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Is the environment a partisan issue?

Grand Mal

Grand Mal

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Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
 
Follow the money. Fox news has such a stranglehold on the minds of Americans as well.
 
Grand Mal said:
Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
Click to expand...

It becomes (particularly) partisan when it comes to proposed solutions.
 
Harshaw said:
It becomes (particularly) partisan when it comes to proposed solutions.
Click to expand...

This.

For example:

"Large Cities are particularly horrific when it comes to pollution, and generally represent the greatest concentration of things like CO2 emissions, destruction of grasslands, woodlands, and other natural habitats, and waste production. We should therefore ban cities from growing beyond a certain point, and tax cities above a certain size an extra surcharge in order to compensate for the ecological damage they are doing to the rest of us."


Anyone wanna bet Democrats would oppose the crap out of that?
 
Grand Mal said:
Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
Click to expand...

Atlantic salmon are no threat to the native ecosystem, they are less aggressive than the hatchery pacific Salmon, are eaten by the same predators, and the waters are not cold enough for them to thrive. In the 1920s BC engaged in a massive effort to introduce them on purpose, stocking rivers with millions of Atlantic salmon, there has never been any successful breeding populations established. So I think your concerns are not borne out by science. The fish that escaped Washington’s fish farms a couple years ago didn’t thrive either.

They have Atlantic salmon farms in Chile as well, to the best of my knowledge escaped fish have never successfully established a population, however in the 1970s Washington state hatchery king salmon were released into Chile’s southern rivers and the Strait of Magellen and soon spread into rivers in Argentina and the Atlantic Ocean (the Southern Hemisphere has no indigenous fish species similar to Salmon)

So while the company if they direct insults at you shouldn’t do that, I really don’t feel what they’re doing is any sort of threat to the eco system, at least not for invasive species. Atlantic salmon are not as hardy as the pacific species.


I will also say I’m generally not sympathetic to the argument you’re using because what project could be built if every small group of people who would be marginally effected could veto a project? I mean a handful of urban activists are why we have cases of nuclear waste ready to leach into the Columbia river instead of being buried under Yucca mountain where it literally cannot harm any drinking water source used by anyone. Sometimes a project gets built and some people won’t like it, no one asked me if I wanted a shellfish farm below my tideflats but I also don’t care.
 
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cpwill said:
This.

For example:

"Large Cities are particularly horrific when it comes to pollution, and generally represent the greatest concentration of things like CO2 emissions, destruction of grasslands, woodlands, and other natural habitats, and waste production. We should therefore ban cities from growing beyond a certain point, and tax cities above a certain size an extra surcharge in order to compensate for the ecological damage they are doing to the rest of us."


Anyone wanna bet Democrats would oppose the crap out of that?
Click to expand...

From what I've read the 'carbon footprint' of people who live in large cities is miniscule compared to suburban or rural dwellers. I live out in the sticks and heat with wood and it takes a half-hour driving and a half-hour ferry ride to get me to town. People who live in high-rises downtown don't pollute at anywhere near the rate I do. In a year I probably account for as much atmospheric carbon as 12 stories of downtown families. And an apartment building full of people doesnt destroy anywhere near the green space as a suburban neighbourhood.
So yeah, that idea needs to have the crap opposed out of it. Cities are far more 'green' and sustainable than any alternative scheme for accommodating that many people.
 
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EMNofSeattle said:
Atlantic salmon are no threat to the native ecosystem, they are less aggressive than the hatchery pacific Salmon, are eaten by the same predators, and the waters are not cold enough for them to thrive. In the 1920s BC engaged in a massive effort to introduce them on purpose, stocking rivers with millions of Atlantic salmon, there has never been any successful breeding populations established. So I think your concerns are not borne out by science. The fish that escaped Washington’s fish farms a couple years ago didn’t thrive either.

They have Atlantic salmon farms in Chile as well, to the best of my knowledge escaped fish have never successfully established a population, however in the 1970s Washington state hatchery king salmon were released into Chile’s southern rivers and the Strait of Magellen and soon spread into rivers in Argentina and the Atlantic Ocean (the Southern Hemisphere has no indigenous fish species similar to Salmon)

So while the company if they direct insults at you shouldn’t do that, I really don’t feel what they’re doing is any sort of threat to the eco system, at least not for invasive species. Atlantic salmon are not as hardy as the pacific species.


