Hopefull the "INVESTORS" will see no profit in space exploration and the cancer called HUMANKIND will not pollute the solar system.
Those of us known as "CHICKEN LITTLES" will be proud to hold the epitaph, "I TOLD YOU SO."

as usual most of the masses are out busting their humps and trying to survive.so your message falls on a small group of interested parties and some are nodding in agreement and others are smirking knowing their jobs are safe .

we all know about the food chain don't we ? if we don't how come ? we all know how to live a healthy lifestyle don't we ? what about our education itself ? is it valid in these times ?

some questions i ask myself when i read and hear responses to everyday problems like this.

we are ill served by our education system,our governments and anyone that profits from humankinds destruction.we are CONSUMERS nowadays and no longer citizens of this world.we are milked just like cattle for profits and if we die in the process well we are just fed to the fish.that's metaphoric now,but wait til tomorrow.

what's that you say? sounds like that movie Soylent Green only the plot lines a little different.maybe ,i am a little crazy!but i think we have been here before and the problems seem to grow the same as the population,exponentialy.so small wonder the greedy are in high gear marketing their sh$t.

Well said Rafe. Many, many people have experienced this self same epiphany. Thinking we could go forth into society and share these concerns, we are met with calculated denial, silence and indifference. Beleiving we live in a democracy where freedom of the press is exercised, we turn to our local media outlets. Only to be met with calculated denial, silence and indifference. Decision makers (i.e. financial interests and their paid politiicans) have successfully learned that in order to act contrary to the public interest, one must control information. So long as the citizenry is told all is well, on daily TV and newsprint, chances are the citizenry will not become restless. This is very troubling, given that we are not just facing the undermining of a small ecosystem, but of the planet itself. While hard to remain optimistic, people like Rafe are critical to keeping us informed. Keep it up Rafe. You have many, many fans.

Now that you've got that out of your system, Raif, do you feel better? I strongly suggest, however, that tirades like yours and suzuki's do very, very little to advance actual sustainability activism, something I consider far more valuable. So how about illuminating our heroes and heroic actions that do make a positive difference, yet go (deliberately) unreported by mainstream media. I'm far more likely to get off the sofa and actually do something when I am inspired than when I am scolded. I put it straight to you, Rafe, what are you actually doing to advance sustainability in your life and family and community besides hitting keystrokes and putting an X on the ballot for a Green party candidate? Working for an ENGO or political party to advance sustainability? Taking the bus? Riding a bike? Growing or eating more organic food? Helping to advance Smart Growth in your neighbourhood or community? I thnk I've made my point; I'd actually far rather hear about this from you and others.

In fairness, feel-good stories aren't the answer either. People should be worried about their environment and not think that taking the bus a few times a week while voting for a gov't that declares BC is "open for business" (ie. "everything must go") is going to save the planet.

Pretty inspiring column, Rafe, except for this paragraph:

What a stupid premise. I can picture you wearing your tin foil hat while writing it.

No tin foil hat here. I remember looking at the DFO site about five years ago while working with some students on issues of stream health, particularly in fish-bearing streams and was appalled to see the level of support for fish farms and a lack of relevant protection for the wild fish. Matter of fact, there was a letter published in our local paper about three years ago wherein there was a discussion of what to do about the infestation of wild rabbits on Vancouver Island, and this one character suggested that we turn the file over to DFO so they could protect the rabbits, which, in the normal course of DFO activity, would ensure that they become extinct in no time flat.

In discussions with some local folks, it came to me that we need to do a lot of things to right the shiip of human endeavour, but that most needed to fall into one of three categories: i) to continue to participate in the current system of governance, corrupt and tilted as it might be, 2) to educate people to the consequences of carrying on as we are, and 3) to build alternate structures to replace those that are leading us to a number of doomsday scenarios. Rafe's column falls into the first two categories. It's great stuff, but we definitely need people to act to produce the events and processes that will give us the feel-good stories.

Yes Magazine is about as upbeat a publication as is possible in the current situation and often has positive and constructive suggestions for what we might do, but many people won't move off their present positions if they don't develop a sense of fear about our current situation. Hence the need for a barrage of stories in this same vein (barrage also means 'dam' in French!)

We are so in over our heads right now there is now way out. The people of the "Western" world need a dramatic shift of paradigm for any change to come about. An event needs to take place that will make us question the ideologies and truths our civilization was founded on and which continues to march ahead blindly with no common goal but to consume. It is this consumer culture that is destroying our civilization and has spawned thousands of years of wars and slavery. Our whole way of life we see and live today was built off of the backs of African slaves and continues to be based on slavery of the "un-developed" world. Until we start to seriously question the values that our reality is built on, it will not matter how many organic potatoes we eat, or bus rides we take. We are heading for ruin. The Hopi natives state that we are the ones we have been waiting for. Let's hope we can prove them right.

I agree with Frank here, and more. I think this creeping fascism going on within "the system" has arrived at a place of sufficient alarm that instead of the usual niceties, and even "the poor masses are duped and can do no harm" responses we are all conditioned to, by too long a period of "social democratic" capitalism's "legalistic" and "parliamentary" preoccupations, we need to speak, even to each other and our fellows, with greater honesty and frankness.

