The Bush administration is threatening the integrity of the Endangered Species Act by ending a requirement that federal agencies get independent scientific review of projects that could affect endangered animals and plants. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne defended the move, saying that the change will prevent the statute from being used as a “back door” to regulate greenhouse gases and climate change by protecting polar bears and other species. The administration also argues that individual agencies have their own expertise to evaluate the impact of dam, construction and road projects.
But this move should send up red flags, given the Bush team’s record of filling government jobs with partisan ideologues and hacks and of ignoring or marginalizing scientific expertise on a host of issues.
There might be ways the Endangered Species Act could be administered more efficiently, but President Bush’s record doesn’t inspire trust on this issue.
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55 Comments
Eagle
There are lots of scientists who have come out against the idea of man made global warming.
It is the left that “marginalizes” those scientists.
Face it:
If you agree, politically, YOU call it “good science” —
And if you disagree, politically, YOU call it “bad science” —
Therefore, you are, in no way, morally superior on these issues.
It’s fortunate that any change he makes, will be undone next year. And, many of his bogus ’scientist’ will be out of power along with him.
So, who was to blame when species died out before humans were around? Oh yeah, I get it… According to this blog, we can blame George W. Bush for that too, right?
Species loss is occurring at a rate greater than that at the P-T extinction boundary.
What is this, an attempt at irony?
The bush administration AND the ideology behind it is about to go endangered. Personally I’m pulling for extinct.
It’s like he’s dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.
History is going to judge bush as an aSS!@$# and it’s like he’s writing in the margin “You bet I was!”.
#
bth
Posted August 12, 2008 at 1:10 pm | Permalink
Species loss is occurring at a rate greater than that at the P-T extinction boundary.
———————————
Millions of fossils would disagree with that statement.
It is arrogant to think we have the slightest clue about the total number of species that have ever existed on the Earth.
Therefor, no such calculation, about the rate of extinction, can be taken seriously.
“But this move should send up red flags, given the Bush team’s record of filling government jobs with partisan ideologues and hacks and of ignoring or marginalizing scientific expertise on a host of issues.”
The lib Eagle rag just keeps making those newsworthy statements. Wonder if JR and Randy are brothers?
Randy why don’t you give us an example of this? A few details please.
“Millions of fossils would disagree with that statement.”
WRONG. It is from that fossil record that paleontologists made that determination.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/23/green.century.mass.extinction/index.html
Scientists agree world faces mass extinction
There is virtual unanimity among scientists that we have entered a period of mass extinction not seen since the age of the dinosaurs, an emerging global crisis that could have disastrous effects on our future food supplies, our search for new medicines, and on the water we drink and the air we breathe. Estimates vary, but extinction is figured by experts to be taking place between 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural “background” extinction.
“The speed at which species are being lost is much faster than any we’ve seen in the past — including those [extinctions] related to meteor collisions,” said Daniel Simberloff, a University of Tennessee ecologist and prominent expert in biological diversity who participated in the museum’s survey. [Note: the last mass extinction caused by a meteor collision was that of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.]
Most of his peers apparently agree. Nearly seven out of 10 of the biologists polled said they believed a “mass extinction” was underway, and an equal number predicted that up to one-fifth of all living species could disappear within 30 years. Nearly all attributed the losses to human activity, especially the destruction of plant and animal habitats.
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html
Earth faces sixth mass extinction
19:00 18 March 2004
NewScientist.com news service
Anil Ananthaswamy
The Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction on a par with the five others that have punctuated its history, suggests the strongest evidence yet.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4797
The Current Mass Extinction
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-current-mass-extincti
Worldwatch Report:
Fastest mass extinction in Earth history
Wednesday, September 16, 1998
By Ed Ayres
Seven out of 10 biologists believe the world is now in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of living things in the 4.5 billion-year history of the planet, according to a poll conducted by the American Museum of Natural History and the Louis Harris survey research firm.
That makes it faster even than the crash which occurred when the dinosaurs died some 65 million years ago. Unlike that and other mass extinctions of the pre-human past, the current one is the result of human activity, and not natural phenomena, say the scientists.
http://web.archive.org/web/20011222210519/www.enn.com/enn-features-archive/1998/09/091698/fea0916_23526.asp
“The Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction…”
This is only perfect on this particular thread.
You people have an agenda. What is proposed for the Endangered Species Act makes sense when the “independent” scientific review of projects turns things into a clusterfark.
Your credibility is shot.
Bleed your little liberal heart out there Ben.
Shall I put on some background music, maybe a nice waltz. You know, to emphasize the mass extinction going on.
The mass extinction will happen in November.
