The Imperial Green Government

[4est_4est_Gump]

Raw Deal
Jillian Kay Melchior, NRO
December 10, 2012

Brigid and Sean knew from their father’s face that the news was not good. As he took a short phone call, the Lunny family could tell that a decision handed down by the federal government would cost them their livelihood, their family home, and their retirement plan.

“I was standing in our little oyster shack, the retail store where people gather,” says Kevin Lunny, the patriarch and owner of Drakes Bay Oyster Co., in Marin County, Calif. “The phone rang, and my daughter answered it. She said, ‘It’s Secretary Salazar, for you.’ We all knew, and we were all waiting. None of us could sleep, none of us could physically eat as we were awaiting the decision. Sean’s looking at me. Brigid’s looking at me. About a minute into the conversation, I hadn’t said anything, and they were both in tears because they could see my face. This was not the decision we’d hoped for and prayed for. Walking out of that room and onto the dock where our 30 employees were waiting — you had all 30 of us in tears because it’s a tragedy.”

On November 29, Ken Salazar, secretary of the interior, announced his decision not to renew Drakes Bay Oyster Co.’s lease on National Park Service land about 30 miles north of San Francisco. Citing the 1976 Point Reyes Wilderness Act, the National Park Service intends to establish a federally designated wilderness area, the first on the West Coast, on the land where the oyster farm has long operated.

The Lunnys and their 31 full-time employees, many of whom have worked for decades on the oyster farm, will lose their jobs. Fifteen who lived on the premises will also lose their homes. And the company has only three months to vacate.

One would hope the Interior Department would do everything in its power to preserve a small business unless it had a good reason to do otherwise. In fact, recent legislation explicitly allowed the Interior Department to extend the oyster farm’s lease for ten years. But it seems clear that the National Park Service wanted the land as wilderness, then set about to obtain it at all costs. Salazar largely avoided mentioning science in his decision — probably because the Interior Department and National Park Service studies measuring the environmental impact of the oyster farm are riddled with errors.

Corey Goodman, a 61-year-old professor emeritus at Stanford and Berkeley, is an animated man. He’s a brilliant, much-lauded scientist with an impressive résumé that spans the academic, private, and public sectors, and he has a talent for explaining complicated scientific studies simply, gesturing often to emphasize his points. After being elected in the 1990s to the National Academy of Sciences, Goodman became interested in science and public policy, chairing the Board of Life Sciences. He has long expressed his commitment to putting science before politics.

In 2007 Goodman received a phone call from Steve Kinsey, a member of the Marin County board of supervisors. Kinsey told him of the Park Service’s allegations of environmental damage from a small oyster farm with an otherwise impeccable reputation, then he asked Goodman to fact-check the government’s claims. Goodman agreed, reviewed the data, and attended a public hearing on Drakes Bay Oyster Co. He had never met the Lunnys, but he was appalled at what he heard from the Park Service officials. Their statements completely conflicted with what Goodman had found.

“I sat and listened to the Park Service that day make the most incredible claims,” he tells National Review Online. “We hadn’t heard exaggeration,” Goodman recalls. “We’d heard things that were simply not true.”

His interest piqued, Goodman embarked on what became a five-year examination of the Interior Department and National Park Service studies of the oyster farm.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Goodman says. “It’s a stunning misuse of science by our federal government. . . . They have spent a huge amount of money trying to find harm when it doesn’t exist. . . . The Park Service was determined to get rid of the oyster farm, and they simply made [the environmental damage] up. . . . These people aren’t following the data. They’re following a predetermined agenda.”

...


Meanwhile, instead of apologizing for its scientific errors and dropping its case, the federal government has resorted to personal attacks when its data were proven faulty, Goodman says. He has also been careful to avoid conflicts of interest, receiving no compensation from the Lunny family, Drakes Bay Oyster Co., or any of the other parties involved. He told me that his involvement was initially at the request of Supervisor Kinsey, and later at the request of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.).

Nevertheless, Goodman says, if he were 25 and a scientific neophyte, “they would have destroyed me by now. . . . They would have just rolled me over.” It’s been hard for the federal government to dismiss a scientist with Goodman’s credentials, but he says he worries about the precedent this case will set.

“I’ve been outraged by the way my government, in the National Park Service and with the seeming approval of the Department of the Interior, have misused science over and over,” he says. “This sends a terrible example throughout the federal government. If they get away with this — which so far they have — it sends the signal to every young scientist throughout the federal government to forget about science, forget about data, find out what your boss wants.”

...

So Salazar simply reinterpreted the law. He claimed that because Feinstein’s rider had given him authority to extend the lease “notwithstanding any other provisions of law,” he was free to deny the lease and disregard the National Environmental Policy Act too. That would also allow him to make a decision without considering the findings — and many errors — within the environmental-impact statements. It essentially takes the science out of the decision.

