Why We’re So Clueless About Being Green
Dan Appell — August 22, 2010
Newsweek published an interesting little primer on the green movement. It touches only briefly on the issues involved in changing our behaviour so that we can create sustainability, but it does touch on all the issues.
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Nanaimo Daily News Sept 23, 2010
Front page news; Developer finds ways to improve on natural wetland
But what about the victim? I decided to interview him, and this is his side of the story.
The Sad Tale of Billy the Beaver
He didn’t have any treaty rights, he didn’t have any property rights, he didn’t have a water licence, he didn’t have a building permit, he didn’t have an occupancy permit, and worst of all he failed the building inspection. I asked him what was up. He seemed pretty dejected at the time. He began telling his story of how he found this wonderful stream in the forest and how he set to work building a dam so he would have a good supply of food and a place to build a lodge, a little place of his own he said, where he could settle down and raise a family. He liked to relax on the beach and watch all the wildlife that started to come around. It was a great place he said, “I felt good doing my community part creating riparian habitat and controlling the floods so the folks down stream would all be safe.”
Billy continued his story, one day he said, a great calamity happened when some machines showed up and started trashing the place, “the humans said that my dam was not safe but I said no it is safe, haven’t you ever heard of busy beavers, we are a race of accomplished engineers, and we’ve never ever had a dam failure. We built the largest dam on the planet in Wood Buffalo Park; you can see it from the space station. We know a lot about hydrology.“
I said I thought streams were protected habitat. “I don’t know about that,” said Billy, “but it seems that beaver ponds don’t qualify for protection.” That’s not right I said, too bad you couldn’t hire a biologist or a lawyer or something. “Yeah I know, but what good would it do, there was a whole crowd of humans here with placards, save the pond they said, give the beaver a vote they said. But it didn’t matter what the crowd said; the environmental officer guy from the City said that if my dam broke all the new houses would get flooded.”
I said that I thought there were stream setback requirements for new development; I don’t see why your place is not included. “Well,” said Billy, “the guy said that the regulations apply to the top of the bank and since my dam is the highest thing around the regulations would only work if he stood upside down on his head and he wasn’t about to do that for no dam building beaver.”
What did the newspapers say about the construction? “That was pretty choice I’ll tell you,” Billy said,” they called it progress, the humans are going to build a better dam, the humans are going to improve on the natural wetlands, can you believe it, it’s pretty outrageous the way humans talk.”
What are you going to do now Billy, I asked?” I’m going down stream to the ocean,” he said. You can’t live down there in the salt water, I said. “Neither can humans,” said Billy. “I’m going down there to check on the water level.” What for, I asked? “Well we know that Mother Nature has her own rules and we like to pay attention to those rules. The beaver colony heard that if you cut down a tree the ice up north starts to melt, so we are pretty careful about what we do. We heard that the sea levels are going to rise and that humans will be spending all of their time building dams to protect their homes and then thankfully they wouldn’t have any time to build on our places.”
Well, I said it all seems connected, maybe the environmental guy didn’t realize that. “Maybe,” said Billy, “but Mother Natures’ Rules got teeth, they’re not like human rules which are made to be broken.”
You’re a dam smart beaver I said, maybe you could get a job down at the park where they are going to cut down the trees and widen the road. “Oh no not me,” said Billy,” I have seen enough environmental destruction.”
Front page news; Developer finds ways to improve on natural wetland
That s’ like saying that a golf course is an improvement over a natural meadow.
What is surprising is that the Daily News printed the headline; shows where their brain is!
We are close to the point where it is not finished until it’s paved.
A sad commentary on our outlook on life.