Lib’s heads blowing apart when Barack Hussein Obama loses. Dead and wondering why so many people lied to the pollsters.
Ben
“There is virtual unanimity among scientists”
Is this like the statement we hear about Global WARMING being called “settled science” right before we hear some of its greatest ministers change to calling it “Climate Change”?
…and it’s still very quiet.
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_igr/512/
The reason we refer to it as climate change and not just warming is due to the fact that warming also leads to rainfall pattern changes etc. So, it is much more than just warming.
“So, it is much more than just warming.”
It is much more than that. Much more.
Other than a political tool to stop developement and to threaten private property rights, what is the purpose of the ESL?
Has it ever saved a species?
Ben
“rainfall pattern changes ” which the stinking climate models don’t even take into account.
The ESA has done this to it’s self. Or, those that use it to trump personal property rights or to impliment other political philosopies have done this, not Bush.
In my opinion there needs to be far more reform to the ESA than this.
For as long as humans have been able to pay attention there have been species dying out.
If we believe half the BS of Evolution, we know that entire groups of species die out.
Yet here is the fundmantalist enviromental left which thinks that humans are evil and that anything we do must not hurt the precious animals.
When entire corporate projects are shut down or they have to pay exuberant prices just so they don’t hurt a beatle, there is some real absurdity going on.
Neal Bortz talked a great deal about how the fundamentalist government power and control liberal environmentalist fringe will use this to basically extort business for money and land.
What a sham.
More absudity of the ESA?
Lets look at the sea turtle. Sea Turtle farmers would raise their own sea turtles and then release 10% into wild to help replenish the natural population.
Then the Environmentalist shut them down and guess what?
Now we don’t have them helping the sea turtle populations any more and the sea turtles diminished.
We spent a week talking about this in my Philosophy class.
(Forgive me if some of the generalities are a bit off)
Heckler
Posted August 12, 2008 at 2:49 pm | Permalink
Ben
“rainfall pattern changes ” which the stinking climate models don’t even take into account
WRONG. The models do take them into account; both in their feedback effects and the direct effects of warming on rainfall/evapotranspiration.
The “computer models” don’t work.
If they did, we could predict, with relative accuracy, what the average temperatures would be next year, and in 10 years.
The models can not predict anything.
Therefore, the models are worthless.
So they teach in freshman econ.
The computer models did not predict the current cooling cycle.
Therefore, the models do not work.
The lib Eagle rag just keeps making those newsworthy statements.
Yet you keep reading and posting here.
“The “computer models” don’t work” — Franklin
Oh who to believe, who to believe. Franklin, or the latest issue of New Scientist?
Let me know when the Republicans become the endangered species. I’ll be more than happy to watch them disappear.
“Yet you keep reading and posting here.”
But, I see no denial it’s a Liberal rag.
You dumb dumb people who think maintaining the diversity of life built up over millions of years is a cheap trick to destroy property rights! You are such ignorant – unbelievably ignorant petty, narrow-minded and uneducated and destructive and downright mean.
You may own rights to the land, but you do not have the right to poison it for all who come after you.
Yes Hank. The falcon and the eagle.
Political_mama
Posted August 12, 2008 at 4:55 pm | Permalink
Yes Hank. The falcon and the eagle.
—–
Hank asked what species.
#
HLP
Posted August 12, 2008 at 2:47 pm | Permalink
Other than a political tool to stop developement and to threaten private property rights, what is the purpose of the ESL?
Has it ever saved a species?
=========================================================
That would be a big yes: The California Condor, the Right Whale, The Minke Whale, the Blue Whale, the Manatee, the Peregrine falcon, just to name a few.
Of course, the conservatives neither know nor care if any survive; their main concern, other than the enactment of RR values into law, is oil. Oil is money, and that is their God.
“Other than a political tool to stop developement and to threaten private property rights”
Up against the extinction of a living species, development and private property rights SHOULD be completely irrelevant.
The idea that some transient human being can own land and do whatever they want with it is at odds with rational thinking.
When I read this article I could almost guarantee the lib Eagle would be against it, because of Bush. There is no global warming or cooling that man can control. The endangered species act has absolutely nothing to do with climate change. Sure was cool this morning I read 59 degrees on my gauge in the middle of August. Save the polar bears, more now than ever.
“The “computer models” don’t work.
“If they did, we could predict, with relative accuracy, what the average temperatures would be next year, and in 10 years.
“The models can not predict anything.
“Therefore, the models are worthless.”
Bullsh*t. The premises do not justify the conclusion. No one is arguing that there aren’t other factors influencing climate. The trick is to account for those factors and compare climates where those factors were in operation, but the anthoropogengic factors are different.
