renegade:
I'm feeling a little ornery right now, so I think I'll try to stir something up.
In the early days, the fish was called the "walleyed pike" in the US, and (depending on where you were from), either the "yellow pickerel" or "yellow pike" up here. The fish is not a pike, and there is a fish that's more akin to a pike called a "chain pickerel", so officially naming it became a problem.
The Yanks get to write all the books, and make all the scientific decisions, so it started to be called a walleye - a name I find particularly distasteful (much like the renaming of some porpoises as "dolphins"). In Niagara, they're still generally referred to a "yellows" (as opposed to "blues").
Also, as near as I can tell, "global warming" is a myth. It's simply a recent swing in the ongoing process of climate variability. Actually, global temperatures rose quite radically between 1850 and 1930, but in the last 70 years have been dropping (how about that - "global cooling"). For about 25 years, between 1968 and 1993, the worlds mountain and continental glaciers advanced. Right now average temperatures, though still dropping on a world-wide basis, are a mixed bag, dropping in many areas but increasing in a few. Canada is one of the areas where temperatures are increasing.
The original study that came out in 1986, as I recall, predicted dire consequences in 10 years if radical changes weren't made. By 1996, none of the proposed targets were achieved, and nothing happened. After-all, the gasses they focus on constitute less than 2% of 1% of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gasses (mainly water vapour) are necessary to life on earth, but variances in such a tiny portion can hardly have the catastrophic effects predicted.
The "Eco" community is using this myth to promote further funding to environmental issues - which, in itself, is a good thing - , but I resent being manipulated on the basis of something that is little more than a lie.
Rick