We are too often like the classic "enablers" who never really speak their mind, bluntly and brutally if necessary, for fear of offending, and/ or because we are simply too timid or intimidated. Sometimes being quarrelsome and angry, even offensive, is necessary, in individual and social inter-relationships, otherwise the necessary points of sufficient force and magnitude never get made. And that is not a license to be unnecessarily insensitive or entirely non-understanding of differing human conditions and circumstances. It merely means that we are in a place and time where critical socio-political and economic points need to be made, in the appropriate angry voice even, when that is called for.

To fail to do so in these situations is to mistake being "wimp-assed" for being "nice". And like too "nice" guys often fail to score with the ladies, too nice and timid of social reformers tend to get ignored by folks who really do need to get the bloody point.

Now, there's always a danger of falling off the rails the other way, of being too goddamned self_righteous too, and that has to be avoided, but if you've done your homework, maintained the necessary objectivity, and are convinced in your own mind that you are at least "essentially" correct, then you need to be prepared to challenge folks where that is necessary, including the great apolitical body public.

And we are clearly in a social time where that is becoming absolutely necessary, in my view-, before the steady creeping fascism becomes pavement pounding boots, and swaggering khaki bodies and slung rifles stepping out to an aggressive drumbeat, and the fluting refrains of Yankee Doodle Dandy.

These arseholes are the real tinfoil hats.

in 1985 i heard suzuki say that there wouldn't be any trees left in b.c. by the year 2000. say no more.

Good piece, Superjudge. I agree.

Thanks Rafe,

It's the morning after the night before when I watched the Academy Awards and just smirked at all the neo-liberal nonsense being spouted on that show. Several people mentioned how Hollywood was so socially aware and how the kinds of movies nominated for awards were a progressive sign.

What a crock.

How can you tell we're in the end of days? It's Nero's bread and circuses all over again. Substitute cheap junk food for bread, and media crap for circuses, and there you have it.
Now all we need are barbarians at the gate.

Hey Elliot, you're right, why should any of us listen to Suzuki or these left wing nuts jobs. I just know Gordo and Harpo are going to look after the environment and protect us and our families. Everything is fine, the sky is not falling, if it was Gordo would tell me, so screw you Rafe.

Rafe..couldn`t you maybe get the ole Socred jalopy up and running agin?

Waldo Skillings...Agnes Kripps...where`s the ole Leungster..Faye
when we really need her..the trouble with the environment is it`s all over the place.

Danneau

Having worked closely with DFO, this was a huge issue internally, it is clear that you just can not have a government department both review and support an industry, it leads to all sorts of problems and moral dilemmas. I know one case where a high ranking senior civil service official told 2 middle mangers to circumvent a certain piece of environmental legislation for a fish related project and the mangers refused, they advised that the senior manger could have signed off on the project but would have had to put their own signature on it and take the heat if challenged in court (which it would have been) The senior manger decided their career was worth more.

Good piece.

With all the talk of Salmon, few people are mentioning what global warming is doing to the trout in our rivers. The water tempertures are simply becoming too high.

"Now that we can see the end of life itself on our planet, we're overwhelmed by indifference.

That comic strip hero of days long past, Pogo, was right when he said "we have met the enemy and he is us.""

We are our own worst enemy. I wish the environmental movement could do a better job of presenting these things in terms of dollars and cents.

If we only have decades left to live, we sure won't make any money once we're all dead. Isn't death incentive enough to change? But then, when you watch so many talk shows, you see so many people doing really stupid stuff and so many people who are really depressed and just don't give a damn.

Maybe we deserve to die. Maybe we aren't worthy of continuing as a species. We had our chance, we've blown it. Nature will take things back over, heal itself and the next generation of species will develop to pick up where the humans failed utterly.

How can you tell we're in the end of days? It's Nero's bread and circuses all over again. Substitute cheap junk food for bread, and media crap for circuses, and there you have it.
Now all we need are barbarians at the gate.

According to George W. Bush, those barbarians are TERRORISTS! YELLOW ALERT! RED ALERT! The Terrorists are coming! The Terrorists are coming!

It is very simple, just do not eat farmed salmon.

Save the whales.
Shoot the seals.

Where does this leave the Salmon?

Bah. Rafe will protect'em. Nothing to worry about.

Agreed with the them of many: don't eat farmed salmon. While you're at it, don't eat farmed beef, or farmed chicken -- only eat wild chickens (free range is a chicken that's just being toyed with.)

I don't like the taste of farmed salmon, and wouldn't eat it either way but the FUNDAMENTAL problem with salmon farming as its practiced in BC is that it's practiced with a non-indigenous species. Farming salmon might be ok; farming Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific Ocean is nothing more than an environmental disaster.

Anybody know where I can get a wild chicken? I'm making curry tonight.

Hey, is Capitalism great, or what?

First of all, Rafe, everything you say about farmed salmon is, and has been, true about corporate farm pork, beef, lamb, and poultry for years to the point that, while the small farmer can't compete, the corporate ones can do so only by breaking all sorts of environmental laws and regulations - or getting the law changed so as to give them a free ride.