I will also say I’m generally not sympathetic to the argument you’re using because what project could be built if every small group of people who would be marginally effected could veto a project? I mean a handful of urban activists are why we have cases of nuclear waste ready to leach into the Columbia river instead of being buried under Yucca mountain where it literally cannot harm any drinking water source used by anyone. Sometimes a project gets built and some people won’t like it, no one asked me if I wanted a shellfish farm below my tideflats but I also don’t care.
Click to expand...

So, is environmental concern a partisan issue? Liberal versus conservative? Right versus left? My example aside- is there an environmental issue that would make you, a self-declared rightist, get active about?
 
Grand Mal said:
Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
Click to expand...

It's a partisan issue, because so many people try and use it for their own ends. You have politicians, activist, economist and a whole plethora of other people that just greedily use it as their own personal hammer.
 
Oborosen said:
It's a partisan issue, because so many people try and use it for their own ends. You have politicians, activist, economist and a whole plethora of other people that just greedily use it as their own personal hammer.
Click to expand...

But would you get active about an environmental issue? You're pretty right-of-centre, could you see yourself taking up an environmental cause?
 
Grand Mal said:
So, is environmental concern a partisan issue? Liberal versus conservative? Right versus left? My example aside- is there an environmental issue that would make you, a self-declared rightist, get active about?
Click to expand...

If soil, air and water were being literally poisoned in a manner that cannot be mitigated by activity that is not justified on an economic basis. Pollution saves lives, because the only way pollution exists is with industrialization which advances medicine, science, standard of living, transportation etc.

It would take more then a hypothetical, especially one like escaped Atlantic Salmon which I think is unfounded because in two seperate hemispheres theyve failed to thrive and cannot outcompete the pacific.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
If soil, air and water were being literally poisoned in a manner that cannot be mitigated by activity that is not justified on an economic basis. Pollution saves lives, because the only way pollution exists is with industrialization which advances medicine, science, standard of living, transportation etc.

It would take more then a hypothetical, especially one like escaped Atlantic Salmon which I think is unfounded because in two seperate hemispheres theyve failed to thrive and cannot outcompete the pacific.
Click to expand...

Okay, another example- the environmental movement gained a lot of it's traction in the early 70's by opposing the use of DDT as an insecticide. If that were a current issue would you support the environmentalist cause or oppose it?
I mean, it's just hypothetical but I'm just trying to see how far the partisan divide goes. I'd bet the farm nobody on the left would hesitate to support the banning of DDT, and I suspect that at the time most of the right opposed the ban. Would you agree?
 
Grand Mal said:
But would you get active about an environmental issue? You're pretty right-of-centre, could you see yourself taking up an environmental cause?
Click to expand...

Actually I'm more moderate when compared to todays standards. I volunteered for the democratic party, almost primarily until 2016.

But that aside, yes. I would take up and environmental cause, when and if it presented itself.
 
Grand Mal said:
Okay, another example- the environmental movement gained a lot of it's traction in the early 70's by opposing the use of DDT as an insecticide. If that were a current issue would you support the environmentalist cause or oppose it?
I mean, it's just hypothetical but I'm just trying to see how far the partisan divide goes. I'd bet the farm nobody on the left would hesitate to support the banning of DDT, and I suspect that at the time most of the right opposed the ban. Would you agree?
Click to expand...
I have no doubt but that’s because most people on the left Either desire more central government power or possess an ethical framework that is opposed to improving human life. The 70s environmental movement was based on discredited Malthusian theory and hyperbolic proclamations of future harm. Ehrlich was wrong about literally everything he wrote, abortion was championed as a solution to overpopulation (a phony non issue) among other things. Let’s talk DDT, it is perfectly safe it was just overused, the discontinuation of it caused millions of deaths, and it protected billions of dollars of crops from insects. DDT is actually a good example of how regular Americans are not well informed enough on issues, a lefty named Rachel Carson published a work of fiction with glaring scientific errors and that was the whole basis for the DDT ban. Millions are dead from mosquito borne diseases because of a sci-fi novel
 
Grand Mal said:
Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
Click to expand...

