most of what you wrote in the closing paragraph, but I will address this point, because I believe it to be incorrect. Civil Rights' changes did not come to many regions of this country because of 'personal morality and ethics'. Legislation changed things far faster than waiting any personal step forward. Just as children will grow up now with, for a time, a black president, and that will be the norm for them, an every day deal. I was at the house of a neighbor last night, and his 10 year old kid couldn't understand what the fuss was about; that's a great sign, and soon enough an entire generation will see the world that way.
I'm not claiming these things always work this way, of course, but they certainly do on some occasions.
On that issue, I am still curious though, about this "moral decline" or 'deterioration'. Whose and which morals are you talking about, and from what point are you seeing this decline? Again I'll ask, what point is it YOU'D like to see us "ratchet back" towards in order that we once again claim some moral high ground?
" Again, those areas which have resources, like ANWAR, if we are to share the "wealth", must be intensely utilized by mining, cutting, or drilling for those who don't. To have people arbitrarily spout off that we need to keep an area wild, while we bathe in abundance, isn't fair"
'arbitrarily spout off'? Excuse me? Did you just say 'civility' is at an all-time low? What's arbitrary is people who know nothing about this particular issue, such as, say, Glenn Beck, ranting on about how he 'loves polar bears'. Well, no let me correct that; he DOES know what he's said isn't true, so it's not arbitrary, it's calculated deceit.
" Control of resources by a few, for whatever reason, is arbitrary and capricious"
Control of resources by a few is the market at work, my friend. Control of resources by the masses is, uhhmmm .. what's that 'S' word again?
" I'm still an advocate of wise use; not use"
As I said above, you've given no indication of what a nice term like 'wise use' is, other than to imply it means 'where there's oil, drill'.
I don't see anything so wise about that. I see something wise about saying 'drill here, do not drill there. Consume less oil.Log over here, do not log over there. Consume less wood.' And so on.
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 6, 2008 at 8:50 AM
Carl, to me, anyway, we are reading the same book but on different pages.
To address the "morality and ethics are first personal, then corporate" I mean this.
As I understand it, we have "represenatitive government". To me that means the will of the "people" invidivually are represented by their vote. The result, at least in theory, is that these servants are elected to bring the individual thoughts of people, which are cemented together into a community through votes, and then brought to the to the bureaucracy in the form of a person, who has limited powers, by contract (constitution), with these same people who placed him/her in office. This becomes the corporate "morality and ethics" which source was first individual. To say that congress has done all good and bad, without consent of the people, may be true but then we no longer have the founding principles of our constitution--we have arbitrary government, probably an oligarchy. One author wrote of the negative of the design, but the concept is still the same: "... Vicious rulers, chosen by a vicious people, turn back the current of corruption to its source. Placed in a situation where they can exercise authority for their own emolument, they (the officials) betray their trust. They take bribes. They sell statues and decrees. The sell honor and office. They sell conscience. They sell their country. By this vile practice they become contemptible."--(The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States by Benjamin F. Morris, ISBN 0-915815-70-2, quoting Gouverneur Morris, Pg. 172). Edmund Burke said something like "If men be good, government cannot be bad." And now you also know what "morality and virtue" I espouse based on my quoted resource. Do with that what you will. Keep firing away if we aren't violating posting principles--you are making me think and rethink. Kindest regards, Larry
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 6, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Hey Larry,
Thanks for the post.
Whilst this is probably getting a little further from the topic than we need to, 'morality and ethics' is a subject that's difficult to discuss over the internet, with people we've never met. Words have too many histories, and the history of certain words for you will inevitably be different to mine, which often leads us unconsciously apart from one another. I don't disagree with some of what you've said, but I'll bring it back to my point about 'moral deteroriation'. This culture, due a myriad different reasons, is incredibly fluid; whilst some folks will point to a 'moral decline', others talk about the beauty of civil rights progress, whilst Robert Bork (whom I dislike) says we're 'Slouching Towards Gomorrah', Dan Savage (a far better writer) wrote that we're Skipping Towards Gomorrah". What may be a downhill slope for some is a stride to freedom for others. It wasn't too long ago that an African American couldn't even be a headcoach in the NFL, and yet just 2 days ago America voted for an African American president of the United States of America. I don't see a moral deterioration, I see a shedding of an ideology that had no business ever existing.
Regarding the 'will of the people', the 'founding principles of the constitution' didn't even allow everyone to vote - and not through oversight, but deliberated, willful construct. Those founders weren't at all interested in 'the will of the people', but 'the will of some people'. As I said, the culture is fluid, perhaps more so than any other in history, and I think that's a good thing, it's fluidity is its strength.
Let's keep it on the Refuge, eh? The will of the people of this country has been, repeatedly, to NOT drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. So on what grounds, given your statements above, do you say the Refuge ought be opened to drilling?