The same, mutatis mutandi, can be said for large merchandizers (can anyone say WallMart?) This is what globalization is all about, and this is why we are so fed up with it. Unfortunately, the media shills continue to sing the song their masters write, and the vast majority of the munchkins can only twitter "More!.... Cheaper!... More!... Cheaper!"

Let's hear it for "Or What".

R. Smiley

This is for you left wingers. Karl marx said that capitalism would not last.I watched david susuki's speach last night on public tv. It sent chills thru me. I wish i could have been there in person to watch him talk.His speech is all i could think about today. That was the point of his speech to scare us because the state of the world is scary. We all have to change are ways. The earth is our mother.

Perhaps if the left had not told us the sky is falling so often people would listen when it is.

Hey Kootenay,

We can only move beyond truth when we learn to accept it...

Read on...

--------------------
by Sushil Yadav

Think Positive.

Psychologists say -- Think Positive.
Politicians say – Think Positive.
Economists say – Think Positive.
Scientists say – Think Positive.
Everyone says – Think Positive.

Arctic ice is melting – Glaciers are melting – Rivers are drying up.
Think Positive.

Fish population in Oceans is down to 1/3 of what it was 100 years ago.
Think Positive.

Pollution levels are going sky-high and valley-deep.
Think Positive.

There used to be millions of members in most species of Animals and Birds. Now they are down to thousands and hundreds.
Think Positive.

Weather is getting more and more irregular and unpredictable.
Think Positive.

Thinking positive is the height of insanity.
Thinking positive is the height of abnormality.

This is a world that has become completely incapable of feeling Pain, Compassion, Remorse and Guilt.
The planet is getting destroyed moment by moment – and people are thinking positive.

Very soon there will be 1 Animal and 1 Tree left in this world – and people will still be thinking positive.

They will be holding Seminars, Conferences and Global-Summits to save the Environment.

I'd certainly like to know just what messures readers think might be appropriate to deal with global warming.

Can someone simply walk out onto the street and lock herself to something or other and shut down traffic.

If our world is getting so polluted most of us will have bit the dust, is it appropriate to smash the machines that pollute, to stop it by whatever means.

No one ever wants to talk about actually dealing with GW. Yes we have Koyoto, but it is little more than a vague benchmark, almost hopelessly out of date that some politicians actually think will convince people they are doing something.

If it is a matter of life and death are humans entitled to defend themselves by forcing the closure of polluters, even if it take violence?

Are there still readers who think Global Warming is a leftist, anti-christian conspiracy to sap capitalism of its dynamism?

allan, Professor Lovelock, he of the Gaia theory, has published a book saying its already over. That global warming has passed the tipping point and by the end of this century the "last few breeding couples left in the arctic will be all that's left of civilization".

Cheery thought. Anyhoo, his book contains much of the scientific knowledge he's afraid we'll lose and someday have to reinvent so the printing is on long-lasting paper. How's that for optimism?

All of the problems mentioned by Rafe can be fixed...except for global warming. Whether or not global warming is a natural event, the impact that an increase of over 5 billion people in the last century cannot be negated. So what’s the solution? Are we prepared to live like people did in the 16th century? Not many people are. Would it make a difference if we were? Probably not. So I guess nature will have to solve the problem for us.

Well for one thing, it might be a good idea to tell the politicians who seem to think the population won't actually stand for real and significant change that they're completely wrong. And it might be an even better idea to realize that everybody can do something positive, no matter how small. Stop buying farmed salmon. Don't use disposable diapers. Tell the supermarket you're moving to another store if they don't stop selling it - and follow through. Walk to the grocery store, take the bloody bus to work as often as you can and leave your car at home. Sell the car and sign up for a car coop if it'll work for you - get to know your neighbour and start carpooling. If you're concerned stop waiting for somebody else to tell you what to do. Write, don't email, write in longhand to the mayor, the premier and the prime minister. Hell, during the war everybody had a little garden; sugar and beef and butter and gas were all rationed - couldn't we do half as much on our own? I don't think anybody has to go back to the 16th century but I do think individuals have to do this because the politicians won't even start until it's too damn late.

during the speech where suzuki said that b.c. wouldn't have any trees left by 2000, he also said that the world's oil supply would be exhausted as well. this guy's an embarrassment to science. a joke. a fool. move on.

Pollution and environmental destruction are the transferred real costs of so called "cost cuttings" and the unlimited creation of imaginary monetary capital, which demands conversion into resources to keep its artificial value and the false economy afloat for another day.

We live in an era of huge inflation, which is going into overcapitalized investment to divert benefits to a special interest class.

When I sent a copy of my Efficiency Principle to Suzuki in 1991, he wrote back: "....of course, you're right on, but won't be taken up because of our crazy economic system"

That was the year when Mulroney deregulated the banks, in secret, we didn't even know about it at the time, along with the whole "developed world" and the systematic destruction of the ecology and the human race really started.

There is a solution, of course, but it won't happen, or be implemented, until this system collapses, because nobody is willing to give up their "wealth creating" dreams. Especially not our universities teaching this criminal economic theory.

Now lets hear some rightwingnuts blaming the unions.

