I tend to agree with Dr. Yost, It all comes down to what you, as an individual, are willing to make sacrifices for. Us begins with I. Are you willing to sacrifice your current way of life for the environment? Are you, as most people will claim, seeking a balance between environmental sacrifice and personal sacrifices. When we look at the current state of America's resources, even the world's resources of fisheries, forests, water quality and quantity, energy supply, wildlife habitat, air quality, it appears as though we are lying when we say that we are seeking a balance. There's no "us" to pat on the back or "them" to point at, there's just us. Are you connected or are your actions reflective of disconnection? Do you dare enjoy seafood at a restaurant while you talk of ocean depletion? "I study the problems, so I have special exemption".
A capitalist economy encourages getting the highest return for the least investment...finding the legal chinks in the wall of equality and justice. I'll give you what you pay for from what I'm willing to make out of what I can get for the cheapest cost, including labor. Receipt? Until we change this perception of the world, our resources and culture will continue to deteriorate because we equate their value with as many slips of dirty green paper we can trade them for in a single day, today. I see "environmentalist" "hippies" driving Ford Explorers an hour one-way to work. Toxin coated food that's cheaper than the plain stuff. I buy meat and have no clue where it came from. I eat apples from China because they are cheaper. I see fishermen who can't afford to stop outfishing themselves. Companies filing lawsuits to keep people uninformed that they are drinking poisons in their water. Spending billions of dollars to send rovers to Mars to look for water when we won't even make the effort to keep the water in our neighborhood clean. Do you know your neighbors, all those living within 500 feet of your home? We took this land from the native people, and say that it was too long ago to talk about anymore, but we are up for to debate over global warming which has been occurring ever since the last ice age. The native wisdom is nearly gone, our environmental ethics weak, our culture diseased. We tell them they are their own nation, while amongst ourselves, we say that we hold their lands in trust for them. In trust? For them? I see professors sequestering knowledge in pet projects, hoarding much needed funding, scattering themselves about on a million different one-person treasure hunts, while problems get worse. Well-known scientists and politicians whose alchemy converts opinions into facts. Give me more than you have and I'll teach you part of what I know, by appointment, that's how it's done, it's customary, it's tradition, you know. Allowing the government to become a separate society from we the people, assuming that it's always been that way. Career politicians, or lawyers by trade, writing and passing laws about the environment and other things they have very little knowledge of. Pretending we are in a Democracy, we in actuality we are in a defunct Republic. Life in fear is life of inaction. Will nobody besides those in the military really put their country before themselves and step up to turn words into actions? The problem is that most of us are too prideful to admit that we don't really know the "right" answers, that we really don't know what to do. We'll spend time instead debating what to call the problem, what to call the movement, researching the different ways that history will view us. Watch another movie, eat s'more. Do we really believe that more money solves more problems? That more sophisticated technology will save the environment and create jobs? We are descendents of ancestors who lived without electricity, they did not descend from us. Without widespread destruction, they brought us here, but we insist that our ways are more sophisticated. Do you believe it was a more difficult life for these primitive potato farmers than living a modern gadget life in a metropolis that is polluted from every angle? What the h*ll is going on in this world? God wants us to conquer and subdue what God has made? Do you believe that? Are you frustrated like me (which is bad by definition, isn't it?), or are you confident in the great future to come? Thank you and have a wonderful evening, Patrick Scientist of Life -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tim Nuttle Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2007 12:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Ethanol: corn vs. prairies? Some folks made reference to potential benefits from making biofuels using non-traditional crops, like perennial prairie grasses (e.g., Tilman et al (2006) in /Science/). These apparently require no/little irrigation or fertilization, very little fossil fuel inputs (no tillage, for example), and enhance instead of threaten biodiversity. According to the article, they also produce more net energy (output- fossil inputs in GJ/ha) than corn or soy-based biofuels. However, most of the discussion on the list (and in society at large) centers around the questionable net benefits in terms water, fossil inputs, food, biodiversity, etc., of biofuels made from traditional crops (corn, soybeans, sugarcane) or new (potentially genetically modified) crops like switchgrass. For example, one of the posts quoted an article as posing the question "Does it take more energy to make ethanol than is contained in ethanol?" This completely frames the debate in terms of ethanol from corn, as if it is the only option--like you can't make ethanol any other way. It seems to me that if we are concerned about avoiding negative effects of corn/soy/sugar-based biofuels, we should focus the discussion on potential alternatives, not simply nay-saying the prevailing opinion (that is to say, keep up the nay-saying but in the context of suggesting an alternative). Could we hear more from folks who have evaluated alternatives, like low-intensity, high-diversity-based biofuels from prairie grasses, etc.? All I'm aware of is Tilman et al's article. Is there more? Thanks, Tim -- --------------------------------- Tim Nuttle, PhD Research Assistant Professor Department of Biological Sciences University of Pittsburgh A234 Langley Hall 4249 Fifth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA ---------------------------------