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 8, 2008 at 1:04 PM
Well, Carl, at least we do agree on one thing: "Dan Savage... wrote that we're Skipping Towards Gomorrah". But I don't want to go there. Gomorrah is a pit into which "cliff dancers fall".
But we do disagree on another: "I don't see a moral deterioration, I see a shedding of an ideology that had no business ever existing." Carl, a country that kills unborn children will eventually turn on it citizens. A country that condones the loss of biblical morality of "thou shall not's" will not surivive.
One of the best liberal authors I've read is Alann Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind. If you have time, read it.
I'll still enjoy Alaska when I get to go. I just hope there is jet affordable fuel is available for a schmuck like me for my trip.... !!!! ????
And as for everyone having the ability to vote, I question that. Those that have not will eventually outnumber those who have. Why should the have work and be forced to give to those who don't have? Why should 50% of the population in the US, who live within 50 miles of an ocean, control the balance of the land mass--and the resources of Alaska? Look at the demographics and the way people vote. That is why we were not designed as a democracy but a "republic".
the fisch
How many times did this come up with ANWR and in the election discourse???? Read on..
... The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger, those of the State governments in times of peace and security...”
1 Federalist No. 45, The Federalist Papers, John Hopkins University Press, 1989, pg. 135-137
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 8, 2008 at 2:54 PM
hey Larry,
Actually, I mislead you there; Dan's book was about himself, an experiment in which he pursued the seven deadly sins, best he could and full of gusto, to see how badly his life would turn out. Funnily enough, he didn't hurt anyone, and he seemed to learn a lot. Pretty bad stuff, no?
"Carl, a country that kills unborn children will eventually turn on it citizens. A country that condones the loss of biblical morality of "thou shall not's" will not surivive."
Even excusing the deceiving 'a country that kills unborn children' line, I don't think what you're saying here is supportable.
"One of the best liberal authors I've read is Alann Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind. If you have time, read it. "
I looked at it, long ago. Parts of it - didn't he say rock music has only one barbaric appeal, to sexual desire (or something like that)? That was about all I could muster up the energy to wade through. As a long-time rock musician, I know this to be incorrect. I'll try reading it again someday, perhaps. I do agree with him that our education system has much to improve on, but we disagree exactly what.
Ironic, isn't it, in your testimony to morals and biblical 'thou shall nots', you reference a gay author who died of AIDS as your support?
"I'll still enjoy Alaska when I get to go. I just hope there is jet affordable fuel is available for a schmuck like me for my trip.... !!!! ???"
I hope so too. But if you're suggesting that will depend on whether or not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is opened to oil and gas extraction, you're sadly mistaken, and clearly haven't read too much on the issue.
"And as for everyone having the ability to vote, I question that. Those that have not will eventually outnumber those who have. Why should the have work and be forced to give to those who don't have? Why should 50% of the population in the US, who live within 50 miles of an ocean, control the balance of the land mass--and the resources of Alaska? Look at the demographics and the way people vote. That is why we were not designed as a democracy but a "republic". "
Have you heard of 'trickle-up poverty'? Thats your answer to the 2nd sentence here. And the 3rd as well. As for the 4th sentence, why should that same group of people provide such massive welfare to the people of the state of Alaska? And, secondly, we're talking about the Arctic NATIONAL Wildlife Refuge. The management of that land has nothing to do with the State of Alaska, just as the management of Yellowstone National Park is not the state of Wyoming, but the federal government.This also answers your closing point derived from the Federalist papers.
But this also gets back to an issue I raised above in response to childish Glenn Beck video above (to borrow a line from a buddy, the only thing missing from his performance was a 'Shazzzzzzamm' at the end). This is an issue raised only when it supports your argument; when the native folks oppose off-shore drilling, where are Glenn Beck, Limbagh, Hannity, et al, in coming to their defense? It's so dishonest. I've yet to see or hear from a single person who favor opening the refuge to drilling make this same argument against off-shore drilling. Why? Because they don't REALLY give a darn about what the local people want - they simply dig up any grouping of words they can that they feel supports their position.
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Larry Fischer on November 10, 2008 at 8:37 AM
Carl, you are well read and have opinions based on a gathering of information. I appreciate that. Too many have "opinions" which are derived from nothing. Tocqueville noted that "opinion is mistress of the world" especially those without thought.
I don't look to Alann Bloom as one of my guru's. I just try to read both sides and make a determination of values from what I think is true and therefore enduring and applicable. We stand on opposite sides of the fence of life. The dynamic tension of the "bow" is not a bad thing--it keeps things in balance.
Wishing you good pictures, always.
Larry
Larry
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 10, 2008 at 1:46 PM
Hey Larry,
Thanks, but I'm not as well read as I should be, on far too many subjects. My winter reading order is slowly coming in though, and I should be well better off for it by spring. :) Of opinions, Francis Jeffrey said 'Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest of violence'. I've yet to see anyone support drilling in the Wildlife Refuge base their support on anything but prejudice - even the misinformation that is so frequently tossed around is a function of prejudice.
