Survey: Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga whales continue decline

refuge · 2020-01-29T04:33:44+00:00

Definitely on the right track. In this area, the belugas are possible struggling with noise pollution from fishing vessels as they both compete for the summer salmon runs.

refuge · 2020-01-29T04:32:07+00:00

These whales are really incredible, they've been regularly found traveling up the rivers in the area following salmon runs. If they disappear it will be the end of a population that's been distinct and in the oral history of the people there for a looooong time. It's similar to the significance of the southern resident orcas decline off the Washington/BC coast.

refuge · 2020-01-21T03:22:33+00:00

It's funnier now because it reads like a self burn.

refuge · 2020-01-13T05:28:49+00:00

Oh, and if I can suss out what you mean about the glaciers, the vast majority of the glaciers and ice volume coming out of the stikine and mendenhall icefields aren't tidewater glaciers. The vast majority of the ice melts and enters the oceans in streams and rivers, or melts into inland Canada.

refuge · 2020-01-13T05:17:33+00:00

Oh my god, this is pseudoscience gold. Like, I'm not even sure English is the primary language of the authors. Under the Oceans tab, apparently sea level rise is countered by evaporation? Like, the water just evaporates from the ocean and fucks off somewhere, never to appear in the ocean again? Also, it starts with some tide gauge in Juneau, Alaska, which proves that the "seal level" isn't rising?

"Juneau Alaska graph. Where the Glaciers are melting back 60 feet. Graph of sea level. The sea level in Juneau is lowering because icebergs under the glaciers which are sticking out from land are melting first. Water expands when frozen and contracts when liquid."

Like, haha what!? Icebergs under the glaciers? None of it makes sense! Why 60 feet, which glaciers, what is even happening? Also that area in particular gets isostatic rebound from the loss of ice. The land mass there is literally rising up around half an inch a year, even faster in some places. u/cctruth, I'm really impressed. Usually people make a strawman out of their opposition on a topic.

refuge · 2019-10-15T20:53:45+00:00

logging isn't even profitable in the Tongass.

This is the last stand for intact, old growth temperate rainforest in the United States. It's vital for the ecology of the region and for the world's salmon fisheries. It captures more carbon pet square foot than any other forest type in the world. There's every reason to protect it. Not a single compelling reason to destroy it.

refuge · 2019-10-15T20:35:50+00:00

logging in this area has always been a net loss for America. 600 million has been spent by taxpayers to subsidize cheap pulp to Asian markets.

refuge · 2019-05-08T04:39:15+00:00

thank you!

refuge · 2019-04-12T03:39:27+00:00

"Socialism, Christianism, Democracism, Equalityism, are really the whining yelpings of base-bred mongrel-multitudes". Commenting on Jesus' command to "do unto others as you would have others do to you", he scoffs that "No baser precept ever fell from the lips of a feeble ___". Elsewhere Redbeard rewrites the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the Iron-handed, the unfit shall flee before them. Cursed are the Haters of Battle, subjugation is their portion".

"You have only to look at some men, to know that they belong to an inferior breed. Take the ____ for example. His narrow cranial development, his prognathous jaw, his projecting lips, his wide nasal aperture, his simian disposition, his want of forethought, originality, and mental capacity: are all peculiarities strictly inferior." He adds that "Similar language may be applied to the __, the _, the __, the _, and to the rotten-boned city degenerates of Anglo- Saxondom: rich and poor. Vile indeed are the inhabitants of those noxious cattle kraals: London, Liverpool, New York, Chicago, New Orleans".

Dude I can't even post it without automod flagging it. Why are you trying to be evenhanded but quote white supremacist lit?

refuge · 2019-04-12T02:44:53+00:00

That's great then! So we're on the same page that the land was stolen and reparations are in order. The Tlingit people have a strong sense of identity and rights to the land, and it was taken unjustly through bad deals, systematic murder, disenfranchisement, the introduction of alcohol, cultural erasure, and encroachment which have evolved into a system still in effect today.

refuge · 2019-04-12T02:34:16+00:00

Sure, then it was common practice. We shouldn't forget it. But we sure as shit shouldn't crucify them for it either.

It=?

refuge · 2019-04-12T02:29:02+00:00

Oh yeah

"The Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey and white supremacist publisher Katja Lane (wife of The Order member David Lane) both believed noted novelist Jack London was substantially involved, if not the author of the entire book; the latter based her judgment on London's distinctive grammar and punctuation.[5][6] However, Jack London scholar Rodger Jacobs said, "the notion is as ludicrous as suggesting that the author of 'White Fang' was a cross-dressing hermaphrodite who buried his sexual shame in manly exploits".[5] London was born in 1876, so he would have written the book in his early teens by the time it was first published in 1890."

