A new study has found that California wildfires emit more greenhouse gases than previously believed largely through the post-fire decay of dead wood, a finding that is raising questions about how effective the state’s forests are at storing carbon and slowing global warming.
The study by Thomas Bonnicksen, a retired forestry professor at Texas A&M University, found that four major wildfires – from the Fountain fire near Redding in 1992 to the Angora blaze at Lake Tahoe last year – are responsible for the release of 38 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, far more than the 2 million tons the state estimates that fires produce on average each year.
“Up until now, we have not fully appreciated the magnitude of the impact of wildfires on climate change,” Bonnicksen said. “This is a very important part of the problem.”
His study, which is not peer-reviewed and has been found lacking by some, is one of a flurry of reports that have begun to explore the critical role that forests play in regulating carbon dioxide, the principal atmospheric gas responsible for global warming. Traditionally, forests have been viewed as green reservoirs of landlocked carbon, soaking up and storing CO2 from the atmosphere in their leaves, needles, roots and soil.
Bonnicksen’s study casts that view into question. Forests today are so overcrowded with spindly, unhealthy trees – partly the result of decades of fire suppression – that as they burn and decay they are turning into an actual source of greenhouse gas pollution.
His study, for example, estimates emissions from just one blaze alone last year, the Moonlight fire in Plumas County, at more than 19.6 million tons, three-quarters of which are expected to occur over the next century as trees killed by the fire decay. That much carbon is roughly equivalent to the emissions from 3.6 million cars for a year.
Overall, California fires are producing so much CO2, he said, that they will defeat the state’s pioneering efforts to respond to climate change by reducing emissions elsewhere.
“No matter what anybody does in California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as long as these forests are burning, they are wasting their time,” Bonnicksen said. … [more]
For the full text of Dr. Bonnicksen’s reports, see W.I.S.E. Forest and Fire Science [here]
March 15, 2008 | 1 Comment | Topic: Latest Climate News, Latest Fire News, Latest Forest News
By Dick Little, Paradise Post [here]
Once again, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has gone off the deep end. They ruled the United States Forest Service should not have allowed expedited logging in the National Forests, although Congress approved the process. (This process calls for “thinning” certain areas by taking only a few trees at a time from a given region).
The three judge panel said the Forest Service failed to, ” properly analyze the rule, causing ‘irreparable injury’ by allowing more than 1.2 million acres of national forest land to be logged and burned each year without studying the ecological impacts.”
The Forest Service told the court they took the actions to provide a secure “fire safe” environment, using a program approved by Congress that allowed selective logging (a process where a small number of trees in a given area are cut to thin the forest land so fire will not spread rapidly). The Forest Service told the court their actions saved thousands of homes in Southern California during last year’s San Diego fires, a statement that fell on deaf ears.
Judges on the “Ninth Circus” have shown a callous disregard for the welfare for the people and critters who reside in forested areas of the west including those of us who live in Paradise. The Ninth Circuit Court is the most overturned one in the nation, and hopefully this decision will be quickly reversed. The suit, filed by the Sierra Club, claims the federal government went beyond what the Environmental Policy Act allowed for cleaning up forest land. The three judge panel ruled the Forest Service failed to properly analyze the rules causing what it termed, “irreparable injury.”
March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
by KEITH TROUT, Mason Valley News
An uninformed passerby at Smith Valley High School last Wednesday evening might taken in the throng of vehicles parked outside and wondered if graduation had come early this year.
But the source of the sizeable crowd gathered at the school that night was a planned presentation, held as part of the Smith Valley Advisory Council meeting, on the proposed wilderness area designation for southern Lyon County and parts of Mineral and Esmeralda counties.
And the comments expressed during the more than two-hour session atend by an estimated 500 people, were unanimously opposed to that wilderness designation, including several elected officials who attended the meeting as well.
The presentation was organized by the newly-formed ‘Coalition for Public Access’ and drew a packed house to the SVHS gym. And those attending were not limited to Smith Valley residents, as the crowd drew folks from Mason Valley, Mineral and Douglas Counties, and other areas and organizations beyond.
Representatives of Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign were in attendance, as was another representing Congressman Dean Heller, and each said the wilderness designation was not proposed by the Congressmen, but by the wilderness groups advocating the inclusion of land in the Lyon County/Mineral County lands bill. … [more]
March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
In a 2 1/2 hour meeting similar to the one in Smith Valley last week, nearly 200 Mineral County residents told three representatives to Nevada’s congressional delegation to “Leave us alone!” when it comes to any wilderness designations in a Lyon-Mineral Lands Bill.
Many of those residents meeting in the convention center in Hawthorne also heard for the first time a resolution adopted the previous day unanimously by the Mineral County Commissioners rejecting wilderness; and an appeal from that same commission to have Lyon and Esmeralda counties join them in such action. (See MC resolution reprinted in this edition of the MVN)
In response to requests from representatives Matt Tuma of Senator Reid’s office, Kevin Kirkeby from Senator Ensign’s office and Verita Prothro from Congressman Heller’s office for public input, MC commissioner and liason to the delegation Jerrie Tipton introduced and read the county’s resolution which drew a round of applause from the audience.
