Blog Mirror: An Agrarian Life (revisited)

An interesting agrarian retrospective.  I don't agree with it 100%, particularly the item about religion, but an interesting read anyhow.

An Agrarian Life (revisited)

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: If I fits I sits: A citizen science ...

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: If I fits I sits: A citizen science ...:   If I fits I sits: A citizen science investigation into illusory contour susceptibility in domestic cats ( Felis silvestris catus )

Lex Anteinternet: Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County by Brian Beauvais.

Lex Anteinternet: Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Year...: 

Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs: Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County by Brian Beauvais.

An extremely interesting article appears in the Autumn/Winter issue of the Annals of Wyoming (which I just received) on the history of wildlife conservation and hunting in Wyoming.  The articles is by Brian Beauvais, and is entitled Sportsmen, Market Hunters & Game Hogs:  Early Years of Wildlife Conservation in Park County.

As the title indicates, the article focuses on one Wyoming county, but in a fairly broad manner, and it does something I've never seen any other article do, which is to take into account the story of subsistence and quasi market hunters in the state during the period of time when wildlife conservation was really coming in.

Los of articles and books deal with the conservationist campaign against market hunting that came about at the turn of the prior century.  I've never read one, however, that dealt with the views of the local yeomanry in any fashion, to whom conservation efforts didn't come easily as it directly impacted their table.  The role of the wealthy in the effort, and the role of the more or less poor in opposition to it, and how they respectively viewed things, is fresh to the story, at least for me.  

Added to that, the role of private pay game wardens, and the role of other agencies in enforcing Wyoming's game laws, which came in early but which had nobody to enforce them, is something I was also unaware of.  And even some of the early history of the Wyoming Game & Fish is included.  Here too, for example, I was unaware that the hunting area concept wasn't brought into Wyoming's laws until 1947.

While by and large Wyoming's hunters came around to really supporting the Wyoming system, which is sometimes regarded as the crown jewel of wildlife conservation, some of these fights never fully went away and some of the stresses remain.  You can see the views of those whose pocketbooks depend on out of state sportsmen vs. the locals reflected back over a century ago.  This work is a really valuable look into the history of wildlife conservation in general and is very much worth reading.

Lex Anteinternet: The Old Homesteads

Lex Anteinternet: The Old Homesteads: 

The Old Homesteads

I went to a ash spreading (i.e., a type of funeral really) out at an old homestead the other day. By 4x4, it was a long way out. Long, long way, or so it felt. I learned while there that the original homestead had first been filed and occupied in 1917, a big year for homesteading.

It was a very interesting place, and felt very isolated. In visiting about that with my father in law, however, he noted that there had been another homestead just over the hill. And, as I've likely noted here before, there were tiny homesteads all over at that time. It was isolated, but sort of locally isolated. There were, as there were with most of these outfits, another homestead just a few hours ride away, at most, if that.

That is not to say that they weren't way out. I'd guess that this place was at least a full days ride from the nearest town at that time. Even when cars were commonly owned, and they were coming in just about that time, it would have taken the better part of a day to get to town, or a town (there were a couple of very small, but viable towns, about equal distance to this place at that time). It's interesting how agricultural units everywhere in North American have become bigger over time, even if they are all closer now, in terms of time, to a city or town.

Blog Mirror: Gift Horses

 Gift Horses

Lex Anteinternet: A question for writers of fiction.

Lex Anteinternet: A question for writers of fiction.: If you are a fiction writer, by which I mean novels, how many significant, or central, characters do you feel is the limit for a novel, assu...

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Earth Day for 2021. . .

Lex Anteinternet: Today is Earth Day for 2021. . .:  

Today is Earth Day for 2021. . .

 so let's post a few uncomfortable/surprising truths that relate to this.

Why?  As this area, environmentalism, is one of those areas people allow their political views to enter and trump scientific ones, ending up taking positions counter to their own stated position.

So here goes

First off, almost all the really dire predictions that were made when Earth Day first became a thing have been, well, wrong, showing that our ability to predict in this area is no better and maybe worse than any other.

That's, oddly enough, a reason to hope.

Regarding climate change, those who argue that we should go to an electric future free of coal fired power generation and fossil fuel powered cars have to accept that absolutely, with no exception, requires the use of the one really efficient green power source we have. That's nuclear power.  Back all the windmills you want, but without nuclear power, we're not getting anywhere on this.

On that, fear of nuclear power is purely emotional and wholly un informed. 

For those who scoff at the arrival of electric cars, by the way, you're about at the same point that people who scoffed at the arrival of cars themselves were in 1915.  I.e., there's enough of the old around to fool yourself, but that's what you're doing.  Ten years from now your petroleum consuming vehicle will have no value at all and you'll be looking for an electric one, like it or not.

Re solar and wind, while nuclear is necessary, these have now come into their own.  Scoffing at these sources not being self supporting is living in the past.  Yes, they have their own problems, but everything does.

Next, in order to really preserve the wild areas and basic environment of North America you pretty much have to cap off immigration at some rational level.  I.e., you can't increase the population of the country much beyond the current point and, frankly, you really have to look towards it decreasing, which given the low birth rate of native born North Americans is actually perfectly possible.

The entire population of the world will start decreasing on its own sometime during this century, but the current population growth rate in North America is way beyond the sustainable and that's all immigration fueled.  This isn't racist or xenophobic.  It would still be true no matter what populations were taken in.  It's a simple fact.  For that reason, really, immigration at this point in time ought to be geared mostly towards true refugees with some rational acknowledgement that a slower rate is required.

Tied into this, advocating for growth in everything is contrary to the environment as well, rather obviously.

On another point, agriculture is the only really green industry of any kind, and even it isn't green when its industrial.  If you want to preserve the environment, preserve sustainable family farms and ranches, everything else flows from that.

The closure you live to nature, the more of a real conservationist or environmentalist you are.  If  you herd sheep, ranch, farm, work out in the sticks, etc., you are probably an environmentalist even if you don't know it.  If you work in a large city, chances are that you aren't, even if you think you are.

Related to that, if you aren't gardening, hunting or fishing, you aren't really an environmentalist.

You probably also aren't if  your living a modern corporate existence in a big American city.  You may be eating a tofu based diet and working from home in Seattle, but if you got there by going to an east coast law school to make a big income and went on a vacation, just before COVID 19, to Bali, you're likely consuming a lot more of everything than that guy working down at the garage who's driving a twenty year old beat up pickup to work.

If you call your dog a "fur baby" and have fits about the plights of pets, but don't worry so much about humans, same thing.  Being a misanthrope or just neglectful of the human condition doesn't make you an environmentalist.

If you oppose environmental measures because you are a Republican, and support them because you are a Democrat, you aren't thinking things out.  Individual things require individual ponderings.

All of which means, you can't have it all your way, on anything.