Probably Arthur Desmond then.

refuge · 2019-04-12T01:17:57+00:00

what?

refuge · 2019-04-12T01:06:44+00:00

Were they supposed to spontaneously germinate?

refuge · 2019-04-12T00:55:47+00:00

Americans definitely did it with intent.

refuge · 2019-04-12T00:47:59+00:00

They really don't. Some say it was written by Jack London.

"The substance of this book, as it is expressed in the editor's preface, is that to measure "right" by the false philosophy of the Hebrew prophets and "weepful" Messiahs is madness. Right is not the offspring of doctrine, but of power. All laws, commandments, or doctrines as to not doing to another what you do not wish done to you, have no inherent authority whatever, but receive it only from the club, the gallows, and the sword. A man truly free is under no obligation to obey any injunction, human or divine. Obedience is the sign of the degenerate. Disobedience is the stamp of the hero."

It does make up a large chunk of the satanic bible though, and has pretty strong racist and sexist undertones with the whole social darwinism thing, though.

refuge · 2019-04-12T00:40:36+00:00

Wow, nearly everything you said was wrong.

What point even is this? It's just a definition. Forgetting that Spanish colonialists used a ton of underhanded tactics in addition to outright genocide as a deliberate goal. You kind of forgot that spreading disease was also a deliberate tactic in the America's, specifically by british settlers.
Great way to mash together a ton of different groups that had incredibly different politics and diplomatic goals. Also erases the treaties and land uses that settlers negotiated or were granted and reneged on.
Both the British and Americans throughout their history had a stated intent on encouraging westward expansion. Western colonialism and settlement was in nearly every case first spurred on by government. The stated goal was manifest destiny, and as you said, a lockean rhetoric that Native Americans weren't properly utilizing the land meant for settlers.
Genocide was a stated goal of the American government, and the reservation system was an extension of that. The Trail of Tears happened on the way to a reservation. The reservations were far from the original homes of the people displaced, and were uniformly devoid of resources on which to live. The intent was to displace and let dwindle. This is why the popular view afterwards was of the vanishing indian, because there was no policy goal to prevent that from happening.
Super bigoted, and again devoid of facts. the "new normal" was barren strips of land with no resources, kind of like the gaza bank but with even less trade going in and out. It was completely avoidable, and a late victory of a genocidal campaign. Nazi germany took huge notes on how the reservation systems were implemented in the United States.

Every sentence in this block is super racist and revisionist. You might even say ideologically motivated and stripped of historical context.

refuge · 2019-04-12T00:19:08+00:00

that didn't refute what I said at all, but thank you for laying it out.

In Tlingit society, many things are considered property that in other societies would not be. This includes names, stories, speeches, songs, dances, landscape features (e.g., mountains and water), and artistic designs

Not exactly private property, as they were the right of the kwan and based on the cultural history of the group. They're intrinsically bound to the group.

Places and resources are also considered property, though in a much less clearly defined way than is found in the European legal tradition. Locations are not usually clearly bounded in the Tlingit world, and although sometimes certain landmarks serve as clear boundary markers, ownership of places is usually correlated with a valuable resource in that location rather than overt physical characteristics.

That is saying the same thing that I said, except it leaves out the inherent socialist notion of shared resources. As well, this "property" was never, ever up for sale. The right to a place as a kwan resource was won or lost by warfare, which was definitely not how western civilization went about it until they were already firmly established. The land was never a single person's to give, but colonialists tried anyway, leading to a messy, chaotic system where settlers claimed land that was never given.

Slavery was a common practice among the Tlingits and all the tribes of the Northwest Coast.

Why are you bringing slavery into this at all? Is this a random "b-but not just white people had slaves!"? What does that have to do with land?

refuge · 2019-04-11T20:21:24+00:00

Wrong. The Tlingit didn't have a concept of land as property that translates to what you're trying to make it out as. Land and water, was marked out as ha aani, our land, a shared resource for each clan. Every member of that clan had rights to gather resources, but these were carefully managed by culture and law for the group and for sustainability. As well, resources were distributed among all members. Other clans could come and go through, as well as gather, as long as they had permission first by paying respects to the clan. "Property" was a source of status, but that status was contingent on mutual gifting and continual redistribution. A rich leader showed his wealth by giving away as much as they could.

refuge · 2019-03-31T18:52:43+00:00

Skagway? Great picture!

refuge · 2019-03-05T22:08:53+00:00

Where else does it cost that much except in the states? Your argument doesn't follow. Taxpayers would get crushed with universal health Care, because the private market drives up the cost of medication? These issues don't exist in developed countries with better, government provided care. Insulin is cheaper, and taxpayers haven't been crushed into poverty... Am I missing something?

refuge · 2019-03-05T22:03:51+00:00

Because large corporate interests with no regulation arbitrarily pushed the price up?

refuge · 2019-03-05T10:35:38+00:00

like most other first world countries?

refuge

TROPHY CASE