Ed Deak.

I've just received a paper, written in another language, warning by Japanese and other scientists, that with the accelerated melting of the Himalayan glaciers, India could dry out completely, making much of it uninhabitable. This is only one of the areas threatened.

So, where will our economists put a few billion people on their way to "globalized wealth creation?"

Will deregulated money creation and the growth of the GDP, also create a new Earth to feed them?

Ed Eeak.

Evidence of overwhelming environmental degradation and public interest only take on cause and effect relationships when the threat of immediate individual financial loss is too painful to ignore. That’s why folks aren’t willing to take the hit or willingly change lifestyles. And, although change can be promoted by letter writing, bus riding, carpooling and selective shopping (some of which will end up at the feet of politicians) it’s going to take a whole lot more than market pressures to make a dent in the rate of destruction and prevent collapse. It’s a problem that is way more complex than evidence = interest = change.

One of the reasons for public apathy is the fact that they are kept in a blissful state of ignorance. And, quite frankly, most folks prefer that state; it’s less painful. In the few cases that manage to unlatch the media gates and get some exposure, such as harmful fish farming techniques, the public is led down a path lined with confusing and conflicting stepping stones placed by both pro and con supporters. At the end of the path, if there is no immediate and direct economic threat to public welfare, the topic soon falls off the radar, and folks continue sucking back their daily allotment of soma. It’s little wonder there is a lack of interest.

Whether or not you believe the Suzuki folks, who claim the population bomb has been detonated and the world is coming to an end, given the state of most natural resources on the planet, there is probably a good case for proposing a reduction in the numbers of high resource consumers and abusers. However those reductions aren’t required in third world countries; they consume the least and already face high death rates through disease and/or starvation. The greatest reductions are needed in the developed world: U$A and Canada in particular. Try telling your neighbour to ride the bus because he’s a resource hog!

It is interesting to note that on a global basis, population growth rates actually started to decline in the period between 1970 to1975 and have been on the decline ever since. In fact UN population statistics indicate negative growth around 2045. These UN figures have been questioned by others watching the world’s population growth rate and they claim that negative growth will probably start happening around 2010.

The media draws little attention to this part of the population dilemma because there are enormous concerns, by governments and economists, about the impacts of aging North American populations, increasing immigration allotments and labour outsourcing, and the great upheaval those factors will have on the economy and markets that depend on continual growth.

We live in an Enron world that requires huge increases in wealth, in the future, to pay for today’s lifestyles. In order to have those huge gains you need corresponding growth.

The Enron collapse should have been an awakening, however the arousal of public consciousness was fleeting: the specter of suffering must have been too much to bear.

Elliot,doesn't realize what exponential population growth means.

you should try usung a dictionary when you read/listen to Dr.Suzuki.

at the turn of the century we had 6 billion people on the globe.

today,five/six years later,7 billion.

somebody aint using rubbers.

so what's it going to be in another few years?

Actually, Elliot is just one of millions of Canadians who are incapable of comprehending the change we are going through and the resulting impact it is going to have on our lives.
Elliot and others of his kind, seem to think they can hide behind walled communities, keeping the yucky poor people away from them, and continue to live life oblivious to the carnage around them. Exteremely dillusional thinking, but understandable when the world is crashing around you.
Unfortunately, the Elliots of the world are our leaders and we're stupid enough to keep electing them to office. The neo-con agenda is so deeply integrated into our lives that change is not possible without full-on revolution. By the time the people of the world figure are ready to fight back, it will be too late.

that scenario about the populace,walled communites,a sick world,greedy politicians,right winged army wakos...

geeze...is that HORROR movie stuff or what?

DAWN O THE DEAD........STARRING...U AND ME !

stevie harper as himself,george dubya ,as yosimite sam,dick cheny as duck cheny,donnie rumsfeld as greedy gus....

and david suzuki the lone ranger fighting injustice and litterbugs...and critcs and ?

....and we have the computers and the Net, the greatest power ordinary people ever had in their hands in history, where the control of communications has always been the weapon in the hands of ruling classes.

We killed the MAI with the NET 9 years ago and can get rid of the neoclassical, neocon, neolib colonizers and destroyers with our sheer numbers.

Who still vote for Reform in BC.

Ed Deak,

geeze! looks like rafe"s stirring the pot agin ,fellers.

bedder git some trolls ober der,real quik like

those common folks are makin to much sense.

an i even heerd a coupla them invoke the name of JOHNATHAN SMITH...that engilsh/irish,er,irish\enlish....ya know ,that COMMON SENSE GUY........YA KNOW...YAHOOS !

GEEZE.......git over there and piss on the fire.

so if there are too many people how do we decide who gets to live and breed and who doesn't ?

Rafe is old, maybe he should think about his occupancy of Earth space and consumption of the group's resources . . .

even the chinese figured out one child per family was pushing it.

and instead of buying those fancy tires fer yer 4by4,got and get some rubbers for yer thingy.save monies...it cost somewhere in a $100K RANGE for bringing up a kid til teenage years,where it gets even more expensive

now ya been educated in about 15 seconds

thingy + rubber = no kidz ! wow !

and grow what you can for food.wow! we're on a roll.

educate those around you and you will educate yourself in the end

There's a better solution to having some good times without a raincoat on.

