Dam Breaching

Hippies decry artificial dams and are a great supporter of efforts to breach dams in the Pacific Northwest. Their reasoning goes something like this: Dams make it difficult for salmon to get downstream while young, and upstream while mature, leading to ever dwindling populations of wild salmon. Their solution – dam breaching – means tearing down dams that often are used to produce hydroelectric power, one the most “clean” sources of power around. It is startling that hippies advocate such a position, seeing as the lost power would ultimately be replaced by fossil-fuel burning sources (which contribute to global warming, which raises sea levels, which will kill millions in Bangladesh.) But what is even more startling is the amount of salmon the average hippie eats annually. These guys love it on their bagels (a hippie favorite), smoked and mixed in with some cream cheese, or simply grilled on cedar planks on a barbeque. It is estimated that each Northwest hippie eats close to his/her total weight in salmon each year. If they would simply switch to, say, tuna, there would be no need for dam breaching in the first place! Silly hippies…