Fifty years ago, the Everglades were having problems, so the government did something practical to fix it. They got the tractors out.
Now, we have a brilliant president who wants to fix the Everglades by spending billions of dollars on climate snake oil.
Yes, and instead of building sea walls, they want the entire powered by windmills.
state, nation, world.
I suggest we book the hotel Ritz-Carlton in Tokyo for COP 50 negotiators. After all,it is our last chance to save the planet. Paris COP 21 will be nothing but a junket,so let’s book that so they can decide where to meet for COP51.
OT
For all the other ladies on this blog
http://www.picturesmix.com/media/images/a-rose.jpg
http://www.catalannewsagency.com/life-style/item/catalans-celebrate-sant-jordi-day-by-exchanging-roses-and-books-with-their-loved-ones
Thank You Robert.
It is too early for our roses to bloom. These babies are now appearing
https://auntiedogmasgardenspot.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/violets-62643.jpg?w=590
For you:
https://auntiedogmasgardenspot.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/delightful-violets-flowers-still-life-table-vase-violets.jpg?w=590
My paternal grandparents were part of the first official motorcade to cross the Everglades, in their brand new Model A Ford. As a kid I found the original sakes slip along with a certificate that they had participated in this trip, in one of grandad’s old naval trunks.
My dad was quite upset about the Army Corps of Engineers screwing with the glades, as a native of the area, he understood the need to just leave it be,
When he was a boy (probably starting about age 6-7), he used to take a bus from Miami to Ft Myers to visit family. Along the way the bus would sometimes stop to pick up Seminoles, and he said they smelled to high heaven, because they would cover themselves in bear fat to ward off mosquitos. And one Seminole he saw from time to time, was missing an ear. My dad asked the bus driver about the missing ear, and was told that was what the Seminoles did to gossipers.
Let’s hope that the Seminoles cut off the bus driver’s ear for spreading that cruel and unfounded rumor!
(Sorry! I just can never pass up a little bit of self-referential humor.)
🙂
I really don’t understand out obsession with preserving and even building new mosquito and alligator infested swamps. IMO, the Everglades should be dredged and turned into dry land, ponds and navigable channels. It would add $billions in value. I’m pretty sure lawns, ponds and golf courses can absorb rain water. The runoff would probably be no greater than today.
Not from Forida?
The obsession with preserving swamps has nothing to do with swamps and everything do do with controling privite property. It is a Progressive assault on private property rights to the point where no one thinks anything about having to get permision from multiple agencies before you can do a DARN THING.
Private property is now GOVERNMENT PROVERTY that you pay taxes on to lease from the government. You now must get PERMISSION to do just about anything. Heck a renter has more rights in the state of MA than the owner of the property does.
Gail, I agree that the government should not be telling private property owners what to do on their land, unless it causes real harm to others.
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
-Thomas Jefferson
But the Everglades is a National Park, and a World Heritage site, it is not simply a swamp. As someone whose family settled Florida, I know how important and diverse an ecosystem it really is.
http://www.nps.gov/ever/index.htm
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/76
The largest singular man made ecological disaster in the world, was the elimination of the Tall Grass Prairies of the Midwest. But those were just fields.
The everglades are pretty unique and should be preserved as a National Park. Love the drive across alligator ally.
My father’s parents were part of the ‘Opening Celebration of the Tamiami Trail’, in their brand new Model A Ford Touring Car.
https://www.scgov.net/History/Marker%20Photos/Opening%20of%20Tamiami%20Trail,%201927.jpg
Gator, National parks are expressly FOR preservation of unique ecosystems and have nothing to do with refusing to allow people to drain swamps on private property. If the Darn beaver come in and dam up a stream flooding 40 acres of land you are not allowed to ‘restore’ your farmland to its previous condition without the blessings of the federal, state and local government….
Of course those same idiots are drinking the water and getting ‘beaver fever’ because my stream full of beaver feces laden with giardia empties a few feet above the water intake for the city…. Karma can be a bitch.
Gail, this is what prompted my comment…
IMO, the Everglades should be dredged and turned into dry land, ponds and navigable channels…
That is a National Park.
No problem gator.
When the environmental movement first started back in the 1960/70s and my more socialist caving buddies had discussions about ‘saving the environment’ I stopped them cold with two comments.
#1. Criminal trespass. If the air, water or land pollution crosses your border you are in violation of the law so sue the shit out of the violator.
#2. Instead of taking away the right of people to do what they wish on their own land – BUY IT if it has an endangered species proved to be living on it. The USA does have eminent domain. (Many EPA reports about endangered species were fraudulant BTW, but nothing was done to the employees who lied.)
Agreed.
