After reading Eric's how long can it go...

Richard Lathrop said:
I haven’t read article either but with rise of factory farming I would question the source. is this a farmer struggling to stay afloat and thinks more land will save the farm or just a large production outfit looking to increase yields?
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I have a friend that retired from John Deere. He double dips by working with a contract harvester company. He tells me more and more family farms are disappearing because of corporate farming. Its reported that family farms are still 95% of the farming industry with the average farm size is roughly 450 to 500 acres. The average income $350,000 per year but with the cost of a new combine is pushing $700,000 then add a Corn Head and a Draper and your well over 1 million. Need a new tractor? A 350hp row crop 4x4 tractor is pushing $300,000 then a angered grain cart to run along side that new combine is $50,000. Its a tough life and hard to balance a delicate ecosystem with the human needs.
 
Richard Lathrop said:
I haven’t read article either but with rise of factory farming I would question the source. is this a farmer struggling to stay afloat and thinks more land will save the farm or just a large production outfit looking to increase yields?
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I'd question whether "the farmer" really wrote it, and pehaps whether he really exists. Clearly, the political support and money for this change is coming from large agriculture operations, either portraying themselves as or standing up more sympathetic family farmers to lead the charge. I may be a little too cynical--but probably not cynical enough.
 
RM Anderson said:
Conservation organizations like DU or Delta rarely partner with each other so this letter to Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, is kind of a big deal.
RM

www.outdoorlife.com

‘We Have Invested Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in These Easements.’ Waterfowl Groups Send Urgent Letter to Secretary Burgum

Four major waterfowl conservation groups sent a letter to the Department of the Interior urging that it upholds drainage rules for wetlands.
www.outdoorlife.com www.outdoorlife.com
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I'd add that for 10+ years DU has really backed off of government advocacy on wetlands policy issues. That they are choosing this issue as the time and place re-engage indicates how serious the potential impact is. I also think the DU/Delta messaging is 100% on target. These easements were PURCHASED. They are a property right, and was bought and paid for, to be used for waterfowl conservation. Renegotiating that sale many years later is just wrong.
 
Jeff Reardon said:
I'd question whether "the farmer" really wrote it, and pehaps whether he really exists. Clearly, the political support and money for this change is coming from large agriculture operations, either portraying themselves as or standing up more sympathetic family farmers to lead the charge. I may be a little too cynical--but probably not cynical enough.
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The "farmer" who wrote it is a plaintiff in a Pacific Legal Foundation lawsuit against the drainage rule. A drain tile company filed suit and was thrown out of court for several reasons. All of you should remember that the US Supreme Court ruled against Clean Water Act protection of wetlands in Sackett v. EPA. These suits are designed to remove more wetland protections. Add in the reversal of Chevron deference and you'll see the systematic attack on wetlands on private lands.
 
Brad Bortner said:
But I will say that it is extraordinary to have DU, Delta, CWA and SCWA all sign the same letter!
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My wife and I attend alot of national conventions for DU, Delta Waterfowl, Pheasants Forever etc. I have posed this question of no cooperation between various nonprofit organizations at every meeting where they have an open question and answers session. The silece is deafening. Seems to me alot more could be accomplished by joining forces on projects where interests overlap.
RM
 
Brad Bortner said:
The "farmer" who wrote it is a plaintiff in a Pacific Legal Foundation lawsuit against the drainage rule. A drain tile company filed suit and was thrown out of court for several reasons. All of you should remember that the US Supreme Court ruled against Clean Water Act protection of wetlands in Sackett v. EPA. These suits are designed to remove more wetland protections. Add in the reversal of Chevron deference and you'll see the systematic attack on wetlands on private lands.
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Oh, we are already seeing it. We have been for ~25 years. But expanding the fight to allow alternations of wetlands that were purchased for conservation is a new level of chutzpah.
 
Here's another aspect of changes in weather/climate, and their effects on our sport and overall wetland ecology, at least from what I observe here in NJ. Putting human effect on it aside for a separate discussion, it's well-documented that climate has swung back and forth in pendulum fashion through all the geologic history we are aware of. During most of that time, nature had a way of self-mitigating the effects on coastal wetlands. Rising seas flooded and killed salt marshes, but saltwater also killed the nearby upland and freshwater wetland vegetation, creating new saltmarsh slightly inland. Evidence of this was the huge cedars dug from the marshes in the 19th century (called "shingle mining"), after the inland swamps had been logged off. Conversely, during extreme blow-out tides remnants of ancient saltmarsh sod, from a time of lower sea levels, can be seen in the exposed ocean floor. Habitats simply moved back and forth. But after decades of wetland legislation, with minimal control of development in coastal uplands, virtually everything legally buildable in the coastal areas has been developed. If seas rise again, now or in the future, there's simply nowhere for new marsh to migrate to. We've already lost huge areas of marsh to coastal development prior to the federal wetland laws of the 1970s. Even a small rise in sea levels would wipe out the rest, with little area to re-establish.
 