I think you'll find we don't stand on opposite sides of the fence of life - there ain't no fence, bruh. That's the beauty of the world, isn't it?
The dynamic tension of the bow is not a bad thing unless you happen to be standing in front of the arrow, eh?
Carl,
you mention the nearby Gwich'n tribe.
How close are they to Kaktovik?
Thanks
Posted by Carl Donohue on August 18, 2009 at 3:05 PM
Hey Dennis
The Gwich'in generally live on on the south side of the Brooks Range, not on the north side - Arctic Village is about 150 miles or so from Kaktovik/Barter Island, I believe.
Discussion
31 repliesI think a lot of you might be surprised to read my latest post on the oil from ANWR. I just returned from 2 weeks in the Refuge, and did some real 'hands on' study - I think this will be interesting, and somewhat surprising for a number of you folks.
[ul=http://skolaiimages.com/journal/2008/07/18/the-golden-oil-of-anwr-its-over/]Latest on ANWR Oil[/url]
Cheers
Carl
the link should be
Latest on ANWR
Cheers
Carl
I really like the "lower footprint" joke Carl....nicely done.
Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Warmest regards, Simon
Fun read!! Thanks.
Actually, I've been working out a plan for this. Everyone should stay home, and I'll send them vials of the oil as they need it. :)
Hey Folks,
Thanks for the replies. For those concerned about the veracity of the claims concerning the Beatles, and Trump's hair, trust me - this stuff is really something else. Every word in the piece is the truth - "I Report, You Decide".
Cheers
Carl
p.s. could you please tell me where I can get a drill like yours, the ones I've seen in the stores are all made elsewhere?
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/07/24/beck.energy.crisis.cnn
I shoulda known better than to go to a link with the words 'beck' and 'cnn' in it. Now if it was 'Jeff Beck' that woulda been different. :)
Seriously, this guy's such an idiot - it's theatrical news, hyperbole pandering to ignorance. Few things incite my ires more than this kind of BS, but particularly when it's masquerading as news, so I won't apologize for my response here. His stupid little 'I love Polar Bears, I really do' is childish, inane, incorrect, and insulting.
You think he's "right on", do you? Let's look, briefly, at how many times he's flat out 'wrong'.
1) His initial premise that we should ""USE proven resources and technology"
WRONG - there's nothing 'proven' about the amount of oil in the Wildlife Refuge. That's why people talk about "mean estimates" and "best estimates".
2) ANWR - 'the place we literally bought for its oil'
WRONG - Beck clearly needs a history lesson as well as ecology and geography lessons (or, more likely, a lesson in honesty). The sale of Alaska to the US by Russia ("Seward's Folly") was initialized by the Russian govt, largely because of their own financial woes at the time, as well as their recent defeat in the Crimean war - further, Russia feared losing the land to the British, who held Canada at the time, with no compensation at all. The US considered the purchase largely because of the encroachment of Russia, and to avoid potential squabbles and conflict - it was also a message to the British that the continent belonged to the US, not the Brits - the purchase was largely political. At the time, most Americans considered the land to be of little value beyond furbearing animals, which had already been hunted near to extinction. Most folks believed it foolhardy to spend money on a "wasteland", and it wasn't until nearly 30 years after the purchase that gold was discovered and some people changed their minds (particularly those who found gold). The purchase was based primarily on American expansion strategy, not Alaskan oil. People didn't even know oil existed there, nor, in the late 19th century, did they have any real use for crude oil. The strategic value of the purchase was vindicated in WWII, and again later in 1996 when I came up backpacking. :) :)
3) How can a guy with his own show on CNN, the most watched news in America, point to "the media" as though it's some invisible, abstract, external source?
His references to the coastal plain as:
4) "mosquito infested" - WRONG .. the coastal plain, with it's regular coastal breezes, is one of the places wildlife seek refuge from the mosquitoes that inhabit the arctic. The bugs are almost ALWAYS worse in the mountains and foothills than they are out on the plains, where the regular onshore winds keep them down (and can also make paddling a raft northward an extremely tough gig) - that's one of the reasons the Porcupine Caribou Herd calve out on the plain (not the rafting, the bugs).
5) "barren wasteland" .. WRONG .. it's the biological and ecological heart of the refuge
6) "there's nothing there" - WRONG .. see Pt #5)
His little slide show of images from the coastal plain is silly -- bad photos are just that - bad photos. Here's the coastal plain.
7) Likening the coastal plain of the Wildlife Refuge to that at Prudhoe Bay and the (further west) National Petroleum Reserve ..