...

A committed environmentalist, Lunny wanted to farm oysters in a responsible way. He took out a $300,000 loan to clean the farm and restore the property, using the old Lunny family cow ranch as collateral. As the Lunnys’ reputation for good oysters and responsible, sustainable agriculture grew, the farm became more and more popular. The Lunnys were able to make payments on their loan, maintain their employees, and stabilize their inventory. The farm was holding its own.

The Interior Department’s decision not only kills the farm but also financially ruins the Lunny family. The farm is home to an inventory of baby oysters worth nearly $5 million, all too young to be harvested and sold. Furthermore, with their business shuttered, the Lunnys will have no way to repay the loan they took out to improve the farmland, so they’ll probably lose the cattle ranch they used as collateral, too.

“This is not a store where we can have a fire sale, sell everything off the shelves and go away,” Lunny says. “The Park Service is asking us to kill all these oysters, destroy all this food, get out before they can even be harvested. There’s no way for us to recover our investment.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335174/raw-deal-jillian-kay-melchior


Yeah, I know the response. A_J HATES Science and Education.

So save it. Do not question any of your other green beliefs either while you are at it.

We have to 'save' the planet no matter what the cost.

People should sacrifice!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Reviewing the Park Service’s sourcing, he found very specific numbers about how many tons of feces the oysters were producing, all based on a 1991 study. Goodman tracked that study down and found that even though it did examine the sediments surrounding the oyster farm, it concluded that there was no problem with oyster feces there. The 1991 paper, in turn, cited another study measuring oyster feces, one from 1955 that examined a totally different type of oyster off the coast of Japan. The Park Service had taken these old numbers from a foreign land and claimed they were data from present-day Drakes Bay Oyster Co.

Finally, Goodman found a 2005 study examining the ecosystem in the water surrounding the oyster farm — funded with National Park Service money. That report concluded that near Drakes Bay Oyster Co., the dominant organic sediment was from the lush, abundant eelgrass. In other words, the National Park Service’s claim about damage to the eelgrass and fish was not only poorly researched; it was flagrantly wrong.

“Either it’s just really sloppy science, or it’s deliberate,” Goodman says. “But when you see the same people do the same thing over and over and over again, it’s hard not to conclude intent.”

The examples of bad science are abundant. In another report, Goodman discovered the Park Service had claimed the oyster farm had an adverse effect on red-legged frogs, an endangered species. One problem: Red-legged frogs live in fresh water, not the salt water of the oyster farm. Goodman dug further and found that the Park Service was claiming the presence of Drakes Bay Oyster Co. put the red-legged frog at “increased risk for vehicle strikes.” In other words, the government was claiming an endangered frog might somehow trek toward the seashore, cross a road, and get hit by a car on the half-mile path leading to the oyster farm.

And recently, the Park Service complained that one of the “major impacts” of the farm was on the soundscape of the surrounding park lands. The Park Service was talking about noise from Lunny’s plastic oyster tumbler, a machine used to sort oysters by size, which is powered by a tiny, one-quarter-horsepower electric motor. But rather than measuring the sound from the oyster tumbler itself, Goodman discovered the Park Service had used as a stand-in some noise-disruption data from a 400-horsepower cement truck, and later from a portable metal Army cement mixer filled with gravel and stone. And — here’s the kicker — the Park Service also assumed an ambient silence level roughly comparable to the Vatican library. It was an imaginative report, but it had nothing to do with the sound situation near the oyster farm.

Those are just some of the examples. After examining years of data about the oyster farm, Goodman has reported that the federal government’s reports were repeatedly inaccurate. He has also concluded that “Kevin Lunny is an environmental icon,” “a great steward of the environment,” and “one of the pioneers for organic and sustainable agriculture that also protects the environment.”

*chuckle*

It is nice though, to witness them eating their own...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I'm from the government. I'm here to help you.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Cum ‘Ere, I got sometink for you!

 

[Saint Peter]

AJ loves science when it says what he wants it to say.

 

[Saint Peter]

I will have what Wat is having.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Wat's off to love some (scientific) work, where he will defeat fizzix and gravity and aging.

 

[Saint Peter]

I have some science and education on the agenda today.

Uncle Sam and I are like this.

*this*

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

AJ loves science when it says what he wants it to say.

If you quietly accept and go along no matter what your feelings are, ultimately you internalize what you're saying, because it's too hard to believe one thing and say another. I can see it very strikingly in my own background. Go to any elite university and you are usually speaking to very disciplined people, people who have been selected for obedience.
Noam Chomsky

 

[Saint Peter]

Ask any of the alumni in my school at the university about how disciplined and obedient I am.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Ask any of the alumni in my school at the university about how disciplined and obedient I am.

