[MAIPC] Invasives skeptics and their nouveau ecosystems

[Stephen L. Young]

Interesting piece. A couple of points that stood out that were not the obvious ones made by Steve. First, is "And they suggest that invasive plants actually have benefits.", which I think does have some truth to it if placed in context. For example, eastern red cedar a native in the Midwest has benefits, but not since burning has been curbed or eliminated in many areas. Other examples exist, but the question is how much and what kind of benefits and are they enough to warrant inaction? The other point is the whole idea of 'deniers', whether climate, invasives, life on Mars, fracking effects on ground water, non-point source pollution, the existence of God, racial profiling, and the list of controversial topics goes on. Why do we deny the things that have evidence that conclusively shows that they do or don't exist or they do or don't happen? I think it is because of our belief system or what we do and don't want to believe and whether that fits with the world each of us lives in, while making secondary the world that we all live in. We have a moral obligation when the evidence shows that something is detrimental, beneficial, present, absent, etc. to do what is right and I think this is where the challenge lies and has always been - the evidence, our beliefs, and values or valuation, which is captured in Steve's statement, "We love our places and want to restore them to health."
Regards,
Steve Young (from Ithaca)


From: MAIPC <maipc-bounces at lists.maipc.org<mailto:maipc-bounces at lists.maipc.org>> on behalf of frazmo <frazmo at gmail.com<mailto:frazmo at gmail.com>>
Date: Thursday, September 3, 2015 at 8:41 PM
To: "maipc at lists.maipc.org<mailto:maipc at lists.maipc.org>" <maipc at lists.maipc.org<mailto:maipc at lists.maipc.org>>
Subject: [MAIPC] Invasives skeptics and their nouveau ecosystems


For folks who attended the MAIPC conference last month, you might have heard me mention "invasives skeptics." Later, someone posted a link to an extremely annoying Harper's article that took some nasty shots against us anti-invasivites. So I finally was rousted to write something about this topic that had been simmering on my mind for a while. If interested, please take a look at my Plantwhacker blog here:

http://www.plantwhacker.com/2015/09/invasives-skeptics-and-their-nouveau.html

Cheers, Steve Young (Arlington VA)
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