You know! All of this global warming is very interesting, but the decline in the bee population is the real concern. Without honey bees we have no future. Global warming, real or not, adjusting or not, one shift of a plate and we're found in an ice bank with fresh lettuce in our mouth. We are dealing with politics plan and simple. Let us not confuse the issue. Newtonian was accepted till disproved and so will e=mc2. It should be our goal as stewards to this planet to do what's best. Not for political gain, but for the technilogical advancement of humankind. Am I an environmentalist. Sure I am. I'm also a capitalist and realist.As long as there is a controlled supply and high demand we are prisoners to the powers that be.
What is best? Yes, that is the question. I agree that it has become a political miasma, however it should not be. It's unfortunate.
__________________
Different strokes for different folks!
I never learned from a man who agreed with me. Heinlein
If the government can claim imminent domain over property for the greater good of society why can they also not go into the patentt office and claim the same on inventions bought up by big companies that do not wish that technology on the market?
First neither environmentalists or there foes inspire me. Just my education, experience, judgment and love of this country.
Hunters, fishermen and farmers have been aware since the aftermath of manifest destiny of the need to conserve America. Hunters and farmers planting trees at the edge of fields for fowl, Fish and Game Wardens to conserve our lakes and streams and the Soil Conservation Service so our fertile crop land would not be washed into the sea. Moldboard plow shares created plow pans and reduced crop harvests over years. We find many mistakes after the acts. DDT's first grand use was to save the American Elm trees which lined American streets . We were known for the beauty of our Elm lined streets throughout the world. Insects bored into the elms and DDT was sprayed on the trees in low dose. In the fall when the leaves fell. Worms were helping to decompose the duff. The spring came and the song birds ate the worms and because of the increased concentration from leaf to duff to worm to bird , the birds died in mass. The birds ate the tree insects in the past to control insects populations. Birds were no longer around and the insects vectors thrived and destroyed the rest of the elms by delivering, en mass, Dutch Elm disease. No matter how much DDT and how may applications the problem worsened. The little problem with a few trees partly involved for years and years became epidemic then pandemic. There are no more Elm lined streets in America. Malaria is delivered via insect vectors. DDT is effective but genetics works against the pesticide and the insects may and do grow resistant. Bacillus thurengensis isrealinensis Sp. is used where I live and around the world and is much more effective than DDT with no side effects to other organisms and genetics cannot work around it. It took innovation and forward thinking to work out the problem.
It may be that one of the new generation of pesticides may cause a memory loss in the bees. Bees know left and right but not center and can see several color. They can find the hypotenuse of a triangle for direction and distance. With memory impaired (if that hypothesis holds) billions of dollars may be lost due to chemical interaction that we just didn't understand in time.
The Handbook that I used (when I was professionally involved) was written by the chemical companies that produced the products so the LD 50 s and LC 50 s (lethal dose in milligrams per kilograms or lethal concentration) were done by them. No analogous problems like long term effect were studied or stated. I think it is best to limit the exposure of anything that could be bad for you. Make jobs for people to explore better ways. Lindane was used by kids to wash dogs. It is now off the market, it causes cancer. Much better chemicals have been invented and are in use.
It was cool being able to take the points out of my '48' GMC (our first RV conversion) and put them in a Harley, but better trucks and bikes now exist. Maybe someday an Airstream will be able to be towed with a quarter the drag or less. Maybe the tow vehicle will be better, I think so. Maybe the parks will be better including our great State and National Parks. That would be our better future.
First neither environmentalists or there foes inspire me. Just my education, experience, judgment and love of this country.
Hunters, fishermen and farmers have been aware since the aftermath of manifest destiny of the need to conserve America. Hunters and farmers planting trees at the edge of fields for fowl, Fish and Game Wardens to conserve our lakes and streams and the Soil Conservation Service so our fertile crop land would not be washed into the sea. Moldboard plow shares created plow pans and reduced crop harvests over years. We find many mistakes after the acts. DDT's first grand use was to save the American Elm trees which lined American streets . We were known for the beauty of our Elm lined streets throughout the world. Insects bored into the elms and DDT was sprayed on the trees in low dose. In the fall when the leaves fell. Worms were helping to decompose the duff. The spring came and the song birds ate the worms and because of the increased concentration from leaf to duff to worm to bird , the birds died in mass. The birds ate the tree insects in the past to control insects populations. Birds were no longer around and the insects vectors thrived and destroyed the rest of the elms by delivering, en mass, Dutch Elm disease. No matter how much DDT and how may applications the problem worsened. The little problem with a few trees partly involved for years and years became epidemic then pandemic. There are no more Elm lined streets in America. Malaria is delivered via insect vectors. DDT is effective but genetics works against the pesticide and the insects may and do grow resistant. Bacillus thurengensis isrealinensis Sp. is used where I live and around the world and is much more effective than DDT with no side effects to other organisms and genetics cannot work around it. It took innovation and forward thinking to work out the problem.
