Biologist finds rare garter snakes in California

[dashnu]

Biologist finds rare garter snakes in California (http://www.seattlepi.com/national/1110ap_us_rare_snake_find.html)

Did anyone see this yet? Pretty short read but interesting nonetheless.

Here is a pic;

http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs150.snc1/5571_1118159147274_1025859985_30286554_2714052_n.j pg

[Stefan-A]

Good news, could be better. :)

[jitami]

Thanks for posting that Brett. Agreed, could be better, but given the building in northern California in the last couple of decades it's still good to hear.

[drache]

it good there's someone sort of looking out for them

[ssssnakeluvr]

good news!!!

[guidofatherof5]

Good news to hear.

[wolfpacksved]

i was just about to post this thread myself lol really cool news.

[Millinex]

What I wouldn't give to own a pair..

[Snaky]

It's indeed a little good news :)

[bkhuff1s]

That's awesome! It'd be cool to breed the 'giant' blood into other garters

[dashnu]

That's awesome! It'd be cool to breed the 'giant' blood into other garters

I have a feeling my blacknecks are going to be pretty massive! not a giant but big :)

[GradStudentLeper]

That's awesome! It'd be cool to breed the 'giant' blood into other garters

So you would waste breeding efforts trying to hybridize T. gigas with other garters and creating what will more than likely (not not necessarily) be snakes with genetic defects, rather than trying to captive breed the species proper so that one day, when the farmers are booted out of the central valley and the river systems are restored (that poor Delta).

Thankfully, a fish known as the Delta Smelt (but not the snake that eats it) has been enough to get the state of CA and the feds to shut down the water allotments to the agricultural lands in the area. Thankfully after the farms are shut down, the runoff from the agrochemicals (to say nothing about the wetlands themselves in the delta which have been largely drained) will stop and populations of many species (including most of CAs frog species) will be able to spring back.

(And yes, the farmers are just going to have to eat it. It is what they get for farming drought vulnerable crops like cotton and cantalope in the desert)

[jitami]

Thankfully after the farms are shut down, the runoff from the agrochemicals (to say nothing about the wetlands themselves in the delta which have been largely drained) will stop and populations of many species (including most of CAs frog species) will be able to spring back.


When we come out of this recession I would be AMAZED if anything is restored and not simply built on top of...

As it stands now I like farmers a whole heck of a lot more than developers!

[drache]

As it stands now I like farmers a whole heck of a lot more than developers!
can't say that I see a heck of a lot of difference in the way they look at the land

[jitami]

You have a point, Rhea... but totally unscientifically, I find it hard to believe that 1000 acres of farmland creates more problems than covering that 1000 acres with apartments, tract housing, auto malls, more shopping centers with the exact same stores and restaurants as the one 5 miles down the road... you get the idea... even if it's aestetics only... I'd prefer farm land. No doubt, work still needs to be done with farm owners regarding water use, land erosion, and pestisides, but covering the area in asphalt can't possibly be better???

[GradStudentLeper]

You have a point, Rhea... but totally unscientifically, I find it hard to believe that 1000 acres of farmland creates more problems than covering that 1000 acres with apartments, tract housing, auto malls, more shopping centers with the exact same stores and restaurants as the one 5 miles down the road... you get the idea... even if it's aestetics only... I'd prefer farm land. No doubt, work still needs to be done with farm owners regarding water use, land erosion, and pestisides, but covering the area in asphalt can't possibly be better???


I would like to see a nature conservancy take over... But the farmers are just as bad if not worse. Even if the entire area is paved, the houses dont have agricultural runoff and agrochemicals being blown down wind into the mountains and poisoning waterways there...

[jitami]

I would like to see a nature conservancy take over... But the farmers are just as bad if not worse. Even if the entire area is paved, the houses dont have agricultural runoff and agrochemicals being blown down wind into the mountains and poisoning waterways there...

Are you sure? You're the scientist, I'm not, so you very well could be right, but us lovely suburban Californians wreak all sorts of havoc by sending all sorts of interesting stuff down the storm drains day in and day out... run off from roads, run off from our perfectly manicured lawns, plus things like motor oil, paint, etc. deliberately dumped down storm drains... even the drains with cute little fishies engraved in the concrete. Not to mention the materials used in building all of these homes, roads, and businesses. I would guess (again, just a guess) that we use nearly as much, if not more, water than agriculture does as well? I dunno...

