The People's Forest-Logging Practices, Environmentalism-Foreign Aid, Aborting Gays, Language

Documentary: "Forbidden Forest" -- an exploration of forestry in NB -- clear cutting companies' short term gain vs the woodsmen--selective cutters wanting to preserve/conserve for the future -- Note that this concerns the people's land, crown land!

Forbidden Forest The Nature of Things -- Directed by Kevin Matthews, Produced by Kent Martin (NFB) Lloyd Salomone (Timber Colony Inc)

Jean Guy Comeau and Francis Wishart walk through ravaged landscapes: good wood left rotting on the ground, stagnant pools of water, uprooted trees blown over. Trenches more than 2 metres deep have been gouged into the ground by heavy machinery. Red plastic flagging tape reading "No harvest" flutters limply over the felled remains of a stand of trees.

This is clear-cutting in New Brunswick's Acadian forest. And what most people don't realize is that it's being done on public (or Crown) lands - lands that are supposed to be managed by the government on behalf of the people.Six multinational corporations control cutting on New Brunswick's millions of acres of Crown land. In Forbidden Forest, we meet two very different men united by a passion to save the forest and to bring some of the province's public forest under community control.

[. . . . ] And the two go head-to-head with the New Brunswick government in an effort to secure a new, community-based forestry policy - one that is environmentally sustainable and that produces more jobs than the highly capital-intensive, mechanized techniques used today.

[. . . . The] two go head-to-head with the New Brunswick government in an effort to secure a new, community-based forestry policy - one that is environmentally sustainable and that produces more jobs than the highly capital-intensive, mechanized techniques used today.

View a clip

I loved this. Well worth watching for adults and especially for schools. It is wonderful to see what a forest can be, teaming with diverse life -- and also, that there is a solution to the devastation wrought by clear-cutting -- some system similar to the community forestry practiced in Germany.

Is anyone else tired of short-sighted approach on the part of politicians, businessmen and those who work in forestry -- who concern themselves only with dollar signs, not with the biodiversity, the future health of a region -- of a country?

Federally, think of Canada's PM off to encourage more "investment" dollars -- so Canada's resources and industries may be sold to or controlled by the highest bidder. Provincially, the forestry is a local version of this lack of statesmanship -- afflicting both Liberals and Conservatives who go after votes for short term gain, pleasing the "big boys" who rape the land of its best features, the old growth undergrowth with the plants and animals that thrive in a controlled cutting environment.

What this film presents is a solution for the long term -- for the loggers and for the province's woodlands. Do get it / watch it.




Bjrn's fatal conceit -- The Skeptical Environmentalist

Bjrn's fatal conceit Peter Foster, Financial Post, January 12, 2005

Danish academic Bjrn Lomborg became famous four years ago after writing The Skeptical Environmentalist. Based on meticulous research, the book debunked virtually every alleged ecological "crisis" -- from cancer scares through species extinction to man-made global warming -- as either grossly exaggerated or entirely falsified.

Mr. Lomborg's effort was both valuable and brave. He was subsequently subjected to a torrent of abuse from professional environmentalists. The claims of his book were utterly misrepresented. He was compared to a Holocaust denier. He received death threats.

Now Mr. Lomborg has put himself front and centre of another big policy issue, one that has leapt to prominence because of the Asian tsunami: that of effective foreign aid.

Ostensibly, Mr. Lomborg's new venture -- which he outlined on this page yesterday -- might seem eminently reasonable. If we want to save lives in the developing countries, doesn't it make sense to subject initiatives to a rigid cost-benefit analysis and prioritize them?

But who is this "we?" [. . . . ]

A "must read" -- particularly now that our PM and friends both within Canada and the UN are getting on the bandwagon. There is so much bureaucracy associated with "the environment", "foreign aid", and the dispensing of $$$, to say nothing of the coming of "environmentally friendly" vehicles / enviro-cars (Check out Maurice Strong and a Chinese car company) that will necessitate legislation concerning the fuel they burn -- so many -- so much that would be disturbed should Mr. Lomberg's ideas take wing. Must stop him.




Aborting gays -- A "must read"

Aborting gays

[. . . . ] Steve Sailer challenges these assumptions by pointing out what is likely to happen if a gay gene is indeed discovered: [. . . . ]

A seldom-discussed paradox is that if male homosexuality is proven to originate in a particular "gay gene," then it's likely that the continued existence of gay men in future generations in America will primarily be due to . . . .

A bitter irony for gays that would be -- those who believe in the sanctity of life -- Christians -- right wingers -- the sanctity of marriage and the foetus crowd -- you know, the recipients of so much negative press from our media and the gay lobby.





Our French revolution -- Rockland's sign law sparks a new language rights war.: Residents got along, whatever the language. While some say the new law just makes sense, others argue the city is attempting to curb Ottawa's English influence.

Our French revolution Daniel Tencer and Aron Heller, The Ottawa Citizen, January 14, 2005

[. . . . ] If a business owner objects on principle to having a bilingual business sign, "that person is going to have to conform," he said.

Councillor Jean-Pierre Chartrand explained it was also an issue of optics: Clarence-Rockland's elected officials wanted to make sure the municipality's appearance continued to reflect its population's make-up. "We really didn't want to end up with a Rockland that looks all English," he said.

But others suggest that there are other forces at work. The bylaw -- believed to be the first of its kind in Ontario -- is an attempt to protect the traditional francophone community from an influx of Ottawa anglophones, some residents say. Or a sly move to ensure that Clarence-Rockland's rapid economic growth happens in both English and French, others suggest.

"We're in the middle of an economic boom," said Mr. Chartrand. The new big-name retailers opening up along Highway 174, such as Canadian Tire, had given rise to concerns among the French majority in the area that they may not be able to find French service in stores that put up English-only signs.

Here Ontario goes -- as did Quebec. Have you talked to anyone to compare the language spoken in the West Island of Montreal stores today with what they heard years ago? It used to be an English speaking area. Guess what has happened. There will have to be complaints made to the Language Commissioner for other Ontario communities. . . . . . Money will have to be spent; laws/regulations will have to be changed. There is a long-term objective for anyone not too imbued with "right speak / correct speak" to figure it out. Check the heads of the important government departments, the embassies, et cetera. Watch CBC as ministerial and military representatives speak. Detect an accent? Mais oui!

The municipality has a population of about 22,000, about two-thirds francophone and one-third anglophone. Clarence-Rockland is about as bilingual as Ontario municipalities get. According to University of Ottawa chief archivist Michel Prevost, the county of Prescott-Russell, where Clarence Rockland is located, is the only French-majority county in Ontario.

But, Mr. Prevost says, that unique status is being chiseled away as Ottawa grows and an increasing number of Ottawans turn Eastern Ontario's rural municipalities into extensions of the capital.

[. . . . ] Last month controversy erupted in the heavily Asian Vancouver suburb of Richmond, B.C., when a city council advisory committee suggested enacting a bylaw to force businesses to display signs in English, after complaints from American tourists that many businesses in the city displayed signs only in Chinese.