WRONG. The coastal plain in the Refuge is about 20 miles across. At Prudhoe Bay and further west it's over 100 miles across. The difference is critical - The Central Arctic Herd, who choose to calve west of the Refuge, have moved their calving grounds south from the shore, because of disturbances due the oil extraction development. The coastal plain in that area, being 100 miles wide, allows plenty of space for them to do so, with little impact on their calving numbers. In the Refuge, it's estimated by the only scientific studies done on the issue that such disturbances would have marked impact on calving success, due to the marginal room for alternative calving grounds. Read the CSR report on the place sometime.
8) He wants Congress to 'simply be allowed to vote on this .. WRONG - Congress have voted it down something like 8 times now (thank Gaia)
9) I get so sick of the ridiculous claims about how tiny the area proposed for drilling (Section 1002) is. If I poke you in the eye with a needle and then explain how the hole is only the size of a pinhole, and what a tiny fraction of your body that might be, it wouldn't diminish the damage I'd just done, would it?
10) Showing caribou herds in late August, well after the calving season, hanging around the pipeline as evidence that drilling won't affect the caribou herd at calving time in the Refuge is ignorant, and obviously assumes the viewer is just as ignorant (not to mention exploits that ignorance). If you actually want to understand something about the potential impact, read the CSR report - if not, continue watching this drivel and pretend it passes as informative. Similarly, to say a grizzly bear, walking along the pipeline, doesn't recognize the difference between a tree and a pipeline is absurd; (a) adult grizzly bears do not climb trees, (b) the arctic coastal plain is treeless, and (c) how on earth does Glenn Beck claim to know what bears can and cannot differentiate? This is precisely the Disney-esque, magical thinking-crap that spawned the blog post I linked to in the original post here.
Lastly, it's incredibly dishonest (not to mention insulting) to point to the Inupiat people of Kaktovik as a platform to support drilling in the Refuge - those people do not subsist off the caribou herd, their subsistence is based on the marine mammals - and simultaneously argue for legislation that opens the continental shelf to off-shore drilling .. The people of Kaktovik, as with all Inupiat tribes of the arctic coast, have consistently opposed off-shore drilling. If this idiot even begins to care about what the native people of the region believe (the nearby Gwich'n people, who DO rely on the Porcupine Caribou Herd for their physical, spiritual and cultural subsistence have consistently opposed efforts to drill for oil in the Refuge), he'd hardly support off-shore drilling. Of course, he doesn't care at all, he's simply using a group of people when it best befits him, and ignoring their existence when it doesn't.
There's one of 2 reasons for the kind of reductions this idiot and his nefarious ilk make - either he's so stupid that this is actually how he thinks, or he cares so little about honesty that he'll dribble any absurdity to prop up his destructive worldview. It's disgusting.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/07/24/beck.energy.crisis.cnn -- If you believe this crap, you will believe anything !
Cheers
Carl
Great info as always. The problem with todays culture is that many people blindly go along with what they hear (or rather, who they hear it from). If they like a certain news media outlet/personality, they accept everything that comes from that horses mouth without doing any fact checking of their own. Whether it is politics, economics, foreign policy, RACISM/BIGOTRY, or "drill baby drill" - it really is disheartening. It really is left to "us" to help educate people, so that they can make a rational and informed decision for themselves. Then, at least if we don't agree with their final decision, we can't say that they were uninformed/misinformed (or even worse - ignorant). Great initial blog post, and very good follow up on here. Keep up the fight.
I respectfully disagree with your presentation. Conservation is WISE USE, not non-use.
Like it or not, petroleum is now our energy base.
Should we seek alternatives? Yes. That will take time. And the ability to travel, to take photos if you will, requires petroleum. I wager that a significant portion of camera body's and lenses have some petroleum products...
The acreage of Anwar is very small; if I recall correctly, under 2 sq. miles.
I've been to Alaska 9 times and the Alaska Pipeline is a marvel. Caribou and other wildlife don't mind the pipe. Heck, they even stand under it for shade since there are no tree on the North Slope. And the radiant heat helps in the winter.
Everything living impacts the environment. Who was it, Morganbrot? (fractals) that developed the theroy of "butterfly wings" which eventually caused a hurricane? So, unless you wish to be a purist and walk to Alaska for photos,without defecating anyplace, be careful of overstepping (like I just did).
Kindest regards,
Larry
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate reasoned discourse. I'll try to offer my own in reply.
Larry wrote:
I half agree, I'm a big believer in wise use. But I'm also a believer in non-use. And I'm also a big believer in using less. Your statement implies this is an either/or situation. It's not. 95% of the Alaskan north slope is open to drilling. Ninety Five percent. It's not only unreasonable, IMO, to say 5% should be off limits, should remain off limits, and be left, as much as possible, as is; it's probably, at least, responsible, at most, imperative. We need wise use. We also need non use, wilderness, and we also need less use, ways in which we cut down our consumption.
