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Liberal TreeHugger

I am a conservative but unlike the current breed of "conservatives" I do not believe that the Republican Party is conservative. The current administration is hell bent on spending money taking away rights and playing a shell game with our taxes. I am starting this post to be a direct assault on the radical conservative movement that seeks to distort the record, lie and dupe the American voters into believing they care, are right, and are conservative.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Another reason that I think Bush is Deadly

He made a proposal recently (via his administration) to solve the problem of dwindling wild Chinook and Coho salmon stocks.
Was his solution to repair watershed quality? That is what had begun under Clinton. It provided almost instant increases in fish returns. Seems like a good plan, but nope that was not his idea.
Was it to tear down old dams and stop subsidizing a barge system in favor of an existing railway infrastructure? Nope the dams were actually mandated to be considered a part of the natural ecosystem. As if they had been in place for as long as the salmon and steelhead swam up and down river in their beautiful journey.

His solution rather was to have a massive increase in fish farms.

If you have not ever been to the Pacific Northwest you need to come soon because if Bush gets his way wild salmon will be a thing of the past. A component of native life will be absent (in violation of many treaties) and we will have lost yet another species in pursuit of our dominion over nature.

It is so sad. The short term cost of removing dams or spilling more water at the very least will be more than made up for by the financial gains from a healthy fishery. People who have made their livelihoods fishing for salmon and steelhead will no longer be able to take a city dweller or southerner out to the unimaginable beauty that is the rivers and streams of the Northwest to help them catch a 30lb, 40lb or even larger fish.
Farmed fish pose a health problem. How to deal with those implications? Bush wants to "address those issues later" even though there will be an immediate impact on water quality for everyone downstream.

Shameful behavior. Disgusting mentality.

6 Comments:

At 8:04 PM, Blogger iulius said...

[Notice: Bullshit temporarily suspended for this comment] 

So I heard a segment on All Things Considered about this the other day, and they seem as down on the idea as you. And while I can't comment on how easy it would be to restore "natural" fishing conditions to our rivers and lakes, it doesn't seem like the fish farm idea is that bad.

From the story on the radio, it seems that there are less fishermen out on the Atlantic because the Atlantic is running out of salmon. Who knows to what extent that's true but it's safe to say humans consume lots of fish. Why not concentrate the industrial effort of putting fish on our plates in a small, tightly controlled area and let the rest of it go back to being a self-balancing ecosystem?

There are problems, of course, like disease and chemical doping and all that. I suppose I'm advocating an "ideal" farming infrastructure and not what will happen in the real world. But it doesn't seem impossible to me that fish could be raised in pens miles offshore to produce healthy meat just like cattle are on a terrestrial farm. If such a thing could be accomplished, it seems like it would be an ideal way to keep our insatiable demand for fish away from having strange effects on the natural world.

 
At 9:07 PM, Blogger Stew Magoo said...

You're WRONG! Bush simply said and I quote, "Welp, there's something fishy going on up thar in tha nor'east. Kill'em."

 
At 8:49 AM, Blogger Mistake Master said...

Josh you have an insight into the insidious nature of the proposal. Actually I agree with you. Given that the disease issues and contamination problems were to be taken care of, farming salmon would be a rather acceptable form of providing food. The issue that I have with the Bush proposal is that he is representing these fish farms as a solution to the Wild stocks decline. My thought is that to equate a fenced in pen of anadromous fish to the wild stocks that run from the headwaters all the way from Idaho and Canada to the Pacific (equaly on the Atlantic) is sad. It is a cheat and allows a continuation of policies that have led us to this point. Thanks for the suspension of b.s. I enjoy a rational discussion.

 
At 10:04 PM, Blogger Stew Magoo said...

What about MY comment? You give me no props here. NONE.

I'm going to go eat worms.

 
At 2:32 PM, Blogger Mistake Master said...

God Stew, Your comment was off topic. We are in the northwest too...
All Atlantic wild stocks have already died off so get your facts straight. Seriously though I do appreciate that you are eating worms. They require a lot less to produce than cows or chickens.

 
At 8:16 AM, Blogger Stew Magoo said...

No No NO, Bush got it wrong. I rely on my team of Franken'esque Newsmongers and give you this jewel to use and you.. you... PATRONIZE me?!!

Feh.

That's it, I'm buying some DDT and spraying a tree. Then I might burn a tire. Or two.

 

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