[leps-talk]Act & Sierra Club

[Michael Gochfeld]

Ron, you and I are on the same page as this one.
Subsidized development is a growing not lessening problem, as land becomes more
limited, the urgency to get it and pave it seems to increase.

Indirect subsidies including extending water and sewer lines, providing tax
incentives, etc.

There are a few voices in NJ (mostly gagging and choking voices) trying to
erase the subsidizing mechanism which is quite subtle and was increased under
the former NJ administration which increase subsidies for developers at the
same time that it borrowed money to buy land (at high prices) for public use.
In NJ green space includes ball fields and golf courses. Tell me its better in
the Carolinas.

Mike Gochfeld



Ron Gatrelle wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Gochfeld" <gochfeld at EOHSI.RUTGERS.EDU>
> To: "Jean-Michel MAES" <jmmaes at ibw.com.ni>
> Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 4:31 PM
> Subject: Re: [leps-talk] RE: Endangered Species Act & Sierra Club
>
> > I'm afraid that we have a more serious problem in this country---judges
> > not taking game and wildlife laws seriously enough and NOT imposing
> > fines that should be imposed.
> >
> **************
>
> But it's mostly too little too late.  I was watching SC ETV a couple nights
> ago on the "development" of Myrtle Beach SC.  It just made me sick.
> "Worthless" beach property given away to induce people to build there.
> Yankee's from NY, Chicago etc buying thousands of acres of sensitive wild
> life habitat for next to nothing and ending up millionaires and building
> the basic foundation of the east coasts version of Sin City (there are
> likely more "escort services" per capita in Myrtle Beach than anywhere east
> of Las Vegas).
>
> Euphyes bimacula arbogasti - gone. Atrytonopsis loammi - gone.  Megathymus
> yuccae (and possibly cofaqui) - gone.  Brephidium isophtalma insularus -
> gone.  Anthocharis midea midea - gone.  Atrytone arogos arogos - gone.  And
> the rarest of all eastern skippers, Hesperia attalus nigrescens, extirpated
> to one tiny colony.
>
> There was no bad news on this PBS program.  All the development was
> positive - a taming of a frontier.  This same uncontrolled growth continues
> to this day all around the world.   The rich corporations that support the
> politicians (and their judges) care nothing for "wildlife", even though
> many are "board members" of the Enviro organizations and "contributors" to
> all the good causes.   Years ago one Dave Baggett concluded that the real
> power  behind the world's endangered and wildlife laws was big business.
> The conspiracy theory went basically like this.   Since the world's giant
> corporate users of _natural resources_ were quickly using up those on
> property they owned, they needed to find a way to get the _natural
> resources_ on public and private lands.   They easily got pennies on the
> dollar access to most Federal and State lands, but were exhausting those
> resources too.   Thus, the creation of wildlife laws that would put blame
> for the loss of the world's wildlife on poachers, and provide for the
> virtual confiscation of private lands via government taking of control of
> property for wildlife easements and/or management purposes.   This would
> then 1) shift the blame from the real destroyers of this world - INDUSTRY
> and put it on the people as "poachers" or overpopulation and 2) allow all
> big industry access to more _natural resources_ under Fed and State
> control - public and private.  The most precious to the future being water.
>
> So here we are sill debating about some birds being shot here and there,
> some poaching of whatever wherever, while big industry and government
> continues to rape the earth of its _natural resources_.   The people didn't
> destroy the environment of Russia under the Soviet Union - government and
> industry did.   The same is true in every country on earth.  Little guys go
> to jail and the big politicians and corporate moguls continue to destroy
> the earth's HABITATS and all therein thousand acre tracks at a time.
>
> I don't think Baggett was far off.
>
> So no, the more serious problem is not the judges - for they are just the
> pawns of the Governmental and Industrial good old boys whose political
> parties they are members of, whose stocks they own,  and country clubs they
> belong to.  The little guy is rarely a real wildlife/enviro problem, but he
> sure makes a great scape goat.  (The movie Alrington Road is not so far
> fetched - " he acted alone" NOT.)
>
> Ron Gatrelle
>
> PS  Whatever... it's Monday.
>
>
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