Probably getting too off topic anyway... sorry for venting my frustrations with this lovely state I live in... and it is lovely... hopefully it will continue to be for many years to come... It's hard for me to see hope for our reptiles and amphibs once they're relegated to golf course ponds, shopping center fountains, and the occasional tract housing green belt.

[mustang]

yay they found him...poor big guy(the snake) thinks hes gotn caught by death and being man handled

[Loren]

reminds me of a saying....

If you have a problem with farmers, dont talk with your mouth full. :)

[Stefan-A]

Are you sure? You're the scientist, I'm not, so you very well could be right, but us lovely suburban Californians wreak all sorts of havoc by sending all sorts of interesting stuff down the storm drains day in and day out... run off from roads, run off from our perfectly manicured lawns, plus things like motor oil, paint, etc. deliberately dumped down storm drains... even the drains with cute little fishies engraved in the concrete. Not to mention the materials used in building all of these homes, roads, and businesses. I would guess (again, just a guess) that we use nearly as much, if not more, water than agriculture does as well? I dunno...
Undeniably a problem, but it does pale in comparison to the amounts of various types of pesticides farms use and eutrophication, caused primarily by farms, also has a big impact on amphibians and especially fish.

[GradStudentLeper]

reminds me of a saying....

If you have a problem with farmers, dont talk with your mouth full. :)


It isnt a problem with farmers as their farming practices and the fact that they moan, complain, and and cry for mommy when their poor farming practices come back and bite them.

The farmers in the central valley have eutrophicated the ocean, drained wetlands, and turned sex reversed frogs hundreds of miles down wind. Their choice in what to farm has forced them not only to kill off a few endangered species (and complain when the state/feds enforce the law) but they also have to import the vast majority of their water from OTHER parched desert states. Considering the population growth in the region, and how most of the rivers (like the Salt and Colorado River) dont reach the ocean anymore because they are so heavily drained.... Yeah, screw them. I am willing to deal with higher food prices.

[charles parenteau]

VEry nice find!

[FunkyRes]

You have a point, Rhea... but totally unscientifically, I find it hard to believe that 1000 acres of farmland creates more problems than covering that 1000 acres with apartments, tract housing, auto malls, more shopping centers with the exact same stores and restaurants as the one 5 miles down the road... you get the idea... even if it's aestetics only... I'd prefer farm land. No doubt, work still needs to be done with farm owners regarding water use, land erosion, and pestisides, but covering the area in asphalt can't possibly be better???

Let me give an example that gives anecdotal support.
A tract of land in Contra Costa County owned by a Cattle rancher was given to the East Bay Regional Park district in the late 80s. Initially the city/county wanted to buy it to turn it into a landfill, but the son of the rancher who ranched the land wouldn't have it, he wanted it to be available to the public.

Since then, they have found San Joaquin Kit Fox, California Red-legged Frogs, and other rare species living there. Glad it wasn't turned into a dump! It also since that time has become one of the only places in Contra Costa County that has Golden Eagles nesting there.

10 driving miles away from there is where my parents live. A developer bulldozed land and started to build, but now that land is bulldozed, with streets, but empty - and completely useless. What may have lived on that land that now is gone? Sure - it was farmland before, but a lot of the farmland there currently (largely fruit trees, corn, strawberries, grapes) supports a wide variety of wildlife. When they bulldoze it, it supports almost nothing.

[GarterGeek]

Oh don't be too judgemental on the farmers. They're just people and they struggle to make a living too. Worm-eaten food doesn't sell...they can't help that.

[jitami]

When they bulldoze it, it supports almost nothing.

My point exactly. Of course, having any land turned into protected public land is ideal... and yours was an awesome example!... but we still live in a capitalistic society and if I have to chose between farm land and development I'll chose farmers every time.

[GradStudentLeper]

My point exactly. Of course, having any land turned into protected public land is ideal... and yours was an awesome example!... but we still live in a capitalistic society and if I have to chose between farm land and development I'll chose farmers every time.


Why? How do you justify that ethically? Because we live in a capitalistic society? Have you considered that perhaps we shouldnt? Or that, perhaps the needs of humans can be outweighed by the needs of other organisms. Your position would have us Slash and Burn the entire country of Brazil to make room for additional cattle, and the destruction of entire river deltas and all of the life they possess for rice patties.

Moreover, farming takes a LOT of water. Fresh water is very limited, so if we ALWAYS gave into the demands of farmers we would have water shortages more severe than we already have.

Your own state of CA has severe water shortages because the local farmers cant be bothered to conserve water, and they have single handedly destroyed not just the Central valley, but everything down stream and downwind.

