Endangered Species Act makes progressives/Dems look foolish

Local newspaper, Santa Rosa (CA's) Press Democrat editorial page columnist Paul Gullixson's "A new priority: No salamander left behind"
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050202/NEWS/502020343/1049/OPINION

shows us that a law with noble aspirations of protecting endangered species like the CA Condor or the Bald Eagle has now become a roadblock to prevent projects lumped into the category of 'growth'. This inevitably results in conservatives who charge liberals with irrationality by putting the "rights" of critters ahead of the rights of people.

Granted there is a debate going on, but if progressives want to win it then the ESA needs to be revised.

A place to begin is when a project proposed can reasonably be expected to affect small numbers of a species, 8 in the fly case cited by Gullixson--and those with the tiger salamader are unseen with counts being estimates--the weight of the proposed project's effect and ability to mitigate should outweigh the "rights" of the endangered species.

It the ESA is being used just to stand in the way of "progress" and the true debate over what that "progress" is is not being addressed, then the ESA is just camouflaged political warfare and progressives are sure to lose in an unfair fight.

When Al Gore was running for prez in 2000 "Sprawl" was a campaign issue and Gore made good points on it before the issue was drowned in the usual minutiae that campaigns generate. This needs to be revived and the Big Picture concentrated upon.

What say you DUers ?

relevant to me. What you are proposing is to appease business "when in doubt". My view is that corporate interests may already be to powerful. Watch that slippery slope.

by being the backers of ESA actions to protect whatever species arguing to the absurdum, as with invisible or near-invisible species that can't be counted like the tiger salamader, you are ALREADY ceding the argument de facto. Slippery slope ? You're already falling backwards and the political law of he who's supporting common sense (not stupidity) wins applies.

By letting conservative business interests APPEAR to be the more rational party to turn to and ignoring the full effects of what the ESA was reasonably set up to protect in the first place, you let schools go unfunded in order to protect something that maybe just needs to be left alone in the first place...in order to protect itself. Does anyone ask 'does the tiger salamander really need OUR help' in the first place ?

What say YOU?

I am sick and tired of being told that we have to compromise our core beliefs. I won't do it. Compromise is what got us in this mess in the first place. When we stood up to the corporate whores, when we stood up for civil rights , we we stood up for liberalism we won elections.

The big picture is that every time we compromise , they want more.

love you for it !

I really don't care what they think. As far as those idiots are concerned there should be no protection of any species or any ecosystem ever if it means some one somewhere has to take a financial hit.

I read the article. Nothing in it seems unreasonable.

Did he do it so we could exterminate them later? Is that God's plan.

And thinking a little fly has no importance can get you in several ways. There is plenty of cases where a non-descript little nothing of a moth or beetle was the sole pollinator of an important plant. It is fact that there is much work now on Leaf-cutter Bees to replace the dwindling Honey Bee (pollinator) of much agricultural importance.

...than to some slimy corporate hack now.

The salamander is just the thin edge of the wedge.

Is the 'big picture' the next two years? The next four?

How about the next seven generations?

How about we start telling the honest truth about what's happening right now, instead of trying to sugar coat everything based on biased polling analysis?

The big picture includes all species. If you give an inch they never stop.

I agree with you.

ESA was the best we could do in the 70s. Today we are smarter and better informed. We know that it is virtually impossible to protect individual species of plants or animals. We must protect entire ecosystems and the linkages between them. The debate must focus environmental protection on this scientific fact and clearly explain to the public why this is important to human health. Clean air and clean water legislation must be coupled with new environmental legislation protecting ecosystems.

I lost the point of the thread as I was concentrating on this aspect of your post. Sorry.

:shrug:

Just because a "critter" is small in size or viewable population does not mean it is not vital to the health of the surrounding habitat. Ooops, we only found out after we wiped out the salamander that it was a vital food resource for that particularly pretty bird that we really didn't mean to kill off. Or maybe, darn that fly that we just exterminated fed the population of spiders that ate mosquitoes that are now thriving and carrying a disease that we have no idea how to control.

