Invasion of the Invasive Species: Local Biodiversity is Increasing!

Reason ^ | 8/10/2010 | Ronald Bailey

[Olympiad Fisherman]

Here’s a fact that I suspect most people don’t know: Wherever we humans have gone in the past two centuries, we have increased local and regional biodiversity. Biodiversity, in this case, is defined as increasing species richness. Yet, “the popular view [is] that diversity is decreasing at local scales,” Brown University biologist Dov Sax and University of California, Santa Barbara biologist Steven Gaines report. Ample scientific evidence shows that this popular view is wrong, however ...

[Flycatcher]

Very interesting piece. Few people present the march of invasives in this way.

Food for thought.

[KoRn]

Save the Brown Recluse!!!! (let’s start a Brown Recluse activist/interest group)

[Olympiad Fisherman]

Believe it or not, but the green diatribe against invasive species largely began in fascist German conservation groups before the Nazi rise to power. The Nazis also made it one of their major environmental concerns.

For a good rundown on the German conservation movement before and after the Third Reich, please check out William Walter Kay’s book review of The Environmental Movement in Germany 1871-1971 just posted today at - http://www.ecofascism.com/review23.html.

You can also check out www.rmarkmusser.com (your truly) for shorter articles on the same connections.

[JoeFromSidney]

Humans apparently originated in Africa. From the standpoint of Europe, Asia and the Americas, we are an invasive species. I don't plan to lose any sleep over it.

[Olympiad Fisherman]

Amen! But the problem is many people cannot sleep because of it.

[Flycatcher]

Tip of the hat to you, sir.

I'll check it out. Thanks.

[raybbr]

Thanks for that link. Incredible information there....

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Olympiad Fisherman. Introduction of species by imperialist colonial powers has doomed all indigenous species to extinction. Oh wait, diversity is good...

Nineteen Eighty-Four
by George Orwell
(from chapter 17)

On a scarlet-draped platform an orator of the Inner Party, a small lean man with disproportionately long arms and a large bald skull over which a few lank locks straggled, was haranguing the crowd. A little Rumpelstiltskin figure, contorted with hatred, he gripped the neck of the microphone with one hand while the other, enormous at the end of a bony arm, clawed the air menacingly above his head... At every few moments the fury of the crowd boiled over and the voice of the speaker was drowned by a wild beast-like roaring that rose uncontrollably from thousands of throats. The most savage yells of all came from the schoolchildren. The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! ...There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot... The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed.