What is that line from Spider-Man?

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Just because you have the power and the technology to radically alter your environment does not mean it is the responsible thing to do. Educate yourself. Proposing solutions dreamed up by others, and linking to them here, does not mean anything. How much do you really know about the ramifications of the things you're suggesting?

How much do you know about marine ecosystems? You want to propose solutions and defend those solutions? Then acquire knowledge.

A singular vision can get it right or wrong. As shown above.

A non unified vision (libertarian property rights) guarantees some will get it right and some will get it wrong. Unfortunately, in the case of the environment, its destruction is caused by fragmentation, like a checkerboard.

Yes - you've been called out. Your vision of herding whales like livestock and using nets to demarcate property boundaries across the ocean is absurd.

You just don't get it, do you? Cattle ranching is destructive to the environment. Whales, if left alone, neither destroy the environment, nor go extinct, except by natural forces. Leave the oceans alone. Let the massive amount of knowledge they have in store for us be discovered.

Stop overfishing. Small fish farms in certain areas are fine. But leave the vast expanse of ocean out there wild and free.

Seriously, pick up a book on the environment.

Regarding the dog, I believe Fred said rights stop with people. Thus, to Fred, dogs are just property, like a pieces of furniture.

Livestock are not representative of a protected environment. They are in fact the antithesis of it. Your scenario sounds like cattle ranching, which is destructive to the environment. As I've said many times, learn about the environment and ecosystems. You've already been called out because of your ignorant post about nets.

I don't know. What happened when Frederick Seitz was hired by R. J. Reynolds?

Completely irrelevant. A decommissioned oil platform reconfigured to become a miniature city does not qualify as homesteading the ocean.

Absolutely untrue. Furthermore, if it was true, that does not make my statement any less true.

Nets in the ocean to demarcate property boundaries quite possibly qualifies as one of the most stupid, irresponsible and environmentally destructive ideas ever proposed by any human being.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to become a proponent of protecting the environment, in whatever way you can. Start by learning about it and its importance. From there, you'll be in a better position to understand that meddling with the environment is not a good thing. Then, when solutions that are proposed which can cause damage, you won't be the one proposing them. Instead, you'll be the one showing everyone that something better is required.

Consider this: the oceans, in their natural state, are probably the single most important thing on this planet. Everything else follows from that. Everything.

Everything Robert P. Murphy says isn't really bad, but it's not well thought out all. This stems from the fact that he is no ocean ecologist. He simply isn't qualified to address the feasibility of his suggestions without a better understanding of marine ecosystems. Secondly, he seems to be completely unaware of the aesthetic quality of wilderness, unspoiled by humans. And aesthetics aside, he's apparently completely unaware of the productive capacity of unspoiled wilderness (in this case, ocean wilderness). I kind of feel sorry for these people - bean counters who don't really understand the fullness of life.

For one thing, the net idea is not only unrealistic, it's actually rather disgusting. Fences fragment ecosystems, and this doesn't even address the harm they would cause. Tagging isn't much better, for different reasons.

The immediate solution is to recognize the problem, stop overfishing, and educate the public. The ultimate solution might be to use technology to grow fish meat (not the whole fish) in high tech factories. Demand and innovation will likely make this possible once the real environmental issues are acknowledged.

Whales in aquariums aren't really a good idea, when you start thinking about it. I mean, think about this: Eastern North Pacific gray whales travel 12,400 miles annually between their breeding and feeding grounds. Freedom is a beautiful thing.


Of course.


You should start considering it. It's interesting. It's complex. And it affects all us in many ways.

You're only guessing. The bottom line is, you don't know the reason they're out there in the desert. The real point here is that you can't really predict where a company may choose to locate, and in the absence of regulations, you can't really assume that a company will choose to do one thing or another.

Regarding the $800 shipping costs, consider that the aileron skin is probably about 32 square feet. An airliner's wing, including top and bottom. will likely have 2,000 square feet. There are two wings. That's 4,000 square feet. Of course, for all I know, some components may be batch shipped, others not shipped at all - I won't claim to know, but what I've observed.

Of course, you pay for this when you fly. The real cost is fuel. A 747's tanks hold 57,000 gallons, and that will take you across the Pacific. A bit off topic, I realize, but interesting anyway.

Desert land is cheaper. In my initial scenario in the first post, envision MoonShadow's home to be on a desert plot. As for transportation, is $800 cheap to transport a sixteen foot skin that is part of an aileron, so that it can be treated with a coating?

Read all my above posts. However, additionally, consider:

- This does nothing to preserve the ecosystem.
- Do you mean growing of whale meat, or making a new whale?

Well, Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas which has plants in the southern Los Angeles area and that is the heart of the defense industry and near two large airports. There is no questioning why they are there. Hundreds of other companies which offer contracting services to the defense industry are in the same area.

Oddly enough, an aluminum etching service is located one hundred miles away in the high desert, virtually in the middle of nowhere. I don't have an answer to why, but I have been to both Boeing and the high desert company on several occasions.

My main point is, there can be many reasons why a company sets up where they do. Minimal regulations related to acidic etching solutions? Maybe the owner owned a large plot of desert land? Who knows?