The Rockefeller family has a long tradition of supporting national parks through philanthropy. They’ve established or enhanced more than 20 national parks from Maine to Wyoming – including Grand Teton, Acadia, Virgin Islands, Shenandoah, and Great Smoky Mountains. As an advisor to five American presidents and chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Resource Review Commission and President’s Advisory Council, Laurance S. Rockefeller, son of John D. Rockefeller Jr., helped place conservation issues on the national agenda.
http://www.nps.gov/partnerships/rockefeller_family.htm
Another reason why I love rich people!
We have driven a pair and even a four-in-hand in Acadia national park and on the Rockefeller estate, part of which is open to carriages.
This even looks like beau and spider my trainers pair of Standardbreds.
http://ouracadia.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Carriage-Roads.jpg
I have some great photos from that park.
Acadia is one of the few National Parks I have not visited. I once thought about a career with the Park Service, but figured I would end up guarding this…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/STL_Skyline_2007_edit_cropped.jpg
… instead of safeguarding this…
http://historictamaracklodge.com/files/2012/03/6.jpg
More photos of Acadia here:
http://ouracadia.com/blog/Xanthus/jordan-pond/
Speaking of my favorite places, some new data on Yellowstone…
Scientists recently discovered a large reservoir deep underneath Yellowstone’s supervolcano that contains so much magma that it could fill the Grand Canyon 11.2 times.
The reservoir was found by University of Utah seismologists who completed what’s considered the first, most detailed picture of the “continuous volcanic plumbing system under Yellowstone,” postdoctoral researcher Hsin-Hua Huang said in a statement.
“That includes the upper crustal magma chamber we have seen previously plus a lower crustal magma reservoir that has never been imaged before and that connects the upper chamber to the Yellowstone hotspot plume below,” he said.
This upper crust chamber, which was previously known, could fill the Grand Canyon 2.5 times.
The scientists emphasized that their research doesn’t mean the volcano carries an increased danger nor is it closer to erupting. They simply used more advanced techniques to get a better picture of the system as a whole.
“The magma chamber and reservoir are not getting any bigger than they have been, it’s just that we can see them better now using new techniques,” study co-author Jamie Farrell said.
http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Yellowstone-magma_1.jpg
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/04/24/shockingly-large-magma-store-hiding-underneath-yellowstone-could-fill-the-grand-canyon-more-than-11-times/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Firewire&utm_campaign=Firewire%20-%20HORIZON%204-24-15%20FINAL
Gator, I read your Yellowstone link.
This part caught my attention:
“Three of the last supervolcano eruptions at Yellowstone took place 2 million, 1.2 million and 640,000 years ago. Researcher and emeritus professor Robert Smith said the annual risk for a catastrophic eruption today is about 1 in 700,000.”
Upon looking at the above my question is this: If for catastrophic eruption we have a periodicity of ~600Kyr, and we are ~40Kyr past that average, how can the annual odds of catastrophic eruption be 1 in 700K?
Odds of a given event are a mathematical constant, like flipping a coin. No matter how many times you flip the coin, the odds of heads or tails remains constant.
To be precise, he should have said, “the annual risk for a catastrophic eruption is about 1 in 700,000”, and left out the “today” part. The likelihood increases with the passage of time, but not the odds.
I see your point. I think the likelyhood is maybe 2 orders of magnitude less, But, even if I could get somewhere near the 700,000 to 1 odds at Vegas or somewhere, I don’t think it’s a great bet till the glaciers start pushing down again.
The only swamp that needs to be drained immediately is Washington, DC.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/171992/americans-losing-confidence-branches-gov.aspx
Excerpt from Victor Davis Hanson’s book “The Land was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer”
https://books.google.com/books?id=EIO43YUvvlgC&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=victor+davis+hanson;+tractor+vs+stump&source=bl&ots=4MDRZqRbUv&sig=UdM_pHRAa2O2iJPeYohmQM2FT6s&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qHk6Vb6dF8bfggTKtIHIBw&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=victor%20davis%20hanson%3B%20tractor%20vs%20stump&f=false
=============
Any typo’s are mine.
“…and tractor versus vine. I have seen neighbors milling around a tractor chained to an ancestral stump to watch the latter. As its spinning treads ground up the road, the chain links stretched and were about to explode. The tree was heaving, and everyone was rapt to see whether tractor, road, chain, driver, or stump would give first. Root versus piston always draws a crowd.
———–
It was a good book, that part still sticks with me.
Use pigs. The old timers would make deep holes among the stump roots and fill the holes with corn. Then they would turn the hogs loose in the area with the stumps to be removed. The big hogs going after the corn would uproot the stumps. 500# plus hog vs stump, hog wins.
I know I gave no context, but it was in California’s central valley, hogs might be hard to come by ? 🙂
Just go to the local biker bar!
Once you invite the bikers in, it’s hard to get them out.
Just say’n.
Yep! and everything else that goes with it.