Any time you can ignore court orders and be fined nearly $40k a day in fines for 6 years with no jail time or even escalations in fines you have proven the controlling agency has no real authority.
Guaranteed there’s more to this than she’s saying, and a reason it was illegal to move the waterway…like this “ditch” was really a natural stream and he destroyed “messy” wetlands and the stream habitat and maybe an endangered species because he didn’t like them.

Edit- Close…he dug a pond on a stream going through his property without federal permits (he got local permits but those don’t cover waterways), dumping the spoils where they would get washed downstream. He refused to talk to the EPA or mitigate the stream contamination and just ignored them and ignored the courts for years, and racked up huge fines…which were waived in the end and he was forced to plant trees to stop erosion and temporarily fence it off to keep his livestock away from his stock pond (making it useless).

In the end this is a story of wishywashy government UNDERREACH @bobknight33, not tyrannical government overreach…it’s an obstinate asshole getting away with blatantly and intentionally ignoring the law and the courts and his downstream neighbors and a government agency that let him do it with no real repercussions. What was your point? That Republicans thumb their noses at laws and order? 😂

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Sierra-Space-LIFE-Habitat-Burst-Test

Sierra Space LIFE Habitat Burst Test has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy.

Your video, Sierra Space LIFE Habitat Burst Test, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Um, I notice their data ends in 2012 - 2015, while CCD was just becoming a serious issue. My last 3 hives had CCD.
Can bees be repopulated, yes, by splitting remaining hives and ramping up distribution channels, but that’s not sustainable and lowers the hive production to dangerously low levels. Hives can produce honey or new bees, but not both in large quantities.
Also, it’s an expensive proposition, rehiving. A nuc costs $200, a new clean hive another $250+- with a near 50% chance it won’t survive each year, it’s an expensive hobby and a real loss when they go down. Eventually people will give up trying in large quantities, then what?
And, as mentioned, wild bees pollinate most plants, and no one is working hard and making money producing large quantities of wild bee hives.

Over the last decade, the numbers have changed. There has been a severe decline in domestic bee population while demand has risen. Also, the commercial hives left often have been split many times, meaning 20000 is a far more normal population of a hive than 80000, and clearly does less pollinating, less honey production, and less new bee production.

It doesn’t have to be an either or choice, I’ve had beehives and fostered wild bee habitat at the same time. I have 30 fruit trees, I need all the bees I can get to visit.

I think the real answer to why you don’t hear about it as much lately is 1) War in Europe and 2) Coup in America, both of which dominate any news reports.

I hope this monument to opulence fails miserably and the developers lose their shirts.
There’s no way they won’t damage or destroy that reef.
The first big storm is going to destroy much of the sand island.
But, 10% are special protection zones! Won’t matter, they can’t survive if huge amounts of the non protected reef are destroyed.

Not to mention sea level rise will put it underwater quickly, it’s barely above current sea level in the plans.

Look at Mexico, dozens of comparatively tiny resorts not even on the reefs, but on land, and that reef is not 10% what it was in the mid 80’s. Building ON the reef is guaranteed to destroy it, as is tourism.

I hate when companies are allowed to build on natural wonders to exploit the beauty, they invariably destroy that beauty within decades. That entire reef/coastline should be off limits to construction so the two desert properties have an attraction. When the reefs die from sun tan lotion poisoning, bleaching, sand displacement, accidents with supply ships, the first major fuel spill, etc, that place will be a $5 billion waste, abandoned to the desert.

Remember the “islands of the world” project in Dubai? This sounds even less thought out than they were, more ecologically disastrous, needing more infrastructure to be built, requiring ships to bring fuel as there’s no nearby port to run pipelines from (guaranteeing oil spills). All for what? So billionaires can get off their yachts for a while in luxury?

Wiki-Significant changes in the maritime environment [of Dubai]. As a result of the dredging and redepositing of sand for the construction of the islands, the typically crystalline waters of the Persian Gulf at Dubai have become severely clouded with silt. Construction activity is damaging the marine habitat, burying coral reefs, oyster beds and subterranean fields of sea grass, threatening local marine species as well as other species dependent on them for food. Oyster beds have been covered in as much as two inches of sediment, while above the water, beaches are eroding with the disruption of natural currents.

