Keep up the good work, Walt.
BK
On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:30 AM, Walter Knapp wrote:
> Posted by: "Bernie Krause"
> >
> > Then you need to hang out in this neck of the woods where there is
> > strong and constant local action, Walt. It ranges from kids in
> > kindergarten cleaning up sites as part of the curricula, to post
> grad
> > to retired folks in their mid-eighties, restoring wetlands, meadows,
> > forests, former cattle grazing areas, inter-tidal zones, etc. As far
> > as ArcticNWR is concerned, for those of us who've been and worked
> > there, we can't imagine any kind of multiple habitat more worth
> > preserving and dedicating our energies to doing just that. As far
> as I
> > know WE are the government, here. So I guess it's up to us-'uns to
> > make the changes necessary and to make things work. I'm just not
> ready
> > or willing to lay that responsibility on anyone else...either
> elected
> > or anointed.
>
> I make periodic trips out through the west. I see the extent of the
> expansion of development out there not on a daily basis but with time
> intervals in between. It is shocking the rapidity with which the
> natural systems are going under the bulldozer, seemingly even faster
> than here.
>
> Yes it's up to each individual. Though one could question just how
> accurate saying We are the government is. This is exactly what I'm
> talking about. Those kindergarteners will grow up expecting a home,
> transport and all the rest. The same ones that volunteer in a cleanup
> probably are part of the development sprawl too. We do have that
> here too.
>
> Are you working on protecting the flight paths and wintering grounds
> of
> all the wildlife that only spends a small part of the year in the
> Arctic
> NWR? For water birds the loss of wetlands is extreme and continuing.
> For forest birds the forests are going. For many others their habitat
> is being plowed under to produce alcohol. So that we won't need the
> ANWR
> oil. Protecting ANWR is a tradeoff that's damaging somewhere else.
>
> Population is the key, without population control none of the rest
> matters in the long term. In the time scale of ecology or evolution.
>
> Yes, Bernie, I know you are very active in all this, but you are a
> exception.
>
> I'm sure that ANWR was put in more danger by the recent gas shortage
> in
> our part of the country. We stood in lines for gas, most stations were
> closed for several weeks. Caused primarily by the Eastern US being
> dependent on refineries clustered in a Hurricane alley. But I bet a
> lot
> of folks just got more interested in drilling domestically. Even if
> you
> drove a hybrid, you got to set in lines. A lot of hybrid owners had
> convinced themselves they were safe until this.
>
> > For the record, I first heard the expression, "ecology," in 1968
> while
> > researching the subject for an album my late music partner, Paul
> > Beaver, and I were composing for our Warner Brothers debut , In A
> Wild
> > Sanctuary. The the word (and concept), itself, was coined by Ernst
> > Haeckelin in 1866. I KNOW you're old, but you're not THAT old, Walt,
> > unless you're hiding something from us.
>
> No, I'm not that old, but I'm not talking about a few specialists.
> When
> did the press know the word ecology? Or the common man on the street?
> When did high schools even include the word in their biology courses?
> You will find that's much more recent.
>
> By 1968 I'd been engaged in studying ecology for some time I'd already
> been through some college level courses in it. In other words I was
> already a ecologist then and had been for some time.
>
> Though at the moment I feel far older than just 1866, I'm not that
> old.
>
> Walt
>
>
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