Larry wrote:
The status quo is no argument either way. Like it or not we're in a war in Iraq, too, but I wish we weren't, and I think we should leave. The fact that we're there doesn't mean we should continue to be there. Petroleum is indeed our energy base, but that's not, IMO, a reason to extract every last ounce of oil we can from under the soil. It's probably a very good reason to pursue alternative energy sources, as well as ways to simply use less energy. As for the time factor, best estimates put the time frame at 10 years before any oil from the Wildlife Refuge would come online, from the moment a Congressional Act allows drilling to be permitted there. 10 years buys an awful lot of time for us to change the way we go about our business.
And your point about the camera, etc, is a good one. One of the things I do on this particular trip is take al the gear we have with us, and put it into 2 piles; products made from an oil base, and those not. It's pretty disturbing to see a small cotton towel or similar sitting on a rock while the raft, the flotation gear, the tents, almost every piece of clothing, etc, etc lie 10 yards away in another pile. The point, to me, seems to be that we're FAR too reliant on oil, in ways we often don't even see, and we need to make some changes. Extracting more oil doesn't seem to be a movement for change, IMO.
Larry wrote:
With all due respect, this is another of those twisted miscreant lies you've no doubt heard from those who favor drilling. The wildlife Refuge is 19 million acres. But Section 1002, the area under threat, is the coastal plain, at about 1 million acres. Different proposals have allowed different size drilling pad footprints, but that's a dishonest, if not merely ignorant, measurement. That was the point of my comment above, when I said "If I poke you in the eye with a needle and then explain how the hole is only the size of a pinhole, and what a tiny fraction of your body that might be, it wouldn't diminish the damage I'd just done, would it? " Impact shouldn't be measured by volume alone, no?
Larry wrote:
Caribou cows, when calving, have clearly been determined to dislike the development. I mentioned this above, too. The caribou of the Prudhoe Bay area are (a) not calving around the pipeline, and (b) have a wide coastal plain that allows them movement away from the developed area for their calving season. This is not the case with the Porcupine Caribou Herd in the Wildlife Refuge. This is all laid out clearly if you want to read it in the CSR report for Congress.
Larry wrote:
IMO, this is a wonderful argument against drilling, not for drilling. We do need to realize the depth of our impact, and the scale of what we do. I don't think we really have any concept of the real impact of our culture on the environment. As such, we'd do better to cut down our impact, to consume less, to live a quieter life, to live more harmoniously with the world around us. Opening up the last remaining area of Alaskan coastal plain to oil and gas extraction doesn't seem to fit any of those models, IMO.
Cheers
Carl
Just a couple of clarifications....it's Benoit Mandelbrot who was associated with fractal mathematics. Edward Lorenz (proponent of Chaos Theory, of which fractals are a part) popularized the "butterfly effect".
And double checking myself on Wikipedia just now, apparently he originally referred to Seagulls wings, and later started using Butterfly instead.
Anyway, Carl, I agree that more drilling won't really be good. The problem is that no matter how much people (society, government, business, etc) say that this drilling is to tide us over while we work on alternative sources, it's going to take an awful lot of motivation for that to actually happen; Otherwise the oil availability continually pushes progress in other areas further and further into the future.
The single best motivation for society would probably be to run out of oil. But that could be a disaster, and isn't likely to happen too quickly anyway. The other possible motivation is monetary - either rising oil prices, or the ability to profit from not using oil. (Which is where people cutting usage and being "green" would come into play. I'm assuming people wouldn't quit using oil purely out of the goodness of their hearts.) Finally, government programs in either the "running out" case or the monetary case could definitely push things that way. That's where being opposed to the ANWR drilling comes back in.
You are well informed and I really appreciate your seasoned comments.
I cherish the moments I've had in the wild, by myself. I'm not as ardent as some but I've been out there for 2-5 days, alone, listening, thinking, just being more "aware" than I am in my daily routine. That is invigorating; I think most will agree. I hope generations to come will have the option to do that.
I don't know the answer. I just know that over-reaction is not the solution. And can we tell the upcoming generations that they can't do what we've done?? How does that work?
Modern society has deterioriated, in my opinion, in the only way it matters: morality and ethics. The caveat is the concept of "morality and ethics" must be shared by most people and that simply is not happening. I put forth that righteous ideas are what make cultures great--not money. What is righteous? That's the question. But I put forth that the money-trail is all that motivates most people.
That having been said, how do we ratchet back to that with which we should be "happy"? I don't think we can. One never misses that which one never had but the converse is not true. It would seem that entropy is the order of the day for us, our planet, etc. The only answer I again put forth, to stem the rising tide, is "wise use" for as long as we can. Non-use, due to the character of humanity, will never be on the table without totalitarian effort, and that throws the baby out with the bath water.
What a pickle.
"He who knows not, that he knows not, knows not; he who knows that he knows not, knows."--attributed to Socrates via Plato.
Larry
Square of Opposition (Aristotle)--(method derived from The Word of God and the Mind of Man by Ronald H. Nash, ISBN0-87552-354-4, ) pg. 43-44; 71.)