If I bulldoze a plot of land, I destroy that plot. If I turn it into farmland, not only do I destroy the vast majority of life there (the above example is poor because animals can migrate to area turned into public land, it did not support that life before, those organisms recolonized it afterward), but I must take water from the surrounding countryside, and when that water leaves my plot of farmland it is polluted, killing or otherwise harming everything up stream. The wind blows the same chemicals elsewhere, and due to Evolution, the pest insects I have pesticides for become resistant to pesticides, including natural compounds native plants use for defense. As a result, I create super-insects that devastate local plants.

[FunkyRes]

That's awesome! It'd be cool to breed the 'giant' blood into other garters

I believe some subspecies of T sirtalis are bigger.
I personally have seen a wild California Red-sided that was over 4 feet long.

I don't have a problem with hybrids in captivity, but size is often not a simple gene, so crossing giant garters with other species may not have the effect you are looking for in first few generations. As hybrids get farther from first few generations, the greater the odds of something called outcross depression, where the line has incompatible homozygous gene pairs that result in problems.

Single genes are easier to borrow via hybrids, by crossing the F1 hybrid lines back to one parent species you reduce the number of some homozygous pairs belonging to the species you are borrowing the gene from (though your goal is to get the borrowed gene as homozygous), but for complex traits like size that is much harder to do because many homozygous pairs are needed.

-=-
I would love to see this species in the wild someday.

[FunkyRes]

Why? How do you justify that ethically? Because we live in a capitalistic society? Have you considered that perhaps we shouldnt? Or that, perhaps the needs of humans can be outweighed by the needs of other organisms.


You'd be amazed at how often species disappear from habitat set aside for them but remain on privately owned property. National Parks really screwed up, for example, by planting sport fish to attract tourists - while many private land owners, including ranches, did not do such things and thus still have native rana species.



Your position would have us Slash and Burn the entire country of Brazil to make room for additional cattle, and the destruction of entire river deltas and all of the life they possess for rice patties.
Nothing was said about completely unregulated farming.



Moreover, farming takes a LOT of water. Fresh water is very limited, so if we ALWAYS gave into the demands of farmers we would have water shortages more severe than we already have.

Your own state of CA has severe water shortages because the local farmers cant be bothered to conserve water, and they have single handedly destroyed not just the Central valley, but everything down stream and downwind.
Much of the water shortage currently going on is artificial, caused by a small minnow in the Delta. Seems they sometimes get killed in the pumps, so they turned the pumps off.

Our politicians are too stupid to figure out the unemployment costs are likely higher than the cost of a captive breeding program to supplement the wild minnow population.



If I bulldoze a plot of land, I destroy that plot. If I turn it into farmland, not only do I destroy the vast majority of life there (the above example is poor because animals can migrate to area turned into public land, it did not support that life before, those organisms recolonized it afterward), but I must take water from the surrounding countryside, and when that water leaves my plot of farmland it is polluted, killing or otherwise harming everything up stream. The wind blows the same chemicals elsewhere, and due to Evolution, the pest insects I have pesticides for become resistant to pesticides, including natural compounds native plants use for defense. As a result, I create super-insects that devastate local plants.When people starve, you end up with revolution. War does a lot of damage.
I suspect, btw, that you'll find most ecological damage actually comes from lawns and pesticides used to keep lawns green aphids off the roses.

Farmers use science for the application of their fertilizers and pesticides, often they are required to by law but it also is cheaper for them. Use too much and the cost of excess hurts their bottom line, it is worthwhile for them to do frequent soil samples, etc.

Joe Six Pac does not use science, his runoff probably does more damage.

Yes, agriculture has ecological impact. Yes, methods continue to improve reducing that impact. We do need to change the way we farm and go more organic, but keep in mind, the less pesticides used the lower the crop yield, thus more land needs to be turned into farmland to feed the population.

[Stefan-A]

I suspect, btw, that you'll find most ecological damage actually comes from lawns and pesticides used to keep lawns green aphids off the roses.
I can pretty much guarantee that it's not the case. Every square inch of a field gets sprayed with herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, but not even remotely every rose bush and the quantities definitely cannot be compared. Even if the amount was the same per area of land, you'll find that crops cover a far larger area than gardens. It's also a matter of location, paved areas aren't that valuable, but the areas surrounding farms are likely to be.