It may be that one of the new generation of pesticides may cause a memory loss in the bees. Bees know left and right but not center and can see several color. They can find the hypotenuse of a triangle for direction and distance. With memory impaired (if that hypothesis holds) billions of dollars may be lost due to chemical interaction that we just didn't understand in time.
The Handbook that I used (when I was professionally involved) was written by the chemical companies that produced the products so the LD 50 s and LC 50 s (lethal dose in milligrams per kilograms or lethal concentration) were done by them. No analogous problems like long term effect were studied or stated. I think it is best to limit the exposure of anything that could be bad for you. Make jobs for people to explore better ways. Lindane was used by kids to wash dogs. It is now off the market, it causes cancer. Much better chemicals have been invented and are in use.
It was cool being able to take the points out of my '48' GMC (our first RV conversion) and put them in a Harley, but better trucks and bikes now exist. Maybe someday an Airstream will be able to be towed with a quarter the drag or less. Maybe the tow vehicle will be better, I think so. Maybe the parks will be better including our great State and National Parks. That would be our better future.
It is a myth that the bird populations fell are that they died in mass. For your viewing/reading pleasure:
In congressional testimony, Charles Wurster, a biologist for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted the abundance of birds during the DDT years, referring to "increasing numbers of pheasants, quail, doves, turkeys and other game species."
[Wurster, C.F. 1969 Congressional Record S4599, May 5, 1969]
The Audubon Society's annual bird census in 1960 reported that at least 26 kinds of birds became more numerous during 1941 - 1960.
[See Anon. 1942. The 42nd annual Christmas bird census." Audubon Magazine 44;1-75 (Jan/Feb 1942), and Cruicjshank, AD (editor) 1961. The 61st annual Christmas bird census. Audubon Field Notes 15(2); 84-300]
Statistical analysis of the Audubon data bore out the perceived increases.
[White-Stevens, R. 1972. Statistical analyses of Audubon Christmas bird censuses. Letter to New York Times, August 15, 1972]
The white-tailed kite, a raptor, was "in very real danger of complete extirpation in the U.S." in 1935, but "by the 1960's, a very great population increase and range expansion had become apparent in California and the breeding range had extended through the Central American countries."
[Eisenmann, E. 1971. Range expansion and population increase of the White-tailed kite. American Birds 25(3):529-535]
Great increases inmost kinds of hawks during the DDT years were reported by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association (Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania).
[Taylor, JW. Summaries of Hawk Mountain migrations of raptors, 1934 to 1970. In Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association Newsletters]
National forest studies from Wisconsin and Michigan reported an increase in nesting osprey productivity from 11 young in 1965 to 74 young in 1970.
[U.S. Forest Service, Milwaukee. 1970. Annual report on osprey status in national forests in Wisconsin and Michigan]
A study of fish-eaters at Funk Island (on the North Atlantic coast) reported that, despite diets contaminated with DDT, gannet and murres pairs increased by 1,500 percent and 10,000 percent from 1945 to the early 1970s.
[Bruemmer, F. 1971. Animals Magazine, p.555, April]
Herring gulls reportedly increased from 2,000 pairs in 1941 to 35,000 pairs in 1971. Ironically, the Massachusetts department of Natural resources permitted the Audubon Society to poison 30,000 of the pairs on Tern Island. The Audubon-ers preferred terns. Audubon Society scientist William Drury stated, "it's kind of like weeding a garden."
[Graham, F. 1985. Audubon Magazine, p.17, January 1985]
Some birds multiplied so well during the DDT years that they became pests:
6 million blackbirds ruined Scotland Neck, North Carolina in 1970, polluting streams, depositing nine inches of droppings on the ground and killing the forest where they roosted at night.
[Associated Press, March 18, 1970]
77 million blackbirds roosted within 50 miles of Ft. Campbell, KY increasing the risk of histoplasmosis in humans.
[Louisville Courier-Journal, December 1975.]
Ten million redwings were reported in a small area of northern Ohio.
[Graham, F. 1971. Bye-bye blackbirds? Audubon Magazine, pp. 29-35, September]
The Virginia Department of Agriculture stated, "We can no longer tolerate the damage caused by the redwing ... 15 million tons of grain are destroyed annually enough to feed 90 million people."
[Bulletin of the Virginia Department of Agriculture, May 1967]
The phenomena of increasing bird populations during the DDT years may be due, in part, to (1) fewer blood-sucking insects and reduced spread of avian diseases (avian malaria, rickettsial-pox, avian bronchitis, Newcastle disease, encephalitis, etc); (2) more seed and fruits available for birds to eat after plant-eating insects were decimated; and (3) Ingestion of DDT triggers hepatic enzymes that detoxify carcinogens such as aflatoxin.
