We Are an Active Ecological Transition Zone Now!

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Nadler on February 19, 2010 at 7:53

Thank you for your note. There is a new biography on Muir that spends a little time on his stay here.

In a recent article in the science journal, Nature, there are graphs showing over the next hundred years the velocity of climate change across the biomes of the world. It turns out that only 8 percent of protected areas such as national parks will have the same species they have now. Here is an article I just wrote about the salmon collapse in B.C:
From sea to blighted sea: a cautionary tale for Georgian Bay’s fishery

“There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.”- Bertrand Russell
“…sea lice from open net-cage salmon farms are pushing wild salmon toward extinction.” Alexandra Morton, biologist

Canadians watched as our Atlantic cod disappeared through the 1970’s. The ecological disaster intensifying in the Arctic as a result of pollutants and habitat destruction from the Tar Sands’ impact on the Athabasca River and the boreal forest is well documented. Canadians are now faced with the obliteration of our coastal and riparian Pacific ecosystems with a catastrophic collapse of salmon. Individuals such as biologist, Alexandria Morton and non-government organizations www.livingoceans.org www.callingfromthecoast.com www.raincoastresearch.org have succeeded in court by making a reluctant federal government take over the regulation of open net-cage fish farms, and a long over-due federal inquiry will determine the viability of these farms. The B.C. Supreme Court has now halted the expansion of these farms till next December.
Since the late 1980’s salmon farms have been allowed to proliferate along the B.C’s coast, and most importantly on the very migration routes where wild salmon must swim to go up rivers such as the Fraser and spawn. Disease epidemics, escape of non-native Atlantic salmon, drowning of marine mammals in farm nets, parasites such as the infestation of sea lice on baby salmon, pharmaceutical and other chemical pollutants, as well as the sheer biomass and the excrement of salmon create all the conditions for a crash of not just salmon but for the marine species including sea lions, whales and bears that feed on wild salmon as well as shell fish beneath these farms. Add to this the impact on First Nations’ way of life when only one-tenth of expected wild sockeye salmon return to the rivers to spawn. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9kdSSdzo_Q
Salmon farms in Norway and in Ireland have already devastated local fisheries, so why would Canada’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Gail Shea, go last summer to Norway to showcase B.C.’s aquaculture industry? Plutocracy is alive and well in Canada!
One clue that sheds light on why our nation would allow the wild salmon population to collapse can be found in a famous essay by Garrett Hardin called “The Tragedy of the Commons”. Think of the ‘commons’ as those areas of our planet that are owned communally such as our seas, atmosphere and even our national and provincial parks. Hardin says, “Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” Would this explain why international conventions on climate, biodiversity and even the Convention on the Law of the Sea have had little impact in stopping ecological disasters from happening? Does humanity have such a contemptuous disregard for ‘free-to-take’ Nature that, if given the chance, would pull out the underpinning structures that account for our ability to survive? Does this give us an insight into why Canada and other governments are so eager to exploit an ice-free ‘communal’ Arctic Ocean that will make trillions of dollars for oil, gas and mining corporations, but will subject its indigenous peoples and native species to the same ecological tragedies found in the south?
Our next article will look more closely at what is happening in our Bay, but suffice it to say for now that in 2005 The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, Gord Miller, spoke out against aquaculture farming for similar concerns that now plague the Pacific coast’s wild salmon population.
What you can do right now is to refuse to buy farm-raised salmon. For those who have pets, buy food that does not have salmon (or tuna) in the ingredients. Meanwhile, Target Corp’s 1,744 U.S. stores will ban farmed salmon. Ask your local store to do the same. Going to the Olympics? King Harald of Norway is being presented a letter protesting the fact that 92 percent of B.C.’s fish farms are owned by Norwegian companies, and with good reason, salmon farms are banned in many Norwegian fjords. Be a signatory.


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Permalink Reply by John A Harrison on February 19, 2010 at 10:12

Thanks Doug, and thanks again for launching this group. I will see about the Nature article. Congratulations on your excellent article and bringing The Tragedy of the Commons into this whole forum. Defining the Commons of this region, its current condition, and the reform of our practices with the Commons is a key action through this transition here too.