After our 3rd child, I went and got myself a little operation, called vasectomy, that cost me $35. in Vancouver at the time and whoopee, did we ever have some fun forever after !!!!!!
The best 35 bucks I ever spent and would spend 100 times more if I had to.

As far birth control pills are concerned, my wife thinks they're the biggest cause of cancers in women. Even if the so called "experts" deny it.

Ed Deak.

Deaks ! quit callin BINGO !

Hope this link works - and that everyone hasn't already seen it!

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

"Perhaps if the left had not told us the sky is falling so often people would listen when it is."

Perhaps we should have paid attention the first time and we wouldn't be in this mess.

i was once told rome wasn't built in a day.

just as i believe that global warming wasn't noticeable til ? gimme a date !

how many of us notice if a glacier is melting ? and if someone tells us it is,do we beleive them ?

c'mon Stump,if i told you the air particulates are harming your lungs...are you going to beleive me if you can still run around the block?

and if i diagnose you as having lung cancer when you never smoked ? and tell you that you only have 6 months left...WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BELEIVE WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD?

Careful Logjam 603, you might just get voted outa this place before cagey old Rafe.

Besides, most of us geezers (I'm so much younger than Rafe though), will have happily departed before the most interesting part of global warming kicks in.

And when I raise this issue with young people as often as not I am assured humanity will evolve to deal with whatever. End of discussion. Scary and very sad.

We've yet to evolve away from the knee-jerk grasp for a weapon when startled so I am not an optimist gene splitting or replicating is about to go stratispheric and turn us into whatever we will need to be in a jiffy.

Kinda makes all these wars on behalf of this god or that god seem a little bush league, doesn't it?

Maybe it's just too bad those underground groups that were torching SUV dealers and monster homes never got the attention they were seeking a decade ago when Global Warming might have been stoppable.

thanks kootenay. coming from a blathering left-wing nutjob like you, i'll take that as a compliment.

How do you define "left" or "right" wings ?

Ed Deak.

geeze...ed , you should know that !

LEFTY LOOSEY...RIGHTY TIGHTY

and you call yourself a tradesman ?

wingnuts 101 ...lesson one

Take a deep breath and a step back, folks,
We live in the midst of a hugely complex and dynamically unbalanced system...in which our longterm significance is approximately nil. Species rise and fall, sometimes right back down to the anaerobic bacteria that can survive in deep-ocean volcanic vents.
Left and right, right and wrong, life-harming or life-affirming, Adam Smith or Karl Marx -it don't mean a thing. We've made our choices, as individuals, as members of cultures or cults (Christian or Buddhist, lefties or neocons, high-end consumers or dusty peasants) and it seems pretty clear we've long passed the tipping point.
Mom is just taking care of business, clearing the stage and warming up the next act in the green room of evolution and guess what? She's going to do just fine without us.
2 or 3 hundred million years from now (with a little luck) some poor academic with six legs and faceted eyes will make a living pondering yet another extinction event 'cause fossils is all we're leaving behind.
See ya next to the dinosaur exhibit!

gbingb, interesting comments from you.

Just out of curiousity, is that the same line you use when your grandchild asks you what Global Warming is all about?

You may be too young to have a grandchild or even children, but if you do or might, is it just a simple 'well, gee sorry there son but, me and the guys just went and poisoned the well, shot all the breeding stock and pretty much mashed the garden back to nothing, so you're on your own.'?

I'm trying to put into perspective what I am hearing here from so many. It all justs seems to add up to a lot of people bailing on their own offspring with a devil-may-care, almost macho casualness I find a bit unnerving.

I realize we as humans are probably well into a sort of collective madness over the results of our stupidity, but even a rat would do a better job of ensuring a future, don't you think?

A rat is programmed to fill certain ecological purposes and needs. So are all living species, except humans.

Animals in the wild are not capable of abstract thought, and follow rigid progaming. Humans are the only species with the capability of absorbing abstractions and can therefore be taught, influenced and misled into absolutely idiotic beliefs and into the greatest crime waves in the name of religions and ideologies, otherwise known as "economic theories" .

Our present age, called the Information Age, is the greatest opportunity for mind benders to mislead and misdirect the greatest number of humans into false beliefs and criminal actions.

At the same time, it is also the best opportunity for us non believers to bust their operations.

So, which will it be ?

Neocon "wealth creation" or the acceptance of physical laws that if we carry on like this, there won't be any future for our grandchildren. I have 4 girls and would like to see them living happily into old age.

Now, there's a news item under Wendy Mesley's name on the CBC website, predicting that within a few years 50% of Canadians will come down with cancers, where 50 years ago we had practically none.

So much for our economists' "wealth creation" activities.

Ed Deak.

when you drink water that is chlorinated !
you are drinking diluted BLEACH/WATER

when you use CHEMICALS in you foods
you POISON yourself!

when you breathe PARTICULATES of ASBESTOS/DIESEL/CARBONS/LATEX/YOU NAME IT !

small wonder people get CANCER...

and small wonder the world KEEPS ON TURNING...