This is already being seen among the Gulf coast. We’ve had 6-8” of SLR since 2000 and we are seeing some incredible marsh erosion rates even in locations with limited fetch.
Nature and ecosystems can adapt to Climate change over geological time, the CO2 driven change we are seeing now is happening at an immensely faster rate, pretty much real time. That’s the difference from looking at the known data.
 
Carl said:
This is already being seen among the Gulf coast. We’ve had 6-8” of SLR since 2000 and we are seeing some incredible marsh erosion rates even in locations with limited fetch.
Nature and ecosystems can adapt to Climate change over geological time, the CO2 driven change we are seeing now is happening at an immensely faster rate, pretty much real time. That’s the difference from looking at the known data.
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Everyone is told that rising sea levels is caused by greenhouse gases/global warming ie. the melting of polor ice sheets. This is not accurate and underscores the real danger that is happening under our very eyes. As I posted earlier, it is the aquifers that are being depleted that is driving most of the increases that we see. To quote Google,
"Studies suggest that total land water storage losses, dominated by groundwater, account for roughly 44% of global mean sea level rise, compared to 37% from the Greenland ice sheet and 19% from Antarctica."

grist.org

Groundwater is drying out, heating up, and causing sea level rise

Overuse of groundwater has created zones of “mega-drying” around the world — and caused more sea level rise than Greenland’s ice sheets.
grist.org grist.org
 
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Not say pumping massive quantities of groundwater is not a percentage of SLR, I haven’t heard of this hypothesis so I can’t comment that it’s not having an effect. But the overwhelming scientific consensus is that the main cause of SLR is warming global temps causing increased overall ocean water temps (volume increase as temps rise) and the loss of ice coverage in glaciers and ice sheets worldwide.
Other than increased temperatures and unpredictable weather changes, SLR is most likely the largest threat from the current trends in global warming. The world’s population centers are focused on the coastal areas. And most are unprepared for even the lowest levels of predicted SLR.
 
RM Anderson said:
Everyone is told that rising sea levels is caused by greenhouse gases/global warming ie. the melting of polor ice sheets. This is not accurate and underscores the real danger that is happening before our very eyes. As I posted earlier, it is the aquifers that are being depleted that is driving most of the increases that we see. To quote Google,
"Studies suggest that total land water storage losses, dominated by groundwater, account for roughly 44% of global mean sea level rise, compared to 37% from the Greenland ice sheet and 19% from Antarctica."

grist.org

Groundwater is drying out, heating up, and causing sea level rise

Overuse of groundwater has created zones of “mega-drying” around the world — and caused more sea level rise than Greenland’s ice sheets.
grist.org grist.org
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I need to know more about groundwater pumping and sea-level rise. It's an interesting hypothesis about which I know nothing. But even if what you posted is 100% accurate, ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica accounts for 56% of sea level rise--which is more than half. 44% is less than half, and certainly not most. And it has to be more complicated than that, what with thermal expansion of water once it warms over 4C, melting of ice that is not in Greenland or Antarctica, like all the receding glaciers in the Rockies, Andes, Himalayas, Alps and other mountain range, etc.
 
Jeff Reardon said:
But even if what you posted is 100% accurate, ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica accounts for 56% of sea level rise--which is more than half. 44% is less than half, and certainly not most.
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Jeff,
I never said that I was good at math...
Some estimates claim that 97% of the world's water is underground. Globally we are using these underground stores faster than they can be replenished by rainfall. When there is excessive ground moisture from rain or melting snow, it is fast tracked to the ocean by drain tile. Minnesota has lost 50- 90% of its wetlands to drainage statewide.
People have not heard of this because global warming is more of a political narrative in my opinion. The real danger is under our feet.
RM

Depleted Aquifers: Causes, Effects, Solutions | Earth.Org

In this article, we delve into the causes and far-reaching effects of low levels in aquifers around the world, while examining the innovative solutions that some nations have embraced to combat this alarming crisis.
earth.org earth.org
 
I read the referenced article on groundwater exploitation, then explored the rest of the website, finding other articles raising the alarm on sea levels related to a warming climate. I guess it should go without saying, that one doesn't rule out the other. I mentioned the evidence we have of historic changes in both climate and sea levels, so this isn't a preposterous idea, as some suggest. And icecaps melting as climates warm isn't exactly a theory either. I've found marine fossils in the center of the NJ Pine Barrens, deposited at a time when the southern half of the state was under ocean water. And nobody was around to be pumping water out of the ground back then.
 
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