The Square of Opposition indicates the logical relationships between 4 basic kinds of categorical propositions.
Contradictions lie diagonally in the square between A and O, and between E and I.
A, E, I, O
(A) All S is P (E) No S is P
All petroleum use is bad No petroleum use is bad
(I) Some S is P (O) Some S is not P
Some petroleum use is bad Some petroleum use is not bad
Once again, a violation of the law of non-contradiction exists between A and O, and between E and I propositions. When two propositions are contradictory, it follows that if one is true, the other is necessarily false; and it one is false, the other is necessarily true.
So, where does that put us in "use" or "non-use", drilling or not-drilling?
Larry
I think you can probably see the fallacy of your position here. All 'use' is not the same, just as places are not the same, as all people are not the same, and as all potential outcomes are not the same. To reduce drilling to 'use' is somewhat disingenuous.
Sometimes we're just as guilty, if not more so, of under-reaction. If you want to look at "over-reaction", look again at the ridiculous pantomime of the Glenn Beck video posted above.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Wouldn't a better question be 'how can we leave them a world deprived of the wild that we evolved within, the wild that shaped our humanness and taught us how to be'? How do you answer 'why are there no more polar bears'?
Interesting series of leaps there - I'm not sure I follow, but I'll try. I doubt we can, or should, "ratchet back". But if we identify that which makes us unhappy and continue to pursue it, ever more maddeningly, how healthy is that? how sane is that?
How do you define "wise-use"? I'd incorporate not drilling, not logging, not mining in any definition of that term just as importantly as I'd include utilization of the landbase we live upon. I can't see how completely consuming a non-renewable resource is 'wise'. How 'wise' was the plunder of the Great Plains that left no bison? You seem to be somehow under the misconception that "wise-use" is some kind of carte blanche permit for "all use". It isn't. By construct, "wise-use" restricts use.
"non-use" doesn't mean 'doing nothing'
"When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone." - The Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu -- Read it. :)
Really? On a night as momentous as Nov 4, 2008, you'd make a comment like that? Seems likely that our society just took an enormous step forward, in one of many ways that matter, IMO. Rather than a "deterioration", I'd say in many ways exactly the opposite is true. If you honestly believe this statement of yours, and I know many people do, I'd ask to which time period would you like to return to, to an era where morality and ethics reigned so well? 10 years, 25 years, 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000? 5000? Seriously, when, and to which culture do you defer this esteem?
Cheers
Carl
You seem to indicate that the altering of the environment is bad. It might be, but it is a matter of fact.
The only way you will stop it is to eliminate humans so the "wild" will survive. So, if the premise, the environment will be altered, is accepted, the only question is how, how rapidly, and who makes the choices? You said wise use, in your opinion, would include not drilling, not logging, not mining. Carl, Carl, that is infantile. So much stuff you now use is the result of those processes you say should not be done. That, my friend is a contradiction and invalidates your argument, especially if you live in a house with wood framing, if you have a TV which requires electricity (probably from coal-powered generators), plastic from petro, rare elements for the picture tube and circuits, rubber tires, plastic or metal for you glass frames, etc. etc. etc. Come on......
Consider that the problem is the distruibution of natural resocurces. All the people in the world could stand shoulder to shoulder in Houston, TX. They could all live in Texas living on once acre of ground. So, if we are to use items from the earth, it necessarily follows those items must be extracted from the source. And if that source is abundant in one location it will have to be done intensely at that site for distribution to those without. Or, one sets up a one world government with new found morality and ethics, apparently, and in your words, driving this last election, to distribute to citizens as is deemed necessary by the powers that be. That's been tried and it does not work. Morality and ethics is first personal, then corporate. The former drives the latter. And consider that "civility" is at an all time low, and the people elect those of like "type" which will turn that "type" back on to them (Gouveneur Morris paraphrased from The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States by B.F. Morris). And when the people allow the most dangerous place in America to be the womb, I don't want those people making my decisions. Why? Because they will eventually take away everything, including your camera. But, after last night, perhaps I no longer have a choice. So much for "change", which has yet to be defined.
That will end my ranting; we won't alter each other's minds. Have a great day taking great pictures with great equipment brought to you by free enterprise.
"the fisch"
-- Texas is about 268,820 square miles
-- 1 square mile is 640 acres
-- Texas is about 172,044,800 acres
-- There are about 6,700,000,000 people in the world
-- You would need almost 40 Texas's to give everyone in the world 1 acre. That's 3 times the size of the US
The distribution of natural resources is a tougher one than you're supposing.
I did have my figures wrong.
I'll have to dig to find the original. I'm sure I misquoted. I think it was written by an author, Larry Burkett?
Anyway, the principle remains the same, and the figures would be about 1220 sq. ft. per person (check me out), the size of a modest home, and probably more than many people around the world own now.