CAUSE YOU ARE...DISPOSABLE

and the only people that know that ?

well hell! we all know it , but it ain't gonna happen to me is it ?

Hey guys,

Good, the truth is out there and accepted...!! Now we need now to question ourslves, and ask what we can do together and individually to help Mother Earth. This, by the way is ALL Suzuki was saying...!! Hello...!! We cannot be the ones to give up on "MoM". At this point(as Neil Young says), she needs all the help she can get...NEVER can we give up. Our survival depends on it...As a community of sage, caring individuals, we know instictivly that as the Hopi Elders said, WE"RE the people to turn things around, and turn it around we must. No time for denial anymore, this is a matter of change for the health of our Earth and the survival of our children's childrens. NO sacrifice is too great for this...Peace all...E.

Solving this problem is very simple in theoretical terms: Forget all ideologies and intruduce an economic system based on physical laws.

We have solved this problem over 20 years ago. The question is who and how will introduce it, when it means a total turnaround of what most people have been led to believe in, for generations and the introduction of a logical and sustainable system would, or will destroy the artificialy introduced lifestyles and hopes of millions ?

This is the only question and although I've been working on the original problem, in our case the neoclassical theory, for over 20 years, and know how to wreck it, I don't want to be part of the responsibility for the damage
to people, even if they have been fooled and misled by crooks.

The only solution, as far I can see it, is, to let the system collapse and then try to rebuild it with logic. Whether this can happen before the crooks and idiots wreck the ecology and put humanity back to the cages, I don't know ?

We know the problems and the solutions, but we don't know the timetable and anybody who claims to know, is dreaming. It will happen allright, but that could be this month, or years from now. We just have to play it by ear and hope that the collapse will not destroy too many.

Ed Deak.

our predicament i would submit,is typical of how humans act.

one need only take as many DOMINO's as they can,put them on an unstable platform and then try to see what outrageous formations we can build upon that platform...

i say,nobody sneeze now !

and if anyone remembers that story just before christmas about the dutch team that shot that little bird that knocked over their record breaking effort...you know we don't give a sh!t about the other inhabitants of this globe...just ourselves.

we have to educate all to the outcome if we don'y smarten up...and no government is going to do that,they are all busy filling their pockets with ill gotten gains...and screw you.

Yes, allan, I am a grandparent, and I have a pretty good idea what my g'daughter (born in 2000) will face at my age (52), or likely much sooner. My perspective was formed in the '80's and '90s when I was a politician and an environmental activist (waste, forest preservation, education).
What'll I tell her?
I'll weep, and hold her, and say I'm sorry.
My attitude is neither devil-may-care, macho nor casual. Since the end of the '60's a significant minority of North Americans have been preaching, pleading, marching, blockading, spiking, blowing up and burning down to beat the devil.....and the result?
Take a look around. I don't think I have to enumerate the failures.
I am convinced that our willing plunge into the abyss takes the form of a biological imperative, a sort of species self-purging, like the mythological lemming. Once I had recovered from the stunned depression (kinda the opposite of what's supposed to happen when the cranium stops bashing the brick wall) brought by the realization that there was literally nothing I (or anybody else) could do to change the course of the good ship (a supertanker, no doubt) Consumption, which took several years, I drifted into a sort of bemused appreciation of the cosmic joke we humans are.
I still tend my own garden, trying with mixed success to make the smallest footprint I can, and I applaud and support any and all attempts to subvert the dominant paradigm, but let's face it: it's dominant because that's what the vast majority want. And will, even as the last drop of oil is steamed out of the tar sands, the last tree is mushed into toilet paper, the last fish ground up and fed to the penned salmon.
Too bad, so sad.

Well, the religious fundamentalists do have a good answer. Reagan had a Secretary of the Interior by the name of Jim Watts, who was one of them and was quoted in the media at the time: "When the last tree is cut the Lord will return!"

Which means, the sooner we destroy the ecology, the sooner comes Rapture, and then we can see the faithful flying to heaven, naked.

Would a rat believe this kind of crap? Humans do.

Ed Deak.

Thank you Fiat lux and gbingb for "shining your light" for me. I get it, now. To say I am not paralyzed with fear would be a lie. To hear from two people who have confronted our problems and come to grips with them internally, and still go on living and telling others what they don't want to hear, is my one and only comfort.

gbingb, thank you for that heartfelt answer and let me be clear, I wasn't trying to paint you as uncarring.

I guess I was simply at a loss to read so many posts on this issue that treats the coming crisis as academic or abstract so I wanted to cahllange someone to elaborate.

As Ohmygawd says above, you and Ed have put some persepctive on this.

I've got a half decade on you but no grandkids yet and quite frankly I don't know what I'll tell them if they do come along.

Who'll be the first out with a childrens' fairy tale wrapped around this scenario so that parents don't have to look the other way when trusting little eyes ask about the future?

Yes, there was that illusion a few years back that as we get older we start to see things more clearly, making things easier to accept.

I only wish wisdom brought the bliss you can find in ignorance.

My world collapsed when I was 18 and put me into extreme hardships for many years. It would have been easy to jump into some other faith based ideological garbage can, but I couldn't do it.