STFU

I do not have time for the crayon eaters of Science lecture this morning.

Once again, in true liberal fashion (and as highlighted in the article) instead of discussing the subject, you decide to shoot the messenger.

Fine. Pick on me. It really helps me make the point about who is actually vested in Science and who is vested in Political Science; Libertarian Vs Democrat.

 

[Saint Peter]

You STFU!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Go watch a hockey game Comrade...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It doesn't even seem to bother you that government is taking out one of your fellow greenie weenies...


You're like zip, throb, U_D, merc and the rest; I'm in your head.

Dumbass!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is an important scientific society. It includes many earth science disciplines and publishes numerous journals. Unfortunately the organization has been co-opted by global warming extremists. The great majority of the scientists who study the Earth's climate don't have an extremist position on climate change. However, true believers of the "imminent catastrophe" school tend to be activists. These are the people who stay to the end of every meeting, get appointed to committees, and generally punch above their weight in organization politics. The true believers don't waver in the face of contradictory facts or data. For the true believers, ideology trumps facts. They are agile thinkers and can always figure a method of explaining away any negative information that might disconfirm the impending climate catastrophe. The firmness with which they hold to their beliefs is similar to the unwavering confidence expressed by the flying saucer cult described in the book When Prophecy Fails. After a fleet of saucers failed to land when predicted, the cultists' belief in flying saucers and their belief that they were communicating with spacemen was unshaken. They had plenty of plausible reasons why the saucers didn't arrive. The climate catastrophe shows no signs of arriving either, except in the imagination of the activists and in the slogans of their publicists.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012...union_and_climate_hysteria.html#ixzz2EeUpcycj

 

[Saint Peter]

It doesn't even seem to bother you that government is taking out one of your fellow greenie weenies...


You're like zip, throb, U_D, merc and the rest; I'm in your head.

Dumbass!

I do not like to see the government muscle the small guy. I also have no idea if your copy and paste is accurate due to the amount of bullshit your blips normally contain.

You brought up education in the OP. Science education will help curb the abuse of data. Plumber Joe will have a better chance of weeding out the bull from the shit.

Putting school board disclaimers in textbooks takes that power away from the common person.

And stop signing your posts.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Your reading comprehension sucks.

Are you sure college is a good fit for you?

I did not "bring up" education, I brought up, accurately, what you would say...

... that way, you don't have to do any research on your own to counter the "LIES" of the National Review, cause they're conservative, and like, you know, uh, those people, like you know hate the earth and clean air and water; all they care about is money...

:nods:

 

[RobDownSouth]

It doesn't even seem to bother you that government is taking out one of your fellow greenie weenies...


You're like zip, throb, U_D, merc and the rest; I'm in your head.

Dumbass!

If anything, the reverse is true: we're in your head.

Of course, you'd never admit it. You run like a cowardly squaw when an opposing opinion rears its ugly head in your thread.

What a great example you set for your "daughter".

 

[mercury14]

AJ loves science when it says what he wants it to say.

AJ dislikes science because it doesn't say what he wants it to say. Then he turns around and swears he loves 'da science when he's busy manipulating it's inherent lack of 100% certainty.

 

[mercury14]

The conservative word of the year: Imperial.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

"Pearl clutching. Fainting couch. Smelling salts. Oh noes! Luke Russert. Snarky. My head's exploding. Snarky again. Wow, couch an accusation as a question with “much” at the end much? I’m curious. Buehler? Buehler? Really? Seriously? Because, Muslims.

"Confidence Fairy. Talking point. Jeebus! Luke Russert is very annoying. Also too, eh. This is very concerning. “Align yourself with a feminist identity.” Abstract noun trumps other abstract noun. “What is our real investment in celebrity fertility?” “Lending pedigreed intellectual credence.” A whole lot of fail. A whole lot of verb used as noun.

"Relish. Glee. Bliss. Elixir. We relish the prospect of Rethuglican fail on this issue. The prospect of Rethuglican fail on this issue uncorks in us a blissful elixir of unbridled glee. Really? Seriously? Cringe. Facepalm."
T. J. May

 

[RobDownSouth]

AJ dislikes science because it doesn't say what he wants it to say. Then he turns around and swears he loves 'da science when he's busy manipulating it's inherent lack of 100% certainty.

Intellectual inconsistency has always been a core tenet of the Glibertarian belief system.

Think "chinese menu": One from column A, one from column B....

 

[mercury14]

"Pearl clutching. Fainting couch. Smelling salts. Oh noes! Luke Russert. Snarky.