Lorne Johnson wrote:
> Many birds and mammals, frogs, insects ETC.ETC. have suffered as a
> consequence of this eight lane shitheap.
And Andrew Taylor replied:
>However bad the M2 is, this sort of argument really annoys me.
>The implication is that the M2 has large negative conservation impacts
>and an uninformed reader might well infer this from the statements.
We can oppose projects like this either because of specific dangers to
threatened species, or because we believe that allowing all or most of
them to proceed will ultimately degrade so much of our country that
currently secure species will be threatened too.
While the one concern is more immediate and localised and perhaps even
urgent than the other, in the long term we should be thinking about
prevention as well as cure. Barry Jones in "Sleepers, Wake" used a
phrase: "the urgent crowds out the important".
Cheers
Paul Foxworthy
--
-- Paul Foxworthy -------------------- --
- "Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"
There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of
someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise
chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some
terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its
can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a
thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite *strong*
terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions
in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."
-- The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson
(Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
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