What makes it appear foolish is the reduction of the argument to the almighty business dollar is more important in the short term than understanding the impact our actions will have on the health of the planet (and the human population therein) long term.

global warming as a perfect example. But a school is being denied funding that it should have received and CAN mitigate for the salamader ... Do we want to continue getting flogged ? Apparently so. Read the article again and rethink. The BIG PICTURE is being obscured and we are losing on these details to the repubs.

is who cares who wins if we all die in the end?

Sorry but you're talking to an ecologist here (in the employed sense of the word) so I have re-thought the issue many, many times.

The problem isn't in the policy, it's in the conversation. We are right on the issue but the RW has subverted the language. We don't have to change the policy, we have to change the dialog.

to. "Who cares" when your kid can't get a school or hospital built (the examples given) ? Ecologists are paid players in the ESA system so the contracts the system generates can often defy common sense, as the article shows. 8 flys stopped the hospital project and so far no one in the county has a count on the often-unseen nocturnal salamander to get an adequate count.

In the meantime, where do you put the needed school and hospital ? Besides that, the other example of the bushes and the levees fiasco that resulted in three human deaths...well who do you think cares about that ?

Scientists tell us the earth will end in, what, another billion or so years anyway, so that's a guarantee that ecology or not the grim reaper wins.

for assuming I didn't understand it or the points you are trying to make just because I disagree with you.

My problem with the article and your line of reasoning is that you are buying into what the RW is selling. 8 flies did not stop the project. A study of the impact regarding the loss of those flies and therefore the impact on the surrounding environment and other inhabitants of that environment is what delayed the project.

There may well be issues regarding the complexity of the ESA that need to be addressed but the real problem, as I see it, is allowing the RW idiots to control the talking points. If you want to continue to define the problems in the simplistic terms the RW wants to use, feel free. I will continue to try to educate people about the real implications of the extinction of species that aren't as cute as baby seals.

dealing with the red legged frog issue, I feel I can comment on this.

Basically, no one uses common sense anymore. Developers want to pave over everything and build whatever regardless of consequences. Environmentalist want to save every last fly and minuscule shrimp... not to mention the salamander and red legged frog. The rules have been put in place because the developers do indeed take a mile if given an inch.

There are conscientious people out there on both sides, but the majority have left no room for the "good guys" to work together and compromise.

Case in point about the red legged frog. One of my clients wants to enlarge his pond by cutting back the bank about 10 feet on one side and dredging it deeper. He had to jump through all kinds of legal hoops and fork out lots of money to study the red legged frog situation. Being one of the good guys, he did that instead of just sneaking in the equipment to his isolated place and just doing it. Then came the conversation with Fish and Game.

F&G: You can't enlarge your pond you will disturb the habitat for the RLF.
Client: But the study shows we don't have any RLFs.
F&G: But it's the right habitat.
C: We don't have any RLFs. We have bullfrogs. The two don't coexist.
F&G: We'll you'll have to get rid of the bullfrogs.
C: You're joking, right?
F&G: No. It's RLF habitat. You'll have to get rid of the bullfrogs.
C: It's impossible to get rid of the bullfrogs. How about if I create a separate fenced of area in the new space for the RLFs?
F&G: You can't do that. It's illegal to contain a wild species.

The conversation went on a little longer, but you get the idea. As for salamanders, they are amazing critters and can survive just about anywhere. A little compromise at both ends would maintain some territory for the critters and still allow the developers to make use of otherwise (to them) useless land.

which makes light of global warming, which IS real. People in the Netherlands and Pacific Island nations aren't taking it so lightly. And I've been to Alaska since the '70s and watched Portage Glacier recede what seems like a mile from the main viewing area...

only count if they are Wingers?