Since then I've not believed any politician and any scientist without great reservations. At the same time, I have very good scientist friends, who are not influenced by corporate profit demands and can still think relatively freely.

We have been thinking and working on these problems for many years, have known for a long time what is coming and why?

Politicians are hooked on the criminal advice of their economists, paid off by corporations, and are leading this country and the whole world into strings of major disasters to satisfy the demands of a self appointed ruling class.

The capitalist version of Mao's Cultural Revolution, dancing on an Earth burning up with self created ecological disasters, now called "the wealth creating global market economy", controlled by the politbureaus of an overlapping system of corporate boards of directors.

Ed Deak.

Hello, I am an American salmon troller from Seattle. I read the above comments with great interest and some pity for most of the bloggers. I find Rafe's prediction of dams on the Frasier very convincing because, you see it has been done on the Columbia River and Snake River in Washington, and the salmon are in very sad shape.

The Bonneville Power Administration consistently does every thing it can to minimize protections for salmon while going out of its way to attack fishermen as the cause of loss of salmon runs. There is not enough time to document everything I am saying, but you might check out the Save our Wild Salmon website for an abundance of facts.

The issue of dams and hydro power has nothing to do with partisan politics. Both the left and right want "clean" energy from dams. The dams were put in, for the most part, by the New Dealers from the Roosevelt Administration of the late 1930s in the US. The dams are now the darling of GW Bush who proclaimed he would protect them as long as he was in office.

British Columbia, heed Rafe! Without salmon in the river, there are no advocates for free running water, there are no balancing economic interests against the dams. That the Frasier has not been dammed is due to the fact that salmon were one of BC's major industries and the benefit of salmon were spread throughout the province. Without salmon, dams can be justified as "clean energy" with no down side. The north coast will lose twice because it will be difficult to economically connect the islands to the grid. Industry dependent on the hydro power will locate near the loser mainland because that is where export can easily occur, no jobs for the north - yet again.

Please stop the petty arguing over progressive / conservative / green / socred... that is not the point. BC, all of canada for that matter, stands to lose a unique and valuable resource when it loses salmon in the Frasier. Nothing short of dam removal will ever allow Sockeye runs to return to even the levels of today, much less of the "good old days". Please be aware of what you stand to lose and please fight to protect your salmon.

benni hana
Thanks for that. The voice of Alaskan fishermen on the North Coast has been an important factor in trying to make the case against fish farming in BC too. It's a long battle and there is common ground among the people who need to wage it. It'd be nice if Americans and Canadians could make common cause over something vital to both nations like the Fraser River fishery as well.

Ralf is wrong. There are many strong sockeye runs in central BC (Horsefly and Chilko Rivers). The Horsefly run rivals the Adams in size. Don't need to dam the Fraser for power could install run of the river generators up and down the Fraser. Europe put few major dams on its rivers using run of the river technology instead. As UN studies have indicated the population growth has peaked and the world population will decrease after 2050 if not sooner. Japan and European countries are already depopulating. The likes of ED Deak should have keep there genes out of the gene pool so that the species is left with a more rational population. The only fix possible for the world is greater private ownership of the resources and a strong technoglogy centre. David Suzuki stopped being scientist years ago. And let’s not forget how the Club of Rome report "Limits of Growth" turn out. Yes the report was a wash.

dirtmeister,what an appropriate name for someone selling bull$hit.

when the world reaches 6 billion plus and the CHINESE are practicing single child families i doubt that the populace has peaked.

ANOTHER DISEMBLER THAT DOESN'T KNOW THE MEANING OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.

must be reading his/her bank statements now to see if he/she got the 30 pieces of silver he got for the betrayal of it's species.

thomas49:
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html
Were at 6.5 billion now.

Prove it. Put some facts next to your statement. I'd like to see it. While you're at it, show me some numbers from 20 and 50 years ago, so we can see for ourselves just how "healthy" our rivers really are.

earth.google.com

After you learn how to spell, google Earth. Download it. Then take a good long look at all of the cutblocks across BC. Don't be shy. Take a couple of hours in and around your favorite town. Then take a look elsewhere. Try Squamish. Revelstoke. Golden. Prince George. Anywhere. Take a look at the rest of the world and tell us that our wonderful economic systems that padded wallets for the top one or two percent to the expense of many was worth it.

Take a good look at the ice thats left in the artic and tell yourself that 15 to 20 summers from now, the north cap will be gone and its open waters from here on in. I shouldn't need to go on about the future of the rest of it unless you really are that fat, slow and grossly stupid. We've left some ugly marks on this planet for the sake of... "private ownership of resources".

Same old same old. Your thinking isn't a solution to the problem, but a problem to the solution. Its reckless. We are meant to be stewards of these lands, waters and air we breathe... To suggest ownership of "resources" as being the answer, is to not only not know your place in this world or any other, but highly suggestive of where you at (or completely unaware of) in terms of understanding this worlds greatest problem. Humanities corrupt beliefs

earth.google.com

or this:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1729155,00.html

i think as long as DIRTMEISTER has enough water to wash his 4by4,he's gonna be happy.

