Bush May Create Largest Marine Reserve in the World (NPR)

[Oddsnends]

His ranch is 80 times more efficient than ALGORE's huge, "Used 10% more power this year", Home!

It's nice to know Pres. Bush is taking global warming seriously.

I think Gore believes in using "carbon offsets" to reduce his carbon footprint. Whether that is an acceptable method to reduce atmospheric C02 levels is debatable of course.

I wish we could bring this conversation back on topic, though. I haven't heard much since the initial leak. Anyone hear anything new?

 

[mrlipis]

Original topic? "Conservative is environment friendly". Most of you are shocked and skeptical. That is because the liberal media has convinced you that conservatives don't care about the environment. What a load of crap. The sky isn't falling folks. Necessity is the mother of invention and we can solve our problems without knee jerk reactions. None of us will be able afford to dive in the future if we don't solve our independent energy crisis. More nuclear, more drilling, more wind power and more solar. The caribou will be fine. This can all be done environmentally safe. I'm a lot more worried about the environmental impact of a dirty bomb in New York, than a fricken oil well in the North Pole

I haven't heard much since the initial leak. Anyone hear anything new?.

You probably won't, it is positive and the media won't report positive achievements from this administration.

 

[Noboundaries]

Necessity is the mother of invention. We passed "peak oil supply" back in the 70s. High prices were inevitable due to decreasing supply and increasing demand. Prior to the speculators driving up the price of energy (electricity, then natural gas, then oil) with an energy-supported president in the white house, we only heard of a few attempts to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels, both foreign and domestic. Electric cars and hybrids were pretty much it.

Now our inventive nature is tackling the problem. Fuel cells, compressed gas, and biofuels just to name a few. Has anybody read about the fuel potential of genetically manipulated, vertical grown algae? An acre of corn generates 18 gallons of oil per year. Algae can generate up to 20,000 gallons of oil per year per acre! Plus it can be manipulated to generate specific types of fuel (jet, truck, etc). Check out this movie link. Untitled Document (Valcent Corporation).

Covering one tenth of the state of New Mexico with algae generators would provide all the energy we'd need in the United States for a year. Sure, some endangered spotted owl horney toad will probably be displaced. Oh well.

 

[In10se]

This thread is about the proposed marine sanctuaries, but the underlying fact that it's a proposal of the Bush administration makes it a very suspicious event. Looking at this from the perspective of a conservative I'm interested in the long range beni's, the short term costs, and the overall liabilities we as a nation are going to incur and/or enjoy.

I am a republican on issues and a conservative in general. As a staunch Bush hater, and btw ... anyone who is a Bush supporter with their head in the sand on how poorly of a leader he has been may not like this post ... nothing he does will ever surprise me. We could go on and on about all the scandalous appointments with direct conflicts of interest that Bush has made, but this is not a political Bush bashing thread ... so I'll stay on my leash.

If this marine reserves proposal becomes a reality who will have oversight? The DOI. The Department of the Interior is in charge of these types of projects, so I looked at their site to see if it was mentioned anywhere.

President Bush is proposing $7.9 million to launch a Department of the Interior initiative to help protect ocean and coastal resources through unique partnerships to clean up marine debris, conserve coral reefs, improve ocean science and map vital areas of the U.S. extended continental shelf. This increase is part of the Department’s overall contribution of $956 million to implement the Ocean Action Plan in 2009.

Who runs the DOI? What would be his mandate, and who would he be representing ... us the public, or private interests (oil and chemical companies)? On March 16, 2006, Dirk Kempthorne was selected by Bush to be the Secretary of the Interior. On May 10, 2006, Dirk Kempthorne's nomination was accepted by the United States Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. What is this guy's pedigree? FMC is part of that pedigree. FMC is a chemical, mineral development, and technology company. Go figure. It's also worth noting that Kempthorne recieved the Rubber Dodo award for because he "holds the record for protecting fewer species over his tenure than any Interior Secretary in United States history" source=wiki. With his pedigree and record on not protecting the environment, and who appointed him ... it's not hard to figure this one out. Kempthorne will serve the private interests that led to his appointment on demand.

What would the status of any oil reserves be if they were found and made available for drilling? Who owns the land now and who would profit? Who would decide if the oil could be drilled or not? Does the land falling under the control of the DOI, as it would if the areas were declared as some kind of marine reserve, change anything?

 

[mrlipis]

Plus it can be manipulated to generate specific types of fuel (jet, truck, etc). Check out this movie link. Untitled Document (Valcent Corporation).

Very interesting. Would love to learn more about this company. Can you say Opportunity?
Kind of Ironic, Capitalists exploiting the ecosystem. I love it.

 

[Oddsnends]

September 3, 2008
Editorial
Mr. Bush’s Blue Legacy

President Bush may be on the brink of doing something stunningly at odds with his record as one of the worst environmental stewards ever to inhabit the White House. He is considering setting aside three vast, remote corners of the Pacific Ocean for protection, an area larger than Alaska and Texas combined.

In a memo last month, Mr. Bush directed his administration to develop a plan for creating sanctuaries in the waters around the Northern Mariana Islands, including the Mariana Trench, the world’s deepest; Rose Atoll in American Samoa; and parts of a long, sprawling collection of reefs and atolls known as the Line Islands.

The waters are as isolated and pristine as any part of the globe can be these days, home to countless species of fish and plants, rare turtles and seabirds and glorious reefs. The Mariana Trench is a staggering place; it could swallow Everest. The islands are mostly coral flyspecks, but if the waters around them are protected to the fullest extent possible — to the 200-mile territorial limit — the sanctuaries would total nearly 900,000 square miles. That is bigger than all of Mexico.

Mr. Bush has done something nearly as spectacular once before. In June 2006, he created the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Over the strident objections of some commercial-fishing interests, Mr. Bush created a no-fishing sanctuary covering 140,000 square miles, an area larger than all of the country’s national parks combined.

Mr. Bush used the Antiquities Act of 1906, a little-known statute that allows presidents, by executive order, to protect public lands by designating them as national monuments.

His decision won wide praise, except from the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, known as Wespac, one of eight federal agencies assigned to protect fish and fishing in United States waters. Wespac is notorious among environmental groups as a chronic enabler of reckless commercial fishing.

Wespac’s executive director, Kitty Simonds, is condemning this new idea as punishment of the “brown and yellow people” of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas. In fact, her agency’s customary attitude — fish here, fish now — ignores the strong local support across the Pacific for farsighted stewardship of imperiled oceans, a resource that belongs to future generations as much as it does to all of us.

Mr. Bush’s proposal could shrink in scale as details are hammered out and compromises made. He has the power to make the sanctuaries absolute no-fishing, no-mining zones — the best option. His memo also left open the possibility of allowing some fishing and mineral extraction in the sanctuaries. We hope he resists the forces of exploitation, and closes as much as possible of those stretches of the vast blue Pacific to human meddling.

That would be an achievement for the ages. All we can say is: Go for it, Mr. President.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/opinion/03wed2.html?ref=opinion

 

[archman]

This "legacy" for the future thing isn't new. I believe many presidents do something like this is their final months of their presidencies. Clinton, as the most recent example, went to town proposing large swathes of federally protected areas. I'm not sure how many were actually signed into law, however. As I recall, some proposals were ditched because the National Park system was already fiscally strapped and could not devote additional funds to some of the new parks/monuments/whatevers.

The real issue is funding for enforcement. I do not believe these Bush proposals are anything other than designations. Which IS something... but in the far remote Pacific, means little to poachers.

I am glad that WESPAC is upset, however. The world could certainly use some large-sized, no-take areas. Even if they are only no-take on paper.