I would not call MC an expert just because he can put together a decent story that sounds scientific. But many will take his word as gold, just you watch.

They cannot survive just about anywhere. They have very narrow criteria of temperature, humidity, substrate and many other factors.

Concerning the red-legged frogs, the reason they are endangered is primarily bullfrogs which eat them and many other native species. They are not native to California and should be exterminated from anywhere west of the Plains.

You don't know what you're talking about but I'm sure you don't care because you have a vested interests. Who profits, indeed.

HERE's the big picture; each species has a function in the ecosystem. It's the Gian principle at work. Imagine an automobile. Every day, you remove a piece of that automobile. remove the rear view mirror, and nothing much happens. but remove the wrong nut or bolt, and the car no longer runs. Species extinction has long term and permanent effects. Many of the native pollinators in America have gone extinct, so now if disease wipes out the honeybee, you won't be eating fruit and a number of other foods.Extinction of various insect and even bacteria in portions of the Midwest have lead to vast expanses of "dead land" in farming areas-miles and miles of unusable soil that grows NOTHING. When the gray wolf was wiped out from most portions of the Midwest, it caused such an imbalance that coyote and deer populations have exploded across the country 100 years later (wolves kill coyote) red foxes are also declining, because coyote kill fox-but wolves do not. The very small prey eaten by fox is also on the rise. If salmon were to decrease to dramatically in the pacific Northwest, whole forests would disappear; nutrients in the salmon are required by most of the conifer species there because much of the bird and larger mammals consume the fish and fertilize the forests with their waste.

Species have a value far beyond the monetary. They are essential to our very existence. If one has faith in God, then one must view the destruction of a species as the ultimate sin against God (the complete destruction of His creation). Just because you don't understand how these creatures help you to live and breathe doesn't mean that they should be wiped off the face of the earth so that you or some wealthy GOP developer can set up another strip mall.

want to protect species and the environment instead of allowing it to be some kind of whipping-boy for the crazy rightwingnuts who don't see the full picture. That's all I'm saying.

Combine their known behaviors with Americans' collective willingness to do whatever it takes to protect the environment, just so long as it doesn't cost them any money at all or inconvenience them in any way whatsoever, and you've got a recipe for disater.

I don't think so.

We seem to have gotten ourselves into trying to implement a 100% "harm-free" environmental policy. The two examples cited in that article show the inadvisability of demanding 100% -- especially the instance cited of the dam breaking and killing 3 people.

There should be some type of cost-benefit analysis applied to environmental protection strategies/decisions. Examples like this do nothing but create opposition to env. protection in a large-scale sense. When I was a kid (30 years ago), everybody was "pro-environment". Now the issue has been "snail-dartered" into almost a fringe issue.

I'd rather go for "95% species protection" and make the enviroment a central issue again. I'd trade those flies and salamanders mentioned in the article any day if it will result in broad public for enviromental issues -- that's what's needed to achieve citically important environmental goals (e.g., a comprehensive global warming, emissions reduction policy).

Screw what they say, we have our own sense of what is right and wrong and we should use that to decide what we do.

One reason we are so weak is because we let the right dictate to us what our next move should be.

Dems! grow a spine! It is right to protect endangered species. Move on up the chain and it is us that is endangered!

Here in CA, blaming enviormentalist is the game they play everytime they don't get their way. The Enron energy crisis was masked because we accepted the idea that enviormentalists prevented power plants from being built. I really doubt enviormentalists are endangering kids. The story can't be that simplistic.

I remember living in Montana during part of the late 1980's, and at the time, the timber companies were closing a lot of mills.

They told their workers that "it was the environmentalists' fault".

The thing was, the mills were closing because the timber companies started selling raw logs overseas without milling them into boards, and THAT is why the mills were closing.