But then, Franklin continues to post shallow, one line posts (except this time, it actually resembled a constructed argument, it was still laden with Frankfurtian bullsh*t, but it is a sort of progress).
Well, the good news is that once we’re gone, the earth will return to it’s pre-people state and new species will evolve to fill the niches of those that go extinct, and over geologic time, will erase nearly every trace of the species that caused it all.
The less likely scenario is that we clean up our act and survive.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/gop_rep_to_environmentalists_j.php
You have GOT to read this one- I told you the fundies believe this- at least someone finally copped to it.
But, I see no denial it’s a Liberal rag.
It’s hard to deny one person’s sorry-assed
O P I N I O N.
And that’s all she’s got. :)
Of course, the conservatives neither know nor care if any survive; their main concern, other than the enactment of RR values into law, is oil. Oil is money, and that is their God.
—————-
Oh bullsh*t Walker. Isn’t black and white thinking just what liberals accuse conservatives of?
Try a little nuance.
#
Franklin
Posted August 12, 2008 at 3:56 pm | Permalink
The computer models did not predict the current cooling cycle.
Therefore, the models do not work.
————–
Au contraire, my dear Franklin. They work quite well to fool the public into thinking that AGW alarmists know what they are talking about.
“The administration also argues that individual agencies have their own expertise to evaluate the impact of dam, construction and road projects.”
What breathtaking bullsh*t. “Other agencies” do not have expertise to evaluate the impact of construction projects on wildlife, and because we DO have a Fish and Wildlife Service, they have never been asked to have that expertise.
This is partisan political belief at the expense of science from this administration, AGAIN.
The posts here from known cons here tend to show that JM Walker is right outlander.
“Au contraire, my dear Franklin. They work quite well to fool the public into thinking that AGW alarmists know what they are talking about.”
You have clearly demonstrated on this blog that you have do not have the inclination to knowledgeably of climate scientists. Your responses on this issue can easily be predicted by your expressed political orientation. As I have pointed out before, such is not the case with the large and diverse scientists whose findings undergird the consensus that human activity has and does cause climate change.
Ok Aggie, whatever you say. Just promise us you won’t write ten paragraphs analyzing it.
“Ok Aggie, whatever you say. Just promise us you won’t write ten paragraphs analyzing it.”
Outlander, that was almost trollish.
As for my occasional long posts, obviously guilty. Do you prefer short drive bys?
(I know, I know, false dichotomy)
Good night.
Mass Extinction… Sounds sorta like Global Warming/Global Cooling/Climate Change to me. The way some of these people talk, we have animals dropping off the list daily.
————
JMWalker
Posted August 12, 2008 at 5:30 pm | Permalink
Of course, the conservatives neither know nor care if any survive; their main concern, other than the enactment of RR values into law, is oil. Oil is money, and that is their God.
——————–
There you go again, telling us what and who we are. Interesting how a certain group attacks people on the list rather than deal with discussions in an adult manner, isn’t it?
Oil isn’t our money, nor is it our God. It is what made our country what it is. The greatest country in the world. We advanced from riding around on horses to driving cars and creating manufacturing jobs. Oil is what makes almost everything you have in your house, including the containers your food comes in. It gets you to an from work. It provides you with YOUR job.
I just don’t understand why certain people are constantly ashamed of being American and must always attack the country. But I guess if they figure if were living in some other country, they wouldn’t be allowed to attack it, but they surely would be able to attack America with their words so maybe that is why they do it… so they can feel much more worldly.
You know, nunya123, you might have something there. But the truth is if it wasn’t for us, “There you go again, telling us what and who we are. Interesting how a certain group attacks people on the list rather than deal with discussions in an adult manner, isn’t it?”, demanding something be done about pollution, you would be breathing massive amounts of smog today, courtesy of your local oil company.
The “adult” manner you seem to refer to would be the ones who call us “surrender monkeys”, “Godless”, “oil haters”, and anything else that comes to their pointy heads?
You seem to forget one can still love this country without loving its government, and calling a spade a spade is no more childish than reading how evolution is bs. But keep on posting: I do need some humor in my life.
Can’t be too bad, we still have Illegal mexicans
I love it when people try to connect the dots between human behavior and observed changes on a planetary or glactic scale. It reminds me of a story about a colony of ants that were on a huge log in the pond. The log began to roll over in the water. The ants, seeing their doom unfolding, blamed themselves of course. Contrary to what scientists may tell you, humans are not the problem. Things just happen and we try to make sense of it, just like the ants on the log.
We were in red flags and good science occurred to me to video us being silly. Defo red flags I’ve driven yet. Red flags coming soon.