That was a $12 billion project to exploit the pristine coast and beautiful waters that no longer exist, the islands themselves are sinking and eroding, most were evacuated or never used at all, the water is now mud colored, the reefs are gone. An unmitigated disaster. This sounds extremely similar.

Oppose this and similar projects.

I hope that's not a bat habitat.

I can't believe they didn't close the ramp. Fire destroys concrete.

That’s just blocks from my brother’s house.

Trump has blamed State governors for fires on federal land for 3 1/2 years+ but has done nothing to solve the problems on land he controls.

The failure has been in the making longer than that, try since the industrial revolution. I live in a rain forest starting it's third decade of drought. It's a major climate shift. The science is settled, not in question for decades.

No, he needs to listen to the professional forest managers already there instead of ignoring them because he knows more about everything than anyone. See his recent meeting with California's forest managers for examples of his stupidity, his plan is just like for Covid, do nothing, blame others, deny there's a problem, claim it will just go away, blame others again, pat himself on the back for a job perfectly done.

His idea, rake the forests, is just dumb and impossible. Only a complete moron believes you can rake up 33 million acres of mountainous forests, including removing all forest litter which is necessary habitat for many forest creatures and downed trees like redwoods that are useless as lumber. Only a stupid ignoramus believes that's a solution.

Let's say it costs about $1000 per acre, a vast underestimation, that's an extra $330 billion per year for raking California's forests alone. Is Trump offering to fund that, or is he cutting funding instead? (Hint, he cut funding)

Much of the mismanagement is from fighting fires. For decades the plan was don't let any fire burn, that's left forests with 2-5 times the fuel it would naturally have. The last decade that's been realised and when possible fires are allowed to burn. It's too little too late.

Trump's idea of draining the swamp has been plugging the outlets and pumping millions of gallons of sewage into it. That means removing career civil servants and selling positions to friends and contributors with no experience and massive conflicts of interests. Trump's is the most criminal administration ever, with more convictions than any other including Nixon. Politics are incredibly more swampy than before Trump, and the state of the union is crumbling and poised to dissolve into another civil war.

🤦‍♂️

If the remarks being contradicted are not only smug they're also ridiculous, devoid of fact, racist, and or dangerously stupid (like insisting in May that Coronavirus is a hoax that's not dangerous and is a "nothing burger", and everyone should be back at work), and contradicting them with facts and references and +- 1/4 the disrespect the original remarks contained makes people vote for Trump, that does indicate they were already trumpsters imo.

Edit: It's like Democrats have a high bar to clear, but Republicans have no depth too deep to stoop to.

Trump changes Bob's beliefs daily, every time he changes a position Bob changes his belief to make the new position seem reasonable to him. He is not consistent. No other opinion matters to him.

I don't hold beliefs, I have theories. It's easy to change your theory when given new information, I do all the time. Beliefs don't work that way, so I avoid them as much as possible.

Yes, and I eat animals because they're delicious. I would eat people if they were raised and fed better, but we are polluted beyond recovery imo.

You may be correct, but eating meat is hardly the worst thing humans are up to. Killing for sport seems worse, so do kill "shelters", puppy mills, habitat destruction, ocean acidification, etc....I could go on for pages with that list. I try to eat free range locally farmed on family farms meat, not factory farm meat. I know the difference in quality.

I gladly discuss vegetarianism with honest people, but I'm prepared when they start spouting bullshit like " eating any red meat is more harmful than smoking two packs a day of filterless cigarettes" (yes, someone insisted that was true because they didn't care it wasn't, it helped scare people, I contradicted him every time he lied.) The difference is, I could agree with some of their points that weren't gross exaggeration, I agreed that excessive meat eating is horrible for people, I agree that most meat is produced under horrific conditions, I would not agree that ALL meat is unhealthy in any amount and ALL meat is tortured it's entire lifetime because I know from personal experience that's just not true. We raised cattle, free range cattle, in the 70's. They were happy cows that had an enjoyable life roaming our ranch until the day they went to market, a life they wouldn't have if people didn't eat meat.