The point is: It is the resource v. the locale that must be addressed. Again, those areas which have resources, like ANWAR, if we are to share the "wealth", must be intensely utilized by mining, cutting, or drilling for those who don't. To have people arbitrarily spout off that we need to keep an area wild, while we bathe in abundance, isn't fair. As an example, Africa south of the Sahara has enormous mineral and petroleum wealth but the warlords won't allow any development. So, the people fight wars, suffer genocide, and basically are at the whim of those who wish to control. Control of resources by a few, for whatever reason, is arbitrary and capricious. The Greek concept of the dynamic tension of the longbow serves in a free society, ie. those for and those against. The market is usually wiser than the dictator. I'm still an advocate of wise use; not use. Thanks for the head-up. the fisch
Hey Larry,
No, not at all. Altering the entire environment, beyond redemption, is bad. In my opinion.
I think you misinterpreted, and/or I wasn't clear about this: What I said stands; wise-use should include not drilling just as it includes drilling (utilization of resources). We all eat, we all require shelter, we all live in this world, and nobody does so without a footprint. But that footprint doesn't need to obliterate the earth. In fact, it's imperative that it does not.
I don't understand most of what you wrote in the closing paragraph, but I will address this point, because I believe it to be incorrect. Civil Rights' changes did not come to many regions of this country because of 'personal morality and ethics'. Legislation changed things far faster than waiting any personal step forward. Just as children will grow up now with, for a time, a black president, and that will be the norm for them, an every day deal. I was at the house of a neighbor last night, and his 10 year old kid couldn't understand what the fuss was about; that's a great sign, and soon enough an entire generation will see the world that way.
I'm not claiming these things always work this way, of course, but they certainly do on some occasions.
On that issue, I am still curious though, about this "moral decline" or 'deterioration'. Whose and which morals are you talking about, and from what point are you seeing this decline? Again I'll ask, what point is it YOU'D like to see us "ratchet back" towards in order that we once again claim some moral high ground?
'arbitrarily spout off'? Excuse me? Did you just say 'civility' is at an all-time low? What's arbitrary is people who know nothing about this particular issue, such as, say, Glenn Beck, ranting on about how he 'loves polar bears'. Well, no let me correct that; he DOES know what he's said isn't true, so it's not arbitrary, it's calculated deceit.
Control of resources by a few is the market at work, my friend. Control of resources by the masses is, uhhmmm .. what's that 'S' word again?
As I said above, you've given no indication of what a nice term like 'wise use' is, other than to imply it means 'where there's oil, drill'.
I don't see anything so wise about that. I see something wise about saying 'drill here, do not drill there. Consume less oil.Log over here, do not log over there. Consume less wood.' And so on.
Cheers
Carl
To address the "morality and ethics are first personal, then corporate" I mean this.
As I understand it, we have "represenatitive government". To me that means the will of the "people" invidivually are represented by their vote. The result, at least in theory, is that these servants are elected to bring the individual thoughts of people, which are cemented together into a community through votes, and then brought to the to the bureaucracy in the form of a person, who has limited powers, by contract (constitution), with these same people who placed him/her in office. This becomes the corporate "morality and ethics" which source was first individual. To say that congress has done all good and bad, without consent of the people, may be true but then we no longer have the founding principles of our constitution--we have arbitrary government, probably an oligarchy. One author wrote of the negative of the design, but the concept is still the same: "... Vicious rulers, chosen by a vicious people, turn back the current of corruption to its source. Placed in a situation where they can exercise authority for their own emolument, they (the officials) betray their trust. They take bribes. They sell statues and decrees. The sell honor and office. They sell conscience. They sell their country. By this vile practice they become contemptible."--(The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States by Benjamin F. Morris, ISBN 0-915815-70-2, quoting Gouverneur Morris, Pg. 172). Edmund Burke said something like "If men be good, government cannot be bad." And now you also know what "morality and virtue" I espouse based on my quoted resource. Do with that what you will. Keep firing away if we aren't violating posting principles--you are making me think and rethink. Kindest regards, Larry
Thanks for the post.
Whilst this is probably getting a little further from the topic than we need to, 'morality and ethics' is a subject that's difficult to discuss over the internet, with people we've never met. Words have too many histories, and the history of certain words for you will inevitably be different to mine, which often leads us unconsciously apart from one another. I don't disagree with some of what you've said, but I'll bring it back to my point about 'moral deteroriation'. This culture, due a myriad different reasons, is incredibly fluid; whilst some folks will point to a 'moral decline', others talk about the beauty of civil rights progress, whilst Robert Bork (whom I dislike) says we're 'Slouching Towards Gomorrah', Dan Savage (a far better writer) wrote that we're Skipping Towards Gomorrah". What may be a downhill slope for some is a stride to freedom for others. It wasn't too long ago that an African American couldn't even be a headcoach in the NFL, and yet just 2 days ago America voted for an African American president of the United States of America. I don't see a moral deterioration, I see a shedding of an ideology that had no business ever existing.