At least in the current administration, if you give an inch, they take 5 miles. That's how you get total bullshit initiatives, like "Healthy Forests", "Blue Skies", drilling in ANWAR, and on and on. Right now, we are sticking our fingers in so many holes in this dam holding back the veritable flood of greedy corporate interests. And make no mistake about it--we are IT, the last great hope, the sole defense.
We have to stay on top of our legislators, and make sure they know it is NOT acceptable to wage war on our environment. President Clinton and others before him put so many good protections in place, that the Bush administration has doggedly, and with single-minded purpose, gone about undoing. Bush claims to be a religious person. Well, I am not. But the Bible does charge humans with being the enviromental caretakers of the Earth. Again, where are the "morals"?

and tell me if those examples given by Paul Gullixson

http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050202/NEWS/502020343/1049/OPINION

made people more likely to vote Democratic or Republican ? The ESA needs to stop being the tool environmentalists use for every growth proposal that comes down the pike. Al Gore was right about 'sprawl' back in 2000 but here in CA growth is practically dictated by Metropolitan Transportation Commissions. They tell cities and counties how many people they should be planning for and dole out dollars fed and state as target amounts.

I'd be out of my mind if I didn't plan for growth, but I'd be out of my mind to not consider that we can't save every species out there...and it might cost too much to try with other problems, people problems, being cut back on because of, well in this case...the tiger salamander.

And I also live in Calif.
Again, who has the right to decide which species to exterminate? Bush apparently feels he has these god-like qualities, but most of us don't agree.
This falls in the same category as the caribou will just "have to deal with" humans drilling for oil in the Antarctic. No, they don't have to deal with it. They'll just die off.
When do we get to a species that you consider important enough in the big scheme of things to be worth saving?
We're having just such a caste system implemented in our human society right now: the old, the poor, the sick, the disabled do not matter. They get in the way of "progress", they are easy to subdue, and we could really use that money for other things, like world domination.
It is our RESPONSIBILITY, and future generations' birthright, to care for this earth, the environment and all species, and leave it in better shape than the last generation. Which would you rather have history say about us: that we saved the last salamander from extinction, or that we built really bitchin' shopping malls?

ultimately in the deaths of three humans, and ironically a flood that destroyed the beetle's habitat to boot must have made you proud of the ESA then ?

For being a tree hugger.
In the words of Bill Moyers:
"I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."
I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California."
(snip)
"And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
What has happened to our moral imagination?"

Oh, sorry, I guess we have. What more do you want from us? Can't we at least have these "little" issues like protecting endangered species?

I say stand up and fight like Hell! I'm not going to give another inch on any issue until I see some progress (as in progressive)!

Press Democrat article mentioned in the original post. The examples given show, as with the endangered valley longhorn beetle, that the ESA needs to have some revisions...that's all I was upset about in my area where the tiger salamander has its mysterious habitat, now interfering with a school construction project. Dems do support educating kids ? See what I mean ?

That writer obviously has an ax to grind and the first question one should ask is "who profits?".

We have irrevocably degraded the vast majority of land in this country, exterminated a number of species with many more on the brink or getting there. When do we say enough? When the only species left are those few weed species like rats, starlings and dandelions which thrive in disruption?

Fuck the utility argument. To say that a species' "worth" is relative to its value to humanity is arrogant bullshit. If there's one thing that is apparent it is that we are not the crown of creation.

We are part of Nature. Every part lost diminishes us irrevocably.

If there is a Creator then fools who would squander Her handiwork should tremble.

Since when did Logging or putting in roads become a Right of the people? We have a Bill of Rights and nowhere in there can I find where it says People have the right to destroy nature.

when you read the article by Paul Gullixson (see original post) you see that the Republicans are able to oversimplify the issue and poke fun at tree-hugging progressives who seemingly care more for (fill in the blank) than their fellow human beings.

In the article beetles and salamanders were mentioned (the title of the article is "No salamander left behind" since a school was stopped in the salmander's case and in the beetle's case 3 people died by ESA-caused inaction).

The ESA plays well for the right, not the left.