Farmers use science for the application of their fertilizers and pesticides, often they are required to by law but it also is cheaper for them. Use too much and the cost of excess hurts their bottom line, it is worthwhile for them to do frequent soil samples, etc.
Last year, I took part in a project intended to map threats to groundwater in a heavily farmed area and this is the impression that I got: Farmers tend to use science selectively. We can try to convince them to use the best available methods, but I can tell you that they usually don't listen and they do pretty much as they please and really don't appreciate any advice, even if it would actually benefit them. They can get very defensive and do things the wrong way simply out of spite. They often even brag about it. They care more about getting successful crops, than about saving money on pesticides, so over-use is a risk they're willing to take.

[jitami]

Why? How do you justify that ethically? Because we live in a capitalistic society? Have you considered that perhaps we shouldnt? Or that, perhaps the needs of humans can be outweighed by the needs of other organisms. Your position would have us Slash and Burn the entire country of Brazil to make room for additional cattle, and the destruction of entire river deltas and all of the life they possess for rice patties.

Have you been to the central valley of California? I'm not talking about slashing and burning anything. The farms are already here and well established. Of course, they are struggling, as are the rest of us. Whether or not we should live in a capitalistic society has no bearing here. We live in one. It's not changing. We can chose to stay or go, but I've chosen to stay. Perhaps you will chose otherwise? Completely your decision. For now, I'm staying and enjoying the vast diversity California has to offer.

I am honestly tired of arguing with you... which I'm beginning to believe is your sole purpose here. I really don't care what your purpose is at this point. I've came to the conclusion that you are young, idealistic, and refuse to look at the realism of living in this world and learning to work with others. Hopefully that will come with time and experience. Perhaps when you have children you will learn compassion. Perhaps you will learn to be accepting of others despite their beliefs and opinions. Nothing is ever going to go your way 100 percent of the time. Sure fight for what you think is right, but compromise and understanding can get you a long way. Again, you obviously have more time and passion to devote to arguing. I do not.

[GradStudentLeper]

You'd be amazed at how often species disappear from habitat set aside for them but remain on privately owned property. National Parks really screwed up, for example, by planting sport fish to attract tourists - while many private land owners, including ranches, did not do such things and thus still have native rana species.

I am a biologist. I am not shocked by that at all. I am aware that national parks stock fish, and those fish screw up the local ecosystem. I even know some of the mechanisms by which they do it (for example: Introduced trout in the mountains of CA not only eat frog tadpoles directly, but are also preyed upon by Thamnophis atratus. This severs the dependency of the snakes on frogs, but because they still prey on the frogs their increased population sizes put additional pressure on frog populations already imperilled by agrocultural pollution and the direct effects of introduced trout)

It all depends on what the rancher is doing. Even heavily used cattle ponds on a ranch with thousands of cattle are suitable for some highly adaptable species (not most of your native frogs by the way, but a lot of toads. Some native rana can live there, but their populations are unstable and they are particularly vulnerable to bullfrog competition/predation in those ponds, as their tadpoles cannot compete with said bullfrogs for food in the microhabitats available in such ponds). Large scale prive cattle ranches (as opposed to state trust land) to my knowledge tend to completely destroy the habitat of all but the most resilient of amphibians (Like woodhouses toads, you might get some snakes that take advantage of rodents though...), and pretty much everything else for that matter. Moreover it does so over entire water sheds due to runoff from cow feces and subsequent eutrophication.

However if we are talking about a large tract of "ranches" (by which I mean rich people with horses or a large property they use as a private hunting preserve) the actual ecosystem changes are minimal, and this can represent a significant amount of protected land with minimal roads or human traffic.

You are shifting goal posts, arguing initially that agriculture is less damaging than urbanization to various organisms, then citing as an example something that is not agriculture.



Nothing was said about completely unregulated farming.

I just reread the original statement, I misread it and apologize.



Much of the water shortage currently going on is artificial, caused by a small minnow in the Delta. Seems they sometimes get killed in the pumps, so they turned the pumps off.

Our politicians are too stupid to figure out the unemployment costs are likely higher than the cost of a captive breeding program to supplement the wild minnow population.



I am not talking about the minnow (and did read the sensationalist article you reference). The farmers of the central valley (and indeed all of CA) dont just get their water locally (and they do...), but they import water from other states. Namely, Arizona and Nevada via the Colorado River Basin. Agriculture makes up the vast majority of the water use in the state. As the population grows throughout the region water gets pulled from reservoirs like lake meade and lake powell. The Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean, and the rate at which water is being removed from the reservoirs is not sustainable (the southwest has been in drought conditions for a decade) and is growing. Water prices are artificially kept low, and thus there is no check on demand.

