🚀 go-pugleaf

The Suzuki foundation may be misrepresenting the situation, and Eric is a
swell guy and all, but this rebuttal tells me little to help me form an
opinion.

How about some references for your statements?  For example

"Eric�" <Eric�@hardknocks.edu> wrote in message
news:MPG.158b86078e048bf6989bd4@news.uniserve.com...
> * BC's west coast rainforests are "an area of little scientific study"
> This is an outrageous lie.

It seems to me that until they put up those canopy study stations in the
Carmanah, all the study was for was how fast to clear cut. Got any
references to actual scientific study of biodiversity in the coastal
rainforest prior to that?

> * it states that clearcut logging "destroy[s] BC's forests and
> biodiversity.  Another complete lie.

The claim that tree nurserys use enough genetic material to retain diversity
in the trees of the forest seems false to me - they only plant a couple of
species after all - but what preserves all the non-tree species formerly
found in the clear cut?

> * "Today more than half of BC's coastal rainforest has been lost, and
> what remains is immediately threatened."  Two utter lies in one sentence.

Do you have any references that show the first statement to be wrong. I live
on Vancouver Island. The percentage of old growth forest left on the south
end of the island is far below half.

> * And in an article entitled "Climate change causes ecosystem stress"
> (any ecologist knows that all ecosystems are always under stress)
> we see: "'Scientists are alarmed because living systems are responding to
> climate change with unexpected rapidity' says Dr. David Suzuki."
>
> But the article didn't expand on that quotation.  Organisms respond to
> ecological stress by adapting or dying.  This has always been the case.
> Any references or data would get in the way of the fundraising.
>
> If the Suzuki Foundation were really interested in protecting endangered
> species and ecosystems, and shielding the earth from global warming, they

> would be sending you and me pamphlets urging us not to have children, and
> to end government programs like 'free' education, which simply make it
> easier for people to procreate.

Er, it is my perception that the better educated areas actually have a lower
birth rate. Got any evidence for your argument?

> The Suzuki Foundation is about using bogus scare tactics to raise money.
> They have never saved anything.  They are an embarassment to legitimate
> outfits (like CPAWS, DU, SLDF etc) that actually do useful work.

If you are suggesting that the industry side of this debate is above the
selective use of statistics and misleading statements to justify their
position, then I respectfully suggest that people should be very careful
about believing anything you say in defence of that industry.

At least three times in the last 20 years the industry has recanted all of
its past practices and sworn that its new practices are environmentally
friendly and sustainable. I expect to continue happening in the future. I
have no reason to believe they are any better now than they were in the
past.

I don't know that the Suzuki foundation does enough research of its own to
justify its assumption of a position at the head of the movement to save
some of the rainforest, but there is a need for groups that counter the
industry position.

Brent