We lost the Elms because of Dutch Elm disease which could have been stopped by the use of DDT, not the other way around. Here ya go:
Many of the world’s tragedies can be traced back to radical environmentalist movements, argued Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Iain Murray at a recent book forum. He said, “Rather…the mainstream model, the paradigm if you will, for receiving very desirable environmental ends has an inbuilt capacity for enduring disaster.”
The American DDT ban may have also sparked another environmental disaster: a Dutch Elm Disease epidemic. Murray referred to John Berlau’s book, Ecofreaks, in which a tree warden describes how he used DDT to protect American elm trees from the disease—until the substance was banned. “We saw this happen all over the country as the DDT ban took hold, followed by the EPA’s ban in 1972. The noble American elm was completely devastated. We lost something like 60% of elms as a result of the loss of DDT,” said Murray.
Phloem Necrosis was another killer of the Elms. This was transmitted by insects. This also could have been controlled by the use of DDT.
More on Duth Elm Disease and DDT not being the cause of Elm decline:
Experiments were done for three years on street elms at Folkestone and Aldenham to repeat American work on the use of insecticidal sprays to prevent feeding by Scolytus beetles, which carry Ceratostomella ulmi, the cause of elm disease. Although the fungus can remain alive in the older annual rings of an infected tree, active disease usually results from fungus freshly introduced by Scolytus. Thus spraying is of value on infected, as well as uninfected elms.
The results of the experiments supported American conclusions that DDT was superior to benzene hexachloride. A 1.5% solution of DDT in miscible oil gave reasonably good, but not perfect, control, and was much superior to solutions made from DDT in the form of a dispersible powder.
and:
Rachel Carson, whom Al Gore cites as an inspiration, wrote a treatise, Silent Spring, which was the 1962 equivalent of a Michael Moore documentary -- loose with the facts and strong on hyperbole. While she didn't call for an outright ban on DDT, her followers demonized the product so much that the resulting ban can be attributed to Carson's book.
There were several effects in the U.S., not least the loss of the noble American elm tree, which was saved from Dutch Elm Disease only by DDT; its replacements simply weren't up to the job.
Internationally, the consequences have been much worse. Millions of Africans have perished from malaria, a disease that could have been well nigh eradicated long ago given judicious use of DDT. If you want to hear a true silent spring, go to the playground of a Ugandan orphanage in April.
__________________
Different strokes for different folks!
I never learned from a man who agreed with me. Heinlein
It is a myth that the bird populations fell are that they died in mass. For your viewing/reading pleasure:
In congressional testimony, Charles Wurster, a biologist for the Environmental Defense Fund, noted the abundance of birds during the DDT years, referring to "increasing numbers of pheasants, quail, doves, turkeys and other game species."
[Wurster, C.F. 1969 Congressional Record S4599, May 5, 1969]
The Audubon Society's annual bird census in 1960 reported that at least 26 kinds of birds became more numerous during 1941 - 1960.
[See Anon. 1942. The 42nd annual Christmas bird census." Audubon Magazine 44;1-75 (Jan/Feb 1942), and Cruicjshank, AD (editor) 1961. The 61st annual Christmas bird census. Audubon Field Notes 15(2); 84-300]
Statistical analysis of the Audubon data bore out the perceived increases.
[White-Stevens, R. 1972. Statistical analyses of Audubon Christmas bird censuses. Letter to New York Times, August 15, 1972]
The white-tailed kite, a raptor, was "in very real danger of complete extirpation in the U.S." in 1935, but "by the 1960's, a very great population increase and range expansion had become apparent in California and the breeding range had extended through the Central American countries."
[Eisenmann, E. 1971. Range expansion and population increase of the White-tailed kite. American Birds 25(3):529-535]
Great increases inmost kinds of hawks during the DDT years were reported by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association (Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania).
[Taylor, JW. Summaries of Hawk Mountain migrations of raptors, 1934 to 1970. In Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association Newsletters]
National forest studies from Wisconsin and Michigan reported an increase in nesting osprey productivity from 11 young in 1965 to 74 young in 1970.
[U.S. Forest Service, Milwaukee. 1970. Annual report on osprey status in national forests in Wisconsin and Michigan]
A study of fish-eaters at Funk Island (on the North Atlantic coast) reported that, despite diets contaminated with DDT, gannet and murres pairs increased by 1,500 percent and 10,000 percent from 1945 to the early 1970s.
[Bruemmer, F. 1971. Animals Magazine, p.555, April]
Herring gulls reportedly increased from 2,000 pairs in 1941 to 35,000 pairs in 1971. Ironically, the Massachusetts department of Natural resources permitted the Audubon Society to poison 30,000 of the pairs on Tern Island. The Audubon-ers preferred terns. Audubon Society scientist William Drury stated, "it's kind of like weeding a garden."