As a social democrat who does not like the anti-science drivel from the global warming sheep I get called a denier of science and a right wing conspiracy nut.

They generally fail to say what science it is I am denying obviously.

These tactics come straight out of the communist play book. Trotskyist communists who were against the Stalinist autocratic/murderous ones were generally called Fascists by them. The Stalinists were better controlling the press.
 
Grand Mal said:
Okay, another example- the environmental movement gained a lot of it's traction in the early 70's by opposing the use of DDT as an insecticide. If that were a current issue would you support the environmentalist cause or oppose it?
I mean, it's just hypothetical but I'm just trying to see how far the partisan divide goes. I'd bet the farm nobody on the left would hesitate to support the banning of DDT, and I suspect that at the time most of the right opposed the ban. Would you agree?
Click to expand...

Worldwide more than 2,700 people will die today because of a bureaucratic regulation instituted during the Nixon administration in 1972. The same number died yesterday and will again tomorrow, in an ever-growing tally of victims of that catastrophic policy. The regulation imposed by Nixon’s newly formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned DDT, an insecticide that had until then saved the lives of countless U.S. citizens. Leaders in Europe and the United Nations followed suit in a frenzy of misguided environmental zeal and bloodthirsty population control fervor.
Click to expand...

DDT Ban Breeds Death

When people with no clue present lies as science, or anybody who does that, death happens in the many millions.

Today about 20 million people per year die as a result of the biofuel policy of the US and EU.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
I have no doubt but that’s because most people on the left Either desire more central government power or possess an ethical framework that is opposed to improving human life. The 70s environmental movement was based on discredited Malthusian theory and hyperbolic proclamations of future harm. Ehrlich was wrong about literally everything he wrote, abortion was championed as a solution to overpopulation (a phony non issue) among other things. Let’s talk DDT, it is perfectly safe it was just overused, the discontinuation of it caused millions of deaths, and it protected billions of dollars of crops from insects. DDT is actually a good example of how regular Americans are not well informed enough on issues, a lefty named Rachel Carson published a work of fiction with glaring scientific errors and that was the whole basis for the DDT ban. Millions are dead from mosquito borne diseases because of a sci-fi novel
Click to expand...

Was it fictin then that DDT caused birds eggshells to be to thin for the chicks to survive and nearly resulted in the extinction of the bald eagle in the lower 48? Not just eagles, other raptors as well.
To address the topic of the thread, it sounds like you consider environmental concerns to be a partisan issue. Is that fair to say?
 
Tim the plumber said:
DDT Ban Breeds Death

When people with no clue present lies as science, or anybody who does that, death happens in the many millions.

Today about 20 million people per year die as a result of the biofuel policy of the US and EU.
Click to expand...

So, yes then? Environmental concern is a partisan issue?
 
It has increasingly become a partisan issue as the Republicans become more and more the party of Trump.
 
Grand Mal said:
Was it fictin then that DDT caused birds eggshells to be to thin for the chicks to survive and nearly resulted in the extinction of the bald eagle in the lower 48? Not just eagles, other raptors as well.
To address the topic of the thread, it sounds like you consider environmental concerns to be a partisan issue. Is that fair to say?
Click to expand...

The biodegradant, DDE, has the impact on life. DDT is not bioavailable. Kinda like mercury, it needs to be digested by microbes before life can absorb it.

Thus, the BS narrative is that "DDT is fine" and Carson was wrong.

Carson was correct. She identified DDE. She began the Environmental Revolution in America.

After she published Silent Spring, she was viciously attacked by the powers that be (the chem company and press) for being a woman in science and for supposedly being a homosexual. During this time, she was dying from cancer. She died amongst the attack, prior to being vindicated, never knowing what she had done.

There are still misogynist anti science anti intellectual scumbags trying to rewrite her history.

If I could go back in history to talk to one person, it would be her to tell her what she did.
 
Grand Mal said:
So, yes then? Environmental concern is a partisan issue?
Click to expand...

If you have an opinion the the right-on lefty crowd does not like they will immediately go to brand you the devil/racist/fascist/denier of science/alt-right nut what ever.

