Ratification without representation: "Congress is currently working on legislation that takes constitutional disregard to a new level. At issue is how to implement future changes to a yet to be ratified treaty -- the Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, known as the POPs Treaty. It imposes international bans on 12 chemicals and sets up a process for banning more chemicals in the future."





MORE GUESSWORK MASQUERADING AS SCIENCE

"More than 6000 plants, insects and animals should be added to the list of the world's endangered species, according to a study published yesterday. It found that the number of species threatened with extinction was far more than originally thought because of a "hidden" threat to plants and animals which depend on each other to survive. An international study, published in the journal Science, found that biologists had underestimated the dependent species which died out when a more well-known "host" became extinct. Researchers claimed that at least 200 species may have become extinct without the world realising.

The team, from the universities of Alberta, Singapore and Tennessee, looked at a list of 12,200 plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered. It then studied a diverse selection of insects, mites, fungi and other organisms that are uniquely adapted to these listed plants and animals and which depend on them for survival. Around 6300 species should be classified as "co-endangered", it said.

Dr Heather Proctor, a biologist at the University of Alberta, said:... "What we wanted to learn was, if the host goes extinct, how many other species will go with it. "It would be easy if there were always a one-to-one relationship with a host and its affiliate, however, not all parasites, for example, are restricted to a single host species.

The researchers believed the oversight could have happened because some of the most susceptible organisms were unattractive and unpopular parasites. Dr. Proctor cited a plant vine that became locally extinct in Singapore, taking with it a species of butterfly, parantica aspasia, that depended on the vine for survival. "When we lose this vine, this beautiful butterfly dies off with it, and we'll never see it again except in photographs at museums," she said".

More here

The big weakness is in the second last paragraph above. How can they know that a parasite is not found somewhere else? Proving a negative is notoriously difficult. And the last paragraph above is amusing. Unattractive parasites dying out is bad? A lot of people would manage to hold the tears. And notice how a butterfly that is only locally extinct (i.e. no longer found in one particular location) suddenly seems to become totally extinct

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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