"In the 1970s, the Horsefly, another Fraser River tributary, saw fewer than 1,000 returning spawners, but with a little help from DFO biologists, it hit the 30,000 mark during the early '80s and, by the '90s, had soared to 2.5 million, becoming one of the premier runs in British Columbia." from
http://www.goldseal.ca/education/salmon_education.asp?article=5
And this miracle occurred when the Horsefly Watershed was extensively logged. Sorry to screw with your closed dogmatic mind. Yes man can adequately manage, conserve and utilize nature.

as an avid steelheader i have followed fish management by DFO and found their investigations and research to be wanting.i have also lived on vancouver island and know about the restocking of many of the rivers there,particularly the nanaimo,since i lived there.

these runs are CYCLICAL and as the articles you supplied point out,the DNA for certain runs has to be similar to live in those streams.THEY BECOME IMPRINTED IN THOSE STREAMS JUST LIKE A HUMAN IS IMPRINTED IN THE WOMB.you can't take eggs from the west side of vancouver island and try to raise the fry on the east and hope they take.they may reach maturity but their imprint/dna is askew,so when they leave that stream,they ain't comming back.

so getting the right fish from the right streams and making sure they reach maturity and have a safe environment is paramount.

on that we agree

but look how long it took to straighten things out in those situations.not only that,we have many rivers that are still barren...were they weak fish dna wise...was the environment poisoned...what are the characteristics we want to keep and do we have the right fish stock ?
and with global warming a lot of streams are drying up and others are forming.how do we stock new streams?

any scientist can farm FRANKENFISH ,how about natures own ?

i agree we can manage wildlife...IF WE DO IT CORRECTLY .

I don't know much on fish genetics. But I do know that the hatchery at Horsefly Landing used stock from Vancouver Island in the early 70's. When I mention this to my DFO friends they go blank and run. Maybe it was luck given a chance nature finds away. It is too bad that political agendas get in the way of telling a good news story. Rafe Mair as most of BC seems to know nothing of the success of the Horsefly sockeye runs and the Chilko runs are healthy also. Try to find periodic data on salmon runs by watershed must be a state secret. In 2005, 5 million fish return to Horsefly; 2 to 3 weeks late and in record high stream temperatures, more fish then the ecosystem can handle but we are at political agendas again and given a chance DFO will try to screw it up. Why does the press always miss the bigger picture are they really so lazy? I may not spell well but I can add unlike 90% of the delegates to climate change conferences. And I don't wash my work truck as I prefer to scare the locals when in Vancouver.

dirtmeister,you are a true bad boy,getting dust on someones porche cayenne,is going to raise their blood pressure.

i agree on the mismanagement of news/propaganda whatever you wish to call our communications these days.if it comes from this faction it's the TRUTH and from another faction the same TRUTH is propaganda,etcetra.

but there in lies the rub,every group wants their TRUTH,their AGENDA,to be DOCTRINE.

and people don't want to be indoctrinated,they want the facts so they can make up their own minds.but we live in an ever shrinking global community and some have already run out of resources.as you may know CHINA can no longer feed itself and all resources come from from countries only to willing to cut prices to seal the deal.

you need only look at the tragedy in south america where forests have been decimated.then look at the forests in indonesia where scientist are finding animal and plant life long thought extinct.

are the medicines of the future in those burning forests,is there a snake or plant with a poison that can be safely used in medicine for better outcomes in surgery.

every action,has a reaction.we have to learn how to act if we are to be the managers of this resource we call home.

I e-mailed my un-named brother-in-law who has spent countless years working in Federal Fisheries, (he has been in Nanimo most of this time) and suggested he read Rafe's column and make a commment. This is his e-mail back to me:
I have no doubt that global warming is real and is happening now. As far as corrective measures, it is unlikely that mainstream governments will respond in a timely manner. However the problem will be solved. All biological systems self correct. When populations get too large and out of balance they soon fall back into line, usually through disease. Aids or the Asian flu or some such pandemic is inevitable given the overcrowding that is upon us. As far as the sockeye go, I don't believe in government conspiracies. That would take more organizational capabilities than the agencies have. Global warming is affecting salmon stocks. So is overfishing by natives, sport and commercial interests. It won't be until each of us is severely effected that change will occur. We elect leaders and they direct government agencies. I voted Green Party how about you

Oh, come on! Everything a leftie says or does is based on a conspiracy! You're takin' all the fun out of it!

Probably long past the time when anyone will notice this here but (you have to watch an ad to see the whole story) I'll post it anyway since it's the only story even remotely connected to the subject:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/03/17/churchill/print.html
Maybe the Tyee will pick it up as sidebar feature; nudge, nudge, wink wink.
It's a continuing Salon series!
Cheers to the editors.

TO. It's to. Limits to Growth. Funny, you say it's a wash. You're right, they missed their target dates. We became more efficient. I'm sure that will be the legacy when society collapses. The Club of Rome still exists today and the warnings remain the same. There are limits to growth. So please be my guest, split hairs over a few decades or a century or two. The debate over the book is pointless. Why did you even bring it up? Are you some kind of smarty pants show boater with a lift kit in your dirty truck?