Clarion call to save amphibians (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Hundreds of amphibian species will become extinct unless a global action plan is put into practice very soon, conservationists warn.

Campaigners are forming an Amphibian Survival Alliance, to raise $400m and carry through a rescue strategy.

More than a third of all amphibian species are said to be in peril.

In a policy statement issued in the journal Science, researchers blame a number of factors including habitat loss, climate change and disease.
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"The questions is: how many species will we lose? Are we going to lose hundreds before we can stabilise the situation or are we going to lose just tens. Time is absolutely crucial, and to beat time we need human recourses and expertise, and finance," he told the BBC News website.


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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5151892.stm

Not "if", but "how many". How much difference it would have made if we had had Gore as a leader for the last 5 1/2 years! Instead we've had the head-bobbing hand puppet of the environmentally rapacious 'extractive industries' -- the very antithesis of environmentally responsible leadership.

[blindpig]

1. Gore wouldn't have helped that much.

Some fine speeches, a high profile iniative or two, a little triage at best. Truth is, Gore's environmentalism is lightweight. Sure it beats the hell out of the current regime but that's comparing it to nothing. Fact is that Gore has stated that he believes that we can live in balance and still have a growth economy, and that's baloney. Now I believe that he's a smart, well meaning guy but he's too embedded in the power structure to bite the hand that feeds him. Capitalism is the enemy of the people and Nature, Gore will never say that. Therefore I can't take him too seriously.

[NNadir]

2. How is it that discussions of environmental issues always involve

rather bizarre claims that the entire problem can be addressed by spouting some platitudes about the evils of "capitalism?"

This is a thread about amphibians - a tragic matter. Amphibians are threatened world wide, in all kinds of social and economic systems, including the glorious people's socialist liberationist working-class, anti-imperialist, republic of China. I'll bet they're threatened in North Korea too, if any survive.

I'm sure though, that all of the amphibians in Cuba live in perfectly preserved rain forests where they croak the stanzas of the "Internationale."

Now that you've informed us of how "lightweight" Gore's environmentalism, maybe you can tell us about how heavyweight your own is.

What is the anti-capitalist worker's anti-imperialist democratic workers socialist program for saving amphibians?

[blindpig]

4. Nice bit of red baiting....

As for "my program", I take my inspiration here:

http://www.cnsjournal.org/manifesto.html

As for the horrible situation of amphibians, I am all too familar as field herpetology is one of my favorite activities. I've got a ring side seat for the dying of the world. My point was that amphibians can expect little real succor from promoters of the system that is a primary agent of their destruction.

[NNadir]

6. No doubt you find it inspiring. I however find it useless and irrelevant

I'm sure that dicking around with socialist herpetology will save the amphibians in no time at all. I'm so relieved to learn of your practical and workable program. I guess the rest of us should stop worrying about the frogs.

Utopian idealism, especially if it has nothing at all to do with practical events is just what we need to save not only the amphibians but Pig and Man as well. Speaking of pig and man, well, maybe I shouldn't go there.

The nice thing about all these manifestos is that they allow their adherents to avoid responsibility, since there is a zero chance in hell of anyone actually doing what is in the manifesto. This allows the adherents to blame everything on everyone who actually tried something other than what the manifesto contained. (You will excuse me if I don't actually read the manifesto, having concluded such reading within ten years of finishing puberty.) Thus irrespective of the outcome of the events the lazy fat-assed "do nothing but complain" manifesto readers can claim moral superiority. The claim about the wonders of the manifesto can go on forever, like the return of Jesus, untested in it's assertions about the Kingdom of Heaven. I have a private name for this kind of approach to problems. I call it "Naderism."

As for red baiting, history speaks for itself. Last I looked, the main nation on earth that is officially Marxist-Leninist still speaks for itself environmentally, tens of thousands of glorious struggling people's vangaurds workers building socialism who happen to have been trapped and killed in coal mines. Note that I admire some things about that nation, but I'll be damned if it's a utopia. The other notable Marxist-Leninist nations have all more or less morphed into hereditary kingdoms and do things like launch expensive missiles over the sea of Japan while people within the country quite literally starve to death.

[blindpig]

7. Nice to talk to a member of the reality based community.

And it is so good to see how well capitalism is handling our environmental crisis.

Since it is beneath your dignity to read the link I provided and all you seem capable of is hurling insults and are dead set against socialism in any form even if it points to a way to preserve the biosphere, I see no point in continuing this conversation.

[NNadir]

8. Good. It was useless from the start, which was my point.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Capitalism is a religion, capitalism is a tool (from earlier post)

That's Capitalism -- with a big "C" -- that is a dogmatic system of belief, just like "big-C" Communism, both of which reject, indeed seek to destroy, any other form of belief. It is the belief that Only Money Counts, and those with the most money count the most.

It's capitalism -- little "c" -- that is a useful tool, the tool praised by Adam Smith, a tool which does not require the exclusion of other tools, beliefs, or systems. It is not the universal solution to every problem, nor even a good solution to every problem, nor even a solution at all to some problems. Use it when it works well, set it down in favor of another tool when that works better. This does not constitute a rejection or a criticism of capitalism. capitalism without arbitrary restrait has accomplished great things, but capitalism without moral or legal restraint from malicious excess has destroyed lives and happiness on an unmatched scale.

http://www.amazon.com/Huun-Huur-Tu/artist/B000APVFYA/002-2855237-0684057

The post I excerpted this from didn't explicitly discuss the issue of environmental impact as the ultimate bottom line, but the same applies. Nothing wrong with wanting to earn a living, or make a little profit. It's when people feel they have to make ALL THE MONEY THEY POSSIBLY CAN, regardless of the damage, that the damage runs out of control. It's not so much the theory that's flawed, as it is the practice.

[blindpig]

5. I'm afraid it is the theory.

As it depends upon infinite growth so that accumulation continues. It's a finite planet so somethings got to give, and is indeed doing so.

No problem with the entrepreneur per se, but the investor class, that's the problem.

Yeah, it's class war, but they started it.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. It's current economic "theory" that preaches infinite growth.

I would say the entrepeneur (the real McCoy) and the investor class are operating off of different theories altogether. Maybe that's just me.

Although if I were one of the investor class, I'd do everything I could to presuade the entrepeneurs that I was one of them -- which is really to say, that they could become "one of us", the überclass.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. more pix of what we're losing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/sci_nat_clarion_call_to_save_amphibians/html/1.stm

"Diversity" seems like such an inadequate word in this context.

[NNadir]

11. It is very difficult to know what can be done.

There are so many issues: Climate change, steroid mimetics, habitat destruction, wetlands destruction, pollution of water, irrigation, eutrophication, introduced species, the destruction of rain forest.

It is all overwhelming sometimes.

To me, climate change is the big one, the grand daddy. Unless we nail that one, I think everything else is lost.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Two big ones: climate change and population growth.

Both fit that description: "Unless we nail that one, I think everything else is lost."

Climate change certainly looks like the more urgent issue: every time we check the evidence, it turns out it's worse than we thought -- and especially happening faster than we thought.

[NNadir]

13. I couldn't agree more with what you say.

Actually the first is a function of the second. If there were 500 million people on this planet, we could probably get away with almost anything.

[theHandpuppet]

14. Yep -- I agree

The first (human influence on global warming) is only a symptom of the disease (overpopulation). Human beings need to STOP BREEDING so that other species -- and our very planet -- may live. I know this sentiment always causes a lot of hue and cry even on DU, but spare me the outrage.