I've never met a vegan that wasn't a bold faced liar in support of veganism, so I'm less likely to give them a full chance at convincing me. The fact checking part of my brain goes on high alert when talking with them about health or other issues involved in meat production, with excellent reason.

Again, that would be long held theories in my case, and it's not hard to change them. Mad cow disease got me to change until I was certain it wasn't in America. No, I'm not recoiling. I'll listen to anyone who's respectful and honest.

Here's the thing, Bob consistently trolls in a condescending, self congratulatory, and bat shit crazy way. Turnabout is fair play.
As the only person willing to reply to him for long stretches, I know him. I've had many private conversations with him where he's far more reasonable, honest, willing to admit mistakes, etc. (Something I gave up when he applauded Trump lying under oath because "only a dummy tells the truth under oath if the truth might harm them, Trump winning!") When someone is so anti truth and snide, they deserve some snidely delivered truth in return. Bob has proven he's undeserving of the civility you want him to receive, it's never returned.

Bob does not take anything in from any source not pre approved by Trump. I've tried for a decade, and now know he only comes here to troll the libtards. It doesn't matter if you show him video proof and expert opinions, he'll ignore them and regurgitate more nonsense claiming the opposite of reality. He's not trying to change minds, in case you're confused. He's hoping to trick people who for whatever reason refuse to investigate his factless hyper biased claims and amplify the madness. That he comes here to do that, a site he regularly calls a pure liberal site (it's not) is proof enough to convict him of just trolling.

Trolls deserve derision.

I spent years ignoring his little jabs, insults, derisions, and whinging and trying hard to dispassionately contradict his false claims with pure facts and references, it was no different then.
While privately he would admit he's wrong, he would then publicly repeat the claims he had just admitted were bullshit. When he started supporting perjury from the highest position on earth down as long as they're Republican but still calls for life in prison for democrats that he thinks lied even not under oath, he lost any right to civil replies imo. He bought it when Republican representatives said publicly in interviews that they have no obligation to be truthful with the American people, and he applauds it and repeats their lies with glee.

Edit: in general I agree that dispassionate fact based replies with references are better at convincing people than derision, there are exceptions, and there are those who are unconvinceable and disinterested in facts that don't support their lies. How long are you capable of rebutting them with just fact and references when they are smug, snide, insulting, dangerous, and seriously delusional if not just purely dishonest?

Rebuttal?

Sure.
For newts, it's everything.
Leaf litter, twigs and branches, and downed trees are all imperative for a healthy forest....as is periodic fire in most cases. They are habitat for most forest animals.
They also moderate soil humidity, keeping it from drying out to dust, and return nutrients to the soil for plants to utilize.

Few forests could survive being raked clean, none would remain healthy.

A good, even *quality idea....for 40+ years ago.

It took 100+ years to mortally wound the ocean by 1000 cuts. A bandaid on one wound is not going to turn it around, and we almost certainly aren't going to do it anyway. Countries that don't buy into the plan will simply harvest most of the fish left by those who do. This only works in small scale preserves that are guarded against poaching, often by a military.

Fish stocks are disappearing at an alarming rate, many going extinct. For those species, it's too late, and they are numerous, and they are largely the fish humans prefer. Many others are in such decline fishing for them is already off limits or severely curtailed, like commercial salmon, abalone, and crab fishing in California. Even those actions have failed to revive their populations year after year.

Diatoms, phytoplankton, and other similar biotas are at the limit of acidity and temperature they can tolerate, and they are the base of the ocean food web, feeding most fish when they are fry or larvae. The gasses in the atmosphere today will push diatoms over that precipice with a massive ocean extinction following soon afterwards, and we continue to add more greenhouse gases than we added yesterday every day.

Then there's habitat loss, coral reefs and kelp forests are both being decimated by temperature rise and acidification. Together they are food and habitat for 25%-50% of all ocean fish and shellfish.

Less over harvesting of the ocean is a good idea, but pretending it alone can save the oceans is pure fantasy. The ocean has absorbed as much as 90+% of the excess heat from global warming, causing oceanic heat waves that destroy habitats both directly and indirectly. There is NO plan that solves that problem, it's well beyond our capabilities under the best conditions with worldwide maximum efforts.