[Graham, F. 1985. Audubon Magazine, p.17, January 1985]
Some birds multiplied so well during the DDT years that they became pests:
6 million blackbirds ruined Scotland Neck, North Carolina in 1970, polluting streams, depositing nine inches of droppings on the ground and killing the forest where they roosted at night.
[Associated Press, March 18, 1970]
77 million blackbirds roosted within 50 miles of Ft. Campbell, KY increasing the risk of histoplasmosis in humans.
[Louisville Courier-Journal, December 1975.]
Ten million redwings were reported in a small area of northern Ohio.
[Graham, F. 1971. Bye-bye blackbirds? Audubon Magazine, pp. 29-35, September]
The Virginia Department of Agriculture stated, "We can no longer tolerate the damage caused by the redwing ... 15 million tons of grain are destroyed annually enough to feed 90 million people."
[Bulletin of the Virginia Department of Agriculture, May 1967]
The phenomena of increasing bird populations during the DDT years may be due, in part, to (1) fewer blood-sucking insects and reduced spread of avian diseases (avian malaria, rickettsial-pox, avian bronchitis, Newcastle disease, encephalitis, etc); (2) more seed and fruits available for birds to eat after plant-eating insects were decimated; and (3) Ingestion of DDT triggers hepatic enzymes that detoxify carcinogens such as aflatoxin.
We lost the Elms because of Dutch Elm disease which could have been stopped by the use of DDT, not the other way around. Here ya go:
Many of the world’s tragedies can be traced back to radical environmentalist movements, argued Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Iain Murray at a recent book forum. He said, “Rather…the mainstream model, the paradigm if you will, for receiving very desirable environmental ends has an inbuilt capacity for enduring disaster.”
The American DDT ban may have also sparked another environmental disaster: a Dutch Elm Disease epidemic. Murray referred to John Berlau’s book, Ecofreaks, in which a tree warden describes how he used DDT to protect American elm trees from the disease—until the substance was banned. “We saw this happen all over the country as the DDT ban took hold, followed by the EPA’s ban in 1972. The noble American elm was completely devastated. We lost something like 60% of elms as a result of the loss of DDT,” said Murray.
Phloem Necrosis was another killer of the Elms. This was transmitted by insects. This also could have been controlled by the use of DDT.
More on Duth Elm Disease and DDT not being the cause of Elm decline:
Experiments were done for three years on street elms at Folkestone and Aldenham to repeat American work on the use of insecticidal sprays to prevent feeding by Scolytus beetles, which carry Ceratostomella ulmi, the cause of elm disease. Although the fungus can remain alive in the older annual rings of an infected tree, active disease usually results from fungus freshly introduced by Scolytus. Thus spraying is of value on infected, as well as uninfected elms.
The results of the experiments supported American conclusions that DDT was superior to benzene hexachloride. A 1.5% solution of DDT in miscible oil gave reasonably good, but not perfect, control, and was much superior to solutions made from DDT in the form of a dispersible powder.
and:
Rachel Carson, whom Al Gore cites as an inspiration, wrote a treatise, Silent Spring, which was the 1962 equivalent of a Michael Moore documentary -- loose with the facts and strong on hyperbole. While she didn't call for an outright ban on DDT, her followers demonized the product so much that the resulting ban can be attributed to Carson's book.
There were several effects in the U.S., not least the loss of the noble American elm tree, which was saved from Dutch Elm Disease only by DDT; its replacements simply weren't up to the job.
Internationally, the consequences have been much worse. Millions of Africans have perished from malaria, a disease that could have been well nigh eradicated long ago given judicious use of DDT. If you want to hear a true silent spring, go to the playground of a Ugandan orphanage in April.
PLEASE STOP !!
__________________
LOST IN THE SIXTIES
" I'll know where I am when I get there"
Bob,Sandra & "Fado" 2006 3/4 Burb 8.1
Hensley
Last edited by azflycaster; 05-14-2008 at 06:03 PM.
Reason: fixed quotes
Several days ago I was thinking of replying to Mr. Mossy's post last weekend, but then I thought, would it make any difference? It would be like getting into a debate at the Flat Earth Society or reading the Wall St. Journal editorial page.
My vote goes to MrMossyone.We(I Repeat) do not have a shortage of oil. We have an oversupply right now and the prices keep rising.Um??? could it possibly be the commodity traders and the oil companies are just greedy and have our government in their back pocket? Nah, they would'nt do that would they? Just watch CSpan for a week and see all the frivolous hearings our senators and representatives hold. If China can put a price freeze on their fuel prices, I find it hard to believe the US can't do the same thing.
__________________
2003 Land Yacht 396XL
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