Wil's Rant

I have contended for some time that nature may very well not be able to fix the damage we have done. The cod fisheries in Canada are becoming a great example of just this. We know that we have allowed the cod to be fished to near extinction. A ban was placed on cod fishing in hopes that the stocks would recover. This has proven to not be the case. The Canadian government now blames the seal as the reason that the cod has not recovered. Their solution was to hold one big ass hunt to lower the seal numbers. The ecologists are telling a different story. Nature has in essence rebalanced itself without the cod. The cod will not be able to regain it's former numbers in this new environment. They may in fact not be able to do this for many thousands of years if ever, just as they had to evolve into their previous numbers in balance with the rest of the species in the first place.

The point is we are making changes that can not be undone. No amount of study or action is likely to ever restore the cod. Face it, we just don't know enough to even begin to have any kind of real success. If we try to do anything at this point, it will always come at the cost of something else. Perhaps our goal should be to simply walk with a very soft step when it comes to our planet. The other option is to get used to the idea of living on a planet with very little life other than our own, if that is even, ever possible.