This can largely be solved by cutting off the farmers from growing crops they have no business growing. Ex. Thou Shalt Not Grow Cotton In the Desert. It took the ESA being invoked to protect a fish being killed in the water pumps to get this done, because local politicians are more about their short term careers than the long term survival of their state.

And dont even get me started agricultural runoff from the central valley eutrophicating the ocean, and sex reversing frogs. Atrazine is not your friend.


When people starve, you end up with revolution. War does a lot of damage.

We already produce more than enough food (in western countries) to feed the worlds already inflated population. You propose a false dilemma. We have famine and hunger in places like central Africa because of systemic local problems (poor infrastructure, corruption, and poverty), oh and capitalism (Africa: the ultimate capitalist paradise, where people cannot buy food literally starve in the gutter)



I suspect, btw, that you'll find most ecological damage actually comes from lawns and pesticides used to keep lawns green aphids off the roses.

Farmers use science for the application of their fertilizers and pesticides, often they are required to by law but it also is cheaper for them. Use too much and the cost of excess hurts their bottom line, it is worthwhile for them to do frequent soil samples, etc.[/quote]
It all depends on what pesticide you refer to, and where you sample. If you look at reports of pesticide use done by the USGS, it is very clear that both urban and agricultural areas dump pesticides into watersheds. However they are different pesticides, and many many more agricultural samples were taken than urban samples. Looking at the distribution maps, you can see that most of the heavily polluted (measured as concentrations of a pesticide that breech a toxicological benchmark for wildlife health) urban streams are in major metro areas (New York, Chicago, Dallas etc). There were not many such areas sampled, but the ones that were were very bad.

The agricultural streams sampled that meet the same criteria, while they are a lower percentage, are the ones that run through large tracts of continuous agricultural land such as the Midwest and SE US, but not so much in agricultural regions in Montana, which are more scattered) . There were many many more of these sampled. What this basically means is that the net-effect of agriculture is higher, but so is the variation between sites. However the variation between urban sites was lower.
Moreover, when dangerous levels of pesticides are measured in animals tissues, a higher percentage of agricultural watersheds are heavily affected. Additionally, when human benchmarks are measured fewer urban streams were dangerous to people, but the groundwater was more contaminated. This suggests that the damage done remains local.
Moreover, urban areas don’t fertilize their streets and create nitrogen runoff…


Joe Six Pac does not use science, his runoff probably does more damage.
The USGS says otherwise.

We do need to change the way we farm and go more organic, but keep in mind, the less pesticides used the lower the crop yield, thus more land needs to be turned into farmland to feed the population.
Organic farms actually still use pesticides… they just don’t use synthetic ones. They use things like sprayed BT, and they introduce non-native bio-control agents. Their reliance on manure is also problematic as any science that gets done by conventional farms to balance soil nutrition cannot be done with ungulate feces, creating more runoff. That is in addition to the massive increase in land clearances.
What needs to be done is a switch to GM crops that resist drought and insects in order to maintain the same crop yield, relocate where we grow certain crops (read: thou shalt not grow crops with high water needs in the desert), place massive excise taxes on meat to decrease demand (because every kg of meat requires 8 kgs of vegatation) , and we need to institute population control to curve population growth (as it stands, we will reach the point were the planet cannot sustain our population in 40 years) . I would propose a cap and trade system on children…

Just clearing more land is shortsighted will not actually solve any problems.

[GradStudentLeper]

Have you been to the central valley of California? I'm not talking about slashing and burning anything.See above, I misread initial statement.


The farms are already here and well established. And that was OK back in the depression. As it stands now their practices are not sustainable in the long run, and they are too shortsighted to change them. Perhaps economic necessity will teach them a lesson about growing crops that are not drought resistant in a desert. If not, perhaps they will die off and someone who has learned that lesson will take their place.


For now, I'm staying and enjoying the vast diversity California has to offer. That diversity only exists because the state and federal government protect large portions of the state from the developers and the farmers wrecking ball. Even that is not enough though, because agriculture kills just about everything down stream and downwind. If current farming practices are allowed to continue, much of that diversity will not last long.




I am honestly tired of arguing with you... which I'm beginning to believe is your sole purpose here.My purpose is to contribute to this forum. I happen to be an argumentative person, and do not view contribution as anything other than trying to spur on personal and intellectual growth in others. Doing this however has a tendency to ruffle feathers. I dont mind it.