If you ran a business whose job was to etch, treat and anodize aluminum components which are destined to be components of airframes of (mostly) Boeing aircraft, and all your customers are located in the southern Los Angeles area, and shipping the components to be treated requires flatbed trucks, would you locate your business a hundred miles away in the high desert?

Well, I guess it would be pretty crummy.

Anyway, tell me all about how you felt so imprisoned and restrained this past week (being an American and all).

You really should learn about the value of whole ecosystems, and how they thrive to their maximal potential when not fragmented - i.e when not split up into zones by different property owners. An ecosystem is most productive when not disturbed and when not fragmented. Productivity describes the value that the ecosystem returns to the Earth - it's recycling ability, the bounty it can provide everyone, the knowledge and information that will still be there when the technology becomes available to understand it (think medicine, engineering, software algorithms, etc.).

It has been shown that the number of different species and the populations of each species increases more than an amount proportionate to the ecosystem's area. What this means is an unfragmented ecosystem which is four times the area of a similar ecosystem will yield more than four times as much biomass, and more biodiversity.

 

Thank you for taking the time to intelligently think about the issues, rather than think that cats and dogs are really relevant.

Tiger reserves are definitely necessary - privately funded if that's the solution that presents itself. Tigers, like all big cats, are territorial. They certainly fit the criteria necessary to be declared an umbrella species, flagship species, or whatever you wish to call them. Since tigers are territorial, they need large expanses of land to maintain a small number.

A side not regarding umbrella species: often the purpose of declaring a species to be an umbrella species is because research has shown that by protecting an umbrella species, a by-product is the protection of the environment which is necessary to sustain the umbrella species. This has the net effect of preserving the entire food chain all the way down to the microscopic level, both flora and fauna. The spotted owl controversy wasn't just about protecting the spotted owl, but the entire old growth forest it requires to maintain a viable population. It has been shown that the spotted owl cannot survive effectively in numbers in secondary growth forests. Given that 80 percent (yes - 80 percent) of all the Earth's old growth forests have been decimated, mostly for agricultural and timber purposes, it is imperative that the remaining old growth forests be preserved.

Regarding tiger farms - is this realistic or desirable? Many animals are very difficult to breed in captivity, but it has been done with tigers at zoos. But you would promote breeding tigers for harvesting of their hides? At least with cattle, every component of a cow is used. For example, their hooves are used to make Jello and Gummy Bears.


It seems that you're implying that some portion of the free roaming tigers could be harvested for their hides. Given the space required for tigers, this doesn't seem realistic to maintain a viable population.


This reminds me of the scenario with the Sumatran rhino. Some affluent Chinese mistakenly believe that the Sumatran rhino's horn is of medicinal value. Research indicates there is no medicinal value. But the plight of the Sumatran rhino illustrates why harvesting rhino horns is not directly analogous to the supply and demand curve. Supply, as in economic theory refers to goods on the shelf, not an ever dwindling natural resource. Big difference. As the rhinos' numbers dwindle, the price of their horns skyrocket. Poachers then increase their efforts, methods, and technology to more efficiently exploit the last remaining Sumatran rhinos in existence. It only leads to extinction.

Regarding megafauna (typically animals over 100 pounds), ask yourself what kind of world you want to live in. One in which there are many wild places where large animals still roam, or one in which the wild places continue to disappear, along with the megafauna which lived there?

Are you familiar with the coincident extinction of megafauna on nearly all continents with the first arrival of humans? Think about this. How many new species of large animals has mankind witnessed in the past 20,000 years as opposed to those we will never see again? New large species are not just popping into existence. We live in a world decidedly less rich than it used to be. How far do you want to see it go? Tigers and Sumatran rhinos are nearly gone. Some whales are nearly gone. African elephants are in trouble. So is the cheetah and jaguar. Gorillas and orangutans too. Same for the mountain lion. The list goes on. Did you know the jaguar used to range through the southwestern portion of the United States?

What will you never see? Here's a list of megafauna species that disappeared with the arrival of humans to the continent in question:

North America: Mammoths, mastodons, camels, pronghorn antelope, giant beaver, tapirs, several bears, dire wolves, several sloths.

Australia and New Guinea: several giant wombats, a rhino, six different types of kangaroo, several giant marsupials, several giant flightless birds.

New Zealand: The Moa and a few other giant flightless birds.

Pacific islands: several birds, crocodiles and turtles.

South America and Eurasia suffered similar extinctions coincident with the arrival of humans.
 
Why were the large animals spared in Africa? First of all, isn't it interesting that there are such large and interesting animals on the African continent but not on other continents? The assumption might be that the other continents just don't naturally support megafauna. But that's not true! Megafauna are normal. So unless you live in Africa, you're not seeing the richness in animal life that is normal. Why does Africa still have its megafauna? Because the megafauna in Africa evolved in parallel with humans, and they developed a natural instinct to be wary of humans. As humans ventured out of Africa and ultimately onto the other continents, the megafauna there had no reason to be naturally wary of the skinny little humans, and thus made easy targets.