I hate to be an enabler, but you are being a downer, with very good reason.

What we're experiencing now isn't the result of what we're doing now, it's the accumulated result of what we've been doing for decades, and there is simply no way to reverse that, it's inexorable.

I think that short-to-medium term, conditions in the world's fisheries are going to get much, much worse. The litany of problems is simply overwhelming: endocrine disruptors, rapidly rising acidity levels, industrial pollution, overfishing, coastal development, red tides, climate change, it's enough to make me want to pawn my rods, grab a bottle and go find a dark corner, because I think in the coming years we're going to be sticking a fork in a lot of what we cherish.

Obviously we should be doing everything possible to change our global behaviour, but that's mainly for our great-grandchildren's benefit.

We, to put it bluntly, are screwed regardless of what we do because this environmental train has already left the station.

And I don't think a lot of people realize that. They still want to believe there's some magic kumbaya bullet we can shoot, some great harmonic convergence of awareness we can all grok to and things will be all right.

It 'aint gonna happen. I'm not a pessimist. I'm simply a Malthusian pragmatist.

There's more and more evidence every day that we're stuck in the mother of all negative feedback loops.

When I started seeing the wire stories on how even the most worst-case-scenario climate change computer models were not only being confirmed by the hard, real-world climatological data, but in many cases were actually being overtaken, I (again) felt like grabbing the bottle.

How's that for being a downer?

Man, this made my day. Thanks a lot Joe, I already failed a physics test and now this. At least the physics thing can be made up for in the short term. I'm not going to go into a 7 paragraph rant like I really want to, but I'm going to say this: I'm not some dope smoking hippy that believes we should do away with all establishment, but the way we have treated our only planet is deplorable. I don't care if you believe in man-made global warming or not, we MUST stop polluting the air and water that we in turn breathe and drink. This should be a completely non-partisan, non-political goal that everyone could share. But no, the damn media and politicians in this country turn everything into a political issue. I'm all for the government having as little effect on the daily lives of U.S. citizens as possible, but one of the number one jobs of the federal government in this country should be to regulate and monitor things that could possibly have an adverse affect on the environment. Offer business' tax incentives for doing the right thing and making sure that they operate in a way to have as little effect on the environment as possible. If the situation with a particular business is bad enough, they should be fined, or possibly given the "death penalty" if they refuse to clean up their operation.

I'm not sure most of the people of this country realize how vital this is to our countries' future. That said, I don't think we're all of a sudden going to wake up one day and there be nowhere to hunt or fish. But we are certainly going to see a decline in the quality and quantity of sporting opportunities left.

As if today didn't already suck enough!

I also read an article several years back regarding the Poudre River in Colorado, stating it was found to have high levels of “Flushed” pollutants, so much to the point of physically affecting/altering the Trout populations.
It only makes sense that dumping water from a Sewerage Treatment Plant into pristine waterways is bad. There are already many Super Fund Cleanup sites in the U.S. directly affecting waterways, due to Industrial Plants, Strip Mines, Farms, etc, whether it is directly pumped or from run off.
In my opinion it is a major concern, trick question is what can be done, “Flushed” pollutants are here to stay, can the same be said for the future of species in the affected waterways? Proverbial can of worms on this one. Inevitably there will be areas that will lose fish populations, and over time they too will come back, but not with out a lot of research into this latest environmental issue.

Forget the fish, the same waterways that have fish with high levels of pharmaceuticals are the same waterways feeding out drinking water. An awful lot of us are drinking some of the same water these fish are swimming in.

buckhunter, I don't ever want to see us as another Japan. THEY are hogging the oceans and ignoring treaties.

Hey, I remember when the ecology thing first hit, Lake Erie was considered dead. Now its a thriving fishery and I guess their safe to eat. The first step in solving a problem is to identify the problem. Apparently, we've done that. Now, we just have to figure out how to solve it. Rivers, by definition, clean out pretty quickly as the water is always being changed. I'm more worried about exotic invasives.

buckhunter,
i live in PA and its the same exact way...one creek is stocked with trout in one spot and about two miles down stream its a sewer runoff.
im only 16 and ive been complimented many imes on cleaning up where i fish i hate when people leave crap laying around and pollute the water...im not trying to brag but its something i like to think that i should be proud of...i like to keep a garbage bag in my tackle box too and if i see something i pick it up and throw it away

The bottom line is that there are just too many of us in this country and on this planet. We can reduce consumption, clean up, use green technologies, etc. but the amount of waste we produce is starting to exceed the earth's ability to break down the waste. As in every animal species, when there is an overpopulation nature will make a correction.

first off, all of you guys had better be careful about posting on the hunting blogs. Any time I say anything about preserving the natural environment over there I get called a liberal-hippie-enviro-PETA member. (none of which are even close to being true by the way)

chadlove-
Everything you said is true. Our planet is in rough shape and in a lot of ways its getting even worse. Things are definitely going to get worse (possibly a lot worse) before they get better.

That being said, we need to be careful about this defeatist "there's nothing we can do" attitude. If all of us who care about nature give up then things will definitely get a lot worse and stay that way. If we try there is at least a small chance that things will eventually get better. If we give up that chance is zero. Therefore, the only rational course of action is to try! and try damn hard!

I hear a lot of my friends saying things like "Alternative energy is useless, It will never make enough power to run the country, we should stop spending money on it" This attitude really worries me.

Think of where we'd be if humans always had that attitude. The Wright brother's first plane was a piece of junk, it only flew for 59 seconds and crashed all the time. They had problems just getting investors. But, 4 decades later the Germans had fighter jets, and a little under 7 decades later Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

The combination of science and human ingenuity is an unbelievably powerful thing. I think we need to have faith that eventually it will beat out greed and ignorance.