Regarding the 'will of the people', the 'founding principles of the constitution' didn't even allow everyone to vote - and not through oversight, but deliberated, willful construct. Those founders weren't at all interested in 'the will of the people', but 'the will of some people'. As I said, the culture is fluid, perhaps more so than any other in history, and I think that's a good thing, it's fluidity is its strength.
Let's keep it on the Refuge, eh? The will of the people of this country has been, repeatedly, to NOT drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. So on what grounds, given your statements above, do you say the Refuge ought be opened to drilling?
Cheers
Carl
But we do disagree on another: "I don't see a moral deterioration, I see a shedding of an ideology that had no business ever existing." Carl, a country that kills unborn children will eventually turn on it citizens. A country that condones the loss of biblical morality of "thou shall not's" will not surivive.
One of the best liberal authors I've read is Alann Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind. If you have time, read it.
I'll still enjoy Alaska when I get to go. I just hope there is jet affordable fuel is available for a schmuck like me for my trip.... !!!! ????
And as for everyone having the ability to vote, I question that. Those that have not will eventually outnumber those who have. Why should the have work and be forced to give to those who don't have? Why should 50% of the population in the US, who live within 50 miles of an ocean, control the balance of the land mass--and the resources of Alaska? Look at the demographics and the way people vote. That is why we were not designed as a democracy but a "republic".
the fisch
How many times did this come up with ANWR and in the election discourse???? Read on..
... The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger, those of the State governments in times of peace and security...”
1 Federalist No. 45, The Federalist Papers, John Hopkins University Press, 1989, pg. 135-137
Actually, I mislead you there; Dan's book was about himself, an experiment in which he pursued the seven deadly sins, best he could and full of gusto, to see how badly his life would turn out. Funnily enough, he didn't hurt anyone, and he seemed to learn a lot. Pretty bad stuff, no?
Even excusing the deceiving 'a country that kills unborn children' line, I don't think what you're saying here is supportable.
I looked at it, long ago. Parts of it - didn't he say rock music has only one barbaric appeal, to sexual desire (or something like that)? That was about all I could muster up the energy to wade through. As a long-time rock musician, I know this to be incorrect. I'll try reading it again someday, perhaps. I do agree with him that our education system has much to improve on, but we disagree exactly what.
Ironic, isn't it, in your testimony to morals and biblical 'thou shall nots', you reference a gay author who died of AIDS as your support?
I hope so too. But if you're suggesting that will depend on whether or not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is opened to oil and gas extraction, you're sadly mistaken, and clearly haven't read too much on the issue.
Have you heard of 'trickle-up poverty'? Thats your answer to the 2nd sentence here. And the 3rd as well. As for the 4th sentence, why should that same group of people provide such massive welfare to the people of the state of Alaska? And, secondly, we're talking about the Arctic NATIONAL Wildlife Refuge. The management of that land has nothing to do with the State of Alaska, just as the management of Yellowstone National Park is not the state of Wyoming, but the federal government.This also answers your closing point derived from the Federalist papers.
But this also gets back to an issue I raised above in response to childish Glenn Beck video above (to borrow a line from a buddy, the only thing missing from his performance was a 'Shazzzzzzamm' at the end). This is an issue raised only when it supports your argument; when the native folks oppose off-shore drilling, where are Glenn Beck, Limbagh, Hannity, et al, in coming to their defense? It's so dishonest. I've yet to see or hear from a single person who favor opening the refuge to drilling make this same argument against off-shore drilling. Why? Because they don't REALLY give a darn about what the local people want - they simply dig up any grouping of words they can that they feel supports their position.
Cheers
Carl
I don't look to Alann Bloom as one of my guru's. I just try to read both sides and make a determination of values from what I think is true and therefore enduring and applicable. We stand on opposite sides of the fence of life. The dynamic tension of the "bow" is not a bad thing--it keeps things in balance.
Wishing you good pictures, always.
Larry
Larry
Thanks, but I'm not as well read as I should be, on far too many subjects. My winter reading order is slowly coming in though, and I should be well better off for it by spring. :) Of opinions, Francis Jeffrey said 'Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest of violence'. I've yet to see anyone support drilling in the Wildlife Refuge base their support on anything but prejudice - even the misinformation that is so frequently tossed around is a function of prejudice.
I think you'll find we don't stand on opposite sides of the fence of life - there ain't no fence, bruh. That's the beauty of the world, isn't it?
The dynamic tension of the bow is not a bad thing unless you happen to be standing in front of the arrow, eh?
Cheers
Carl
you mention the nearby Gwich'n tribe.
How close are they to Kaktovik?
Thanks
The Gwich'in generally live on on the south side of the Brooks Range, not on the north side - Arctic Village is about 150 miles or so from Kaktovik/Barter Island, I believe.
Cheers
Carl