Open honest debate is not what it is about at all.
 
Grand Mal said:
Well, it is, isn't it, but why is it? Why should environmental issues be divided down the liberal-conservative line? Here's a hypothetical example, partly (very light part) true but just an illustration.
I'm retired, living on my Canada Pension and union pension, never been much concerned with environmental issues because that stuff always seemed to be for those with more time on their hands than I've had. Keep myself as busy as I want to be and spend whatever time I can fishing. So I hear there's a proposal to put a fish-farm out in the bay near where I launch my boat, near where I like to drop crab traps. I don't like what I've read about what happens to the bottom under those net-pens and what's worse, they're going to farm Atlantic salmon, which escape now and then. I remember what they taught me in school about introducing a foreign species into an eco-system (oops- there's that 'eco' word) and I don't like that, either. More I think about it, I get more pissed off.
So I write to my MP. I write to the department of fisheries and oceans. Hell, I even write a letter to the editor. And I complain about it to anyone who'll listen and I'm not the only one who likes to fish that area. Next thing you know it gets a mention on the news. Next thing after that the fish-farm company launches a campaign citing 'special-interest groups' (me) and people in the city hundreds of miles away start to talk about it.
Now I'm a left-wing activist. Now I'm anti-progress, anti-jobs and probably a socialist who's against corporate profit, never mind that 90% of my wages had been paid by corporations. A line is drawn, and yep- the line is right down the partisan divide. So my question is, does concern about the negative effects of the proposed fish farm automatically label me a left-winger? Could a conservative ever raise those concerns and maybe take those steps I described?
Click to expand...

Rest assured there are many conservatives who are deeply concerned about the environment. We're not all out to scorch the earth.
 
ecofarm said:
The biodegradant, DDE, has the impact on life. DDT is not bioavailable. Kinda like mercury, it needs to be digested by microbes before life can absorb it.

Thus, the BS narrative is that "DDT is fine" and Carson was wrong.

Carson was correct. She identified DDE. She began the Environmental Revolution in America.

After she published Silent Spring, she was viciously attacked by the powers that be (the chem company and press) for being a woman in science and for supposedly being a homosexual. During this time, she was dying from cancer. She died amongst the attack, prior to being vindicated, never knowing what she had done.

There are still misogynist anti science anti intellectual scumbags trying to rewrite her history.

If I could go back in history to talk to one person, it would be her to tell her what she did.
Click to expand...

How many millions of people do you think have died due to the banning of DDT for use against mosquitoes?
 
Grand Mal said:
Okay, another example- the environmental movement gained a lot of it's traction in the early 70's by opposing the use of DDT as an insecticide. If that were a current issue would you support the environmentalist cause or oppose it?
I mean, it's just hypothetical but I'm just trying to see how far the partisan divide goes. I'd bet the farm nobody on the left would hesitate to support the banning of DDT, and I suspect that at the time most of the right opposed the ban. Would you agree?
Click to expand...

No one, right or left, opposed the ban. But perhaps they should have because it led to a jump in malaria deaths.
 
Tim the plumber said:
How many millions of people do you think have died due to the banning of DDT for use against mosquitoes?
Click to expand...

That's a myth.

First, there are plenty of alternative methods.

Second, DDT has never been banned for the use against mosquitoes indoors and otherwise. Not anywhere in the world. It was banned for use as a broad range pesticide in agriculture.

Unlike you, everyone involved in its regulation was aware of its range, use and volatile nature.

You literally have no clue what you're talking about.
 
ecofarm said:
That's a myth.

First, there are plenty of alternative methods.

Second, DDT has never been banned for the use against mosquitoes indoors and otherwise. Not anywhere in the world. It was banned for use as a broad range pesticide in agriculture.

Unlike you, everyone involved in its regulation was aware of its range, use and volatile nature.

You literally have no clue what you're talking about.
Click to expand...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — The World Health Organization on Friday forcefully endorsed wider use of the insecticide DDT across Africa to exterminate and repel the mosquitoes that cause malaria. The disease kills more than a million people a year, 800,000 of them young children in Africa.
Click to expand...

W.H.O. Supports Wider Use of DDT vs. Malaria - The New York Times

Not according to the World Bank.
 
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