Just sayin'.

If you have the option of burning rainforest to build a sad farm (they are poor, temporary farms created from rainforests), then you already have the clean air and orangutan habitat. Sell it as carbon offsets to existing polluters until a better system is created, don't destroy it permanently to make far less money for a short time. Duh.
Again, this bullshit idea that thoughtful conservation is antithetical to economic gains is pure, utter bullshit. Not destroying and polluting is almost always better economically if you force polluters to pay for cleanup, or if you look at the big picture. Burn the Amazon or starve aren't our only choices.

? Are you implying that famine and/or water shortages somehow preclude war and disease? I think they're major causes.

No, that's a myth. We have resources enough to do some amazing things if we properly apply them, not anything, and without the will to apply them, almost nothing. Having everything you need for success besides direction is a guarantee of failure.

Depends, if you remove the human factor and look only at total resources vs global need, there are still major logistic hurdles to just feeding everyone, not to mention resource problems if we want the biosphere to be healthy and not homogenized down to humans and our farm animals.

Odd, international law has been enforced since ww2 with only few exceptions with no WW3, only sanctions, bribes, and relatively minor skirmishes. I don't know where you get the idea that only a gun to the head might be coercive when a gun to the economy has worked so well for so long.

You should be hysterical. If you aren't shitting your pants over the state of the world, you aren't paying attention or you're absolutely delusional. Civilization and the habitatability of the planet are both on a clear path to collapse and people are busying themselves with arguments over will it be 50 years out or 100, or maybe 150 instead of making substantive changes to mitigate what's now unavoidable....or even prepare.
A hysterical voice is the only one I think indicates an understanding of the problem and total lack of a working solution.

THNX

I do believe it is.

If my world is not very habitable in the first place and I have the option of setting fire to some rainforest to build a farm, sell me some clean air and Orangutang habitat in exchange for good karma and poverty, please.

On the other hand if I make decisions that impact hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis without much recourse to anything in particular (party line? military commanders? local clans? religious leaders?) what does a teenagers speech on the opposite side of the planet change for me? Its just completely off the playing field of making important decisions.

I hear her cry, now calm down and look for ways to actually improve the situation, please.

Suing Argentina for breaking childrens rights? Not bad, human rights cases were actually a good method to fight communist regimes in the 70s and 80s. Just a very slow grinding method.

*Heavy sigh*
No. They don't say that. The science has evolved in the last 5 years. (Edit: Might check how old and out of date that ipcc report is, btw. Please note you ignore all science done since the 2014 IPCC report you reference that used melting equations and extrapolated rather than measured data sets, data and models they admit are incomplete. They have not updated their sea level estimates since the fifth assessment, which itself raised them approximately 60% over the fourth, which raised them significantly from the third...... Other nonpolitical scientific groups have adjusted the findings to include up to 6.5' or higher rise by 2100 under worst case conditions, the path we're firmly on today.)

Even if you were correct, and I don't agree one bit you are, is just under a 3' rise not bad enough for you in the next 70 years? That's at least 140 million people and all coastal habitats displaced, with more to come. I and others expect worse, but surely that's disaster enough for you, isn't it? The world couldn't deal with one million Syrians, 140 million coastal refugees, and whatever number of non coastal climate refugees fleeing drought or flood sure seems an unavoidable planetary disaster. That doesn't consider the two billion people who rely on Himalayan glaciers for their water, glaciers in rapid retreat.

I guess you dismiss the science from NOAA based simply on it being presented in Forbes without reading it then....so I should just dismiss the IPCC, another non scientific economically focused group discussing science?

Here's some more science then. Edit: Seems most CURRENT projections using up to date data are more in line with my expectations than yours.

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-metre-sea-plausible.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48337629

https://time.com/5592583/sea-levels-rise-higher-study/

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5056

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/10/sea-level-in-the-5th-ipcc-report/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise
Note the updated chart near the top showing more current projections compared to ipcc predictions.

*my content?*