Apropos the accelerating rate of the velocity of climate change across our regional landscape now and for the foreseeable future, and with the current speed already acting to break apart living inter-species relationships in the mixed ecology now with us, I offer an image that I have used here for a few decades to startle even naturalists and other environmentalists out of our "nostalgic dreams of ecological stability" and "native species discrimination": "The true environmentalist in Grey Bruce is a person with a dump truck equipped with a large hydraulic tree spade, assisting nature in the face of a man-made ecological transformation moving like a cloud shadow over our Saugeen regional landscape, and sped up beyond the botanical migration speed limit!"

Permalink Reply by Douglas Nadler on February 19, 2010 at 15:27

I think i'd leave the truck out of the equation. Scientists have real fears regarding geoengineering, and although the truck smacks of its own man-made fossil fuel ecological transformation, many ecologists think that we need to go past conservation and preservation if we are to save species. Cities and other impediments will stop the natural flow of species moving to new zones as a result of climate change and getting a ride futher up the mountain would undoubtedly help but there is only so far that we can assist them. Here we are trying to adapt instead of taking a stand against the machinations that caused these problems in the first place and there are those of us who feel that human tinkering with Nature hasn't ever worked. Greenhouse gas emissions are humanity's most tragic geoengineering experiment to date..

John A Harrison said:

Thanks Doug, and thanks again for launching this group. I will see about the Nature article. Congratulations on your excellent article and bringing The Tragedy of the Commons into this whole forum. Defining the Commons of this region, its current condition, and the reform of our practices with the Commons is a key action through this transition here too.

Apropos the accelerating rate of the velocity of climate change across our regional landscape now and for the foreseeable future, and with the current speed already acting to break apart living inter-species relationships in the mixed ecology now with us, I offer an image that I have used here for a few decades to startle even naturalists and other environmentalists out of our "nostalgic dreams of ecological stability" and "native species discrimination": "The true environmentalist in Grey Bruce is a person with a dump truck equipped with a large hydraulic tree spade, assisting nature in the face of a man-made ecological transformation moving like a cloud shadow over our Saugeen regional landscape, and sped up beyond the botanical migration speed limit!"

Permalink Reply by John A Harrison on February 19, 2010 at 23:34

Regarding the dump truck: the aphorism was loaded with irony and paradox to provoke more thought! In some respects the male overthrow of the feminine and the rise of agriculture and the patriarchal pastoralists was also quite the geo-engineering effort earlier leading us to this one in many ways. Interesting too to compare animal husbandry and breeding for specialization to the current genetic engineering gamut. And then there is the comparison between the denuding of forest cover on Easter Island versus the denuding of forest cover result and recovery of England.

Douglas Nadler said:

I think i'd leave the truck out of the equation. Scientists have real fears regarding geoengineering, and although the truck smacks of its own man-made fossil fuel ecological transformation, many ecologists think that we need to go past conservation and preservation if we are to save species. Cities and other impediments will stop the natural flow of species moving to new zones as a result of climate change and getting a ride futher up the mountain would undoubtedly help but there is only so far that we can assist them. Here we are trying to adapt instead of taking a stand against the machinations that caused these problems in the first place and there are those of us who feel that human tinkering with Nature hasn't ever worked. Greenhouse gas emissions are humanity's most tragic geoengineering experiment to date..
John A Harrison said:

Thanks Doug, and thanks again for launching this group. I will see about the Nature article. Congratulations on your excellent article and bringing The Tragedy of the Commons into this whole forum. Defining the Commons of this region, its current condition, and the reform of our practices with the Commons is a key action through this transition here too.

Apropos the accelerating rate of the velocity of climate change across our regional landscape now and for the foreseeable future, and with the current speed already acting to break apart living inter-species relationships in the mixed ecology now with us, I offer an image that I have used here for a few decades to startle even naturalists and other environmentalists out of our "nostalgic dreams of ecological stability" and "native species discrimination": "The true environmentalist in Grey Bruce is a person with a dump truck equipped with a large hydraulic tree spade, assisting nature in the face of a man-made ecological transformation moving like a cloud shadow over our Saugeen regional landscape, and sped up beyond the botanical migration speed limit!"