I've came to the conclusion that you are young, idealistic, and refuse to look at the realism of living in this world and learning to work with others. Science is not like politics. It does not bargain. It is a verifiable fact that the combination of water use, population growth, and poor farming practices used world wide are detrimental to effectively every multi-cellular organism known to man but the ones that have specifically co-evolved with us (like rats). This fact does not care how much it irritates others, or harms their interests to admit. It will not say "your opinion is just as valid as mine" it is reality.

When working with others comes into play, is at the negotiating table, where value and ethics come into play. Ethics and policy I have found is a matter of playing competing interests against eachother. I take a hard line for a tactical reason. I am competent and educated, most of the people in my side of the fence are not (read: Hippies who protest by camping in trees), and grandstanding emotional arguments do not actually win political battles. Intellect in policy making does.

I take a hard line in discussions for two reasons:

1) I am a formidable intellectual oponent (by my own standards anyway) and am capable of competantly defending such a position, my fellow environmentalists are often not.

2) When negotiating you make trade offs. Those on my side of the fence who actually make policy tend to argue from the middle. In other words they argue from the position of the tradeoff they hope to make, not their ideal scenario. If you have ever haggled over a price you will know why this is a bad thing tactically. The other side will argue from the extreme and demand concessions. This means that they get more of what they want than the environmentalists, and now you get to see why US environmental policy is so screwed up and how the word "sustainability" is basically a feel good word with no bite...




Hopefully that will come with time and experience. Perhaps when you have children you will learn compassion. I do have compassion. I feel nothing but pity for poverty stricken farmers. On the other hand I cannot let that pity affect the results of a cost-benefit analysis. Their farming practices were poor, and have impacts that go beyond their interests. In my estimation those interests are bigger than theirs, given that alternatives to their current practices exist.

As for children, the only way that will ever happen is if a lesbian in a bar called the "Rainbow Rooster" gets so drunk she thinks I am Cameron Diaz, and I simultaneously think she is Christian Bale.



Perhaps you will learn to be accepting of others despite their beliefs and opinions. See above about how science does not bargain, and then subsequent section on tradeoffs and negotiation over values. I can accept you for your beliefs and opinions, and still argue. The key point is that I do not take it personally. EX. I am a left wing technocrat politically. However I know several right wing neo-luddites who I get along with.



Nothing is ever going to go your way 100 percent of the time. See above about negoatiation. I am actually a bitter and cynical person who is accustomed to having things distinctly NOT go my way. Have you ever seen a population of an animal you work with become extirpated due to development? I have.


Sure fight for what you think is right, but compromise and understanding can get you a long way.
ANd if you start from a position of compromise, your interests get shafted.


Again, you obviously have more time and passion to devote to arguing. I do not.Once the semester begins and I have classes, research and teaching, I wont either...

[Stefan-A]

2) When negotiating you make trade offs. Those on my side of the fence who actually make policy tend to argue from the middle. In other words they argue from the position of the tradeoff they hope to make, not their ideal scenario. If you have ever haggled over a price you will know why this is a bad thing tactically. The other side will argue from the extreme and demand concessions. This means that they get more of what they want than the environmentalists, and now you get to see why US environmental policy is so screwed up and how the word "sustainability" is basically a feel good word with no bite...
The reason they argue from the middle, is that if they argued from extreme, they wouldn't get anything at all. Frankly, it's not like haggling over a price, it's begging, plain and simple and there's a reason beggars don't ask for a months wage.

Even if the reality of it is that listening to the environmentalists would benefit everybody in the long run, that's not how it's viewed and that's not something that holds a lot of weight at the negotiation table. The other side can afford to argue from the extreme. The prevalent notion is that they don't really have to make any concessions at all, unless it's good for business.

I agree that "sustainability" is a feel-good word, with very little bite. However, if you want any results at all, the only realistic option is to sell environmentalism as a system that doesn't completely ignore economic and social aspects.



My purpose is to contribute to this forum. I happen to be an argumentative person, and do not view contribution as anything other than trying to spur on personal and intellectual growth in others. Doing this however has a tendency to ruffle feathers. I dont mind it.
A commendable goal, but you really need to work on your methods. Right now it's not so much spurring growth, as stirring s***.

[mustang]

My point exactly. Of course, having any land turned into protected public land is ideal... and yours was an awesome example!... but we still live in a capitalistic society and if I have to chose between farm land and development I'll chose farmers every time.
but if it is buldozed it wont be farm land and itll be in a city ordinance so no hunting, people will kill every snake they see as they move in, and worst of all ull tick me off so dont do it...keep texas wild!!!