Tipton then pointed to a 1984 resolution in which the county has it “doesn’t need a lands bill” and “thanks, but no thanks” to wilderness this time around as well. … [more]
March 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By Mike Carter and Hal Bernton, Seattle Times [here]
TACOMA — Jurors weighing the fate of Briana Waters struggled with a charge that would have sent the 32-year-old mother and violin teacher to prison for 30 years.
Their verdict, delivered Thursday in a packed federal courtroom, recognized her participation in the 2001 arson at a University of Washington research center, but also her limited role in the crime and the modest prison sentences expected to be given to others involved. The arson was committed in the name of the Earth Liberation Front.
While jurors convicted the Oakland, Calif., woman of two counts of arson, they deadlocked on three other charges, including the most serious, which would have sent her to prison for a minimum of 30 years. Afterward, some in the jury said they were sympathetic because Waters has a 3-year-old daughter.
“It’s fair to say that for a lot of us, it was very emotional,” said one male juror, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I mean, here was a mom with a kid. It certainly played into the deliberations.”
In convicting Waters of arson, the jury agreed with federal prosecutors who said she served as a lookout for a team of Earth Liberation Front saboteurs who firebombed the UW’s Center of Urban Horticulture because they believed, mistakenly, that a researcher was genetically engineering trees.
March 13, 2008 | 4 Comments | Topic: Latest Fire News, Latest Forest News
Joel Connelly, Seattle P.I. [here]
The Wild Sky Wilderness Area was supposed to be a slam dunk in the new Democratic-controlled Congress: But a conservative Oklahoma senator has succeeded in blocking its enactment at least until early next year.
The proposed 106,000-acre wilderness area, in the Cascades of eastern Snohomish County, sailed through the U.S. House of Representatives on a voice vote earlier this year. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported it for action on the Senate floor.
At that point, however, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., put a “hold” on Wild Sky, along with a bevy of other proposals. … [more]
Oklahoma senator blocks Wyden, Smith wilderness bill again
Posted by Charles Pope, The Oregonian February 28, 2008 [here]
WASHINGTON - In a move that amounted to a desperate long shot, Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith tried Thursday night to slide through the Senate a popular but tortured bill that would expand wilderness areas surrounding Mount Hood.
It didn’t work.
Sen. Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma who has been Wyden and Smith’s relentless opponent for eight months, objected to their request that the wilderness proposal be approved unanimously.
With that roadblock firmly in place, Wyden and Smith backed down. They did not offer the bill for a vote that would have been doomed.
The 15-minute exercise did nothing to minimize the frustration.
“I don’t expect the citizens of Oregon to understand the arcane rules of the Senate,” Smith said. “This is nothing extreme. This is something that is unique to Oregon.” … [more]
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
by Michael Milstein, The Oregonian, March 03, 2008
It was unusual enough when a high-level federal judge — who is the brother of Sen. Gordon Smith — blasted his own court for decimating the Northwest logging industry with “blunderbuss” rulings that went way too far.
But the extraordinary scolding by Milan D. Smith Jr. last year apparently got the attention of his fellow judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the top federal court in the West.
They recently took the unusual step of voting to have a full panel of judges reconsider the case that set Smith off. That could rein in the federal courts that Smith — along with timber industry leaders — blame for needlessly idling sawmills while they meddle in logging decisions beyond their expertise.
Just as the Supreme Court considers only a few important cases each year, the 9th Circuit — the largest appeals court in the country — picks only a handful for full reviews. So the decision to do so on an otherwise routine timber sale case suggests that Smith’s wrath hit a nerve with his colleagues.
“It’s very rare and unusual,” said Scott Horngren, a Portland attorney involved in the case. “It’s basically unheard of that they take a timber sale case.”
It offers a rare glimpse at the inside politics of the court that has issued momentous decisions, involving protection of species from spotted owls and salmon, with cascading effects on the Northwest economy.
Smith, like his brother the Republican senator, is from Pendleton. He founded a law firm in Torrance, Calif., and President Bush appointed him to the appeals court in 2006, adding a new, conservative voice to the court known for its liberal bent.
“Judges are troubled when they’re accused of going beyond their proper role by anybody,” said Dan Rohlf, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School and director of the school’s environmental law clinic. “When the person accusing the court of that is one of its own members, they tend to be even more troubled.”
The case that led to Smith’s outburst is fairly routine: an attempt by environmental groups to block a U.S. Forest Service logging project known as Mission Brush in northern Idaho.
But the point Smith raised is much larger: How far should judges pry into the Forest Service’s rationale for the logging? Should judges evaluate the science the Forest Service uses to back its case, or defer to the agency’s expertise? … [more]
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian [here]
Comment online To comment on this story, go to Western Montana 360.
KALISPELL - A string of red-hot wildfire seasons has claimed millions of Western forest acres and not a few homes and lives, and Mike Dubrasich reckons he’s figured out at least part of the solution for future summers:
“If you know a Sierra Club member, please feel free to set their home on fire.”
That’s the suggestion - “I’m suggesting it, but I’m not advocating it” - Dubrasich posted on his Web site last week.
“Personally,” said Bob Clark, “I thought that was a little over the top.”
Clark is a Sierra Club representative based out of Missoula, and he keeps a whole file of death threats in his office. Some have been forwarded to the FBI, some to the state attorney general, some to the Montana Human Rights Network.
He doesn’t place Dubrasich’s post in the “death threat category,” but it did catch his attention.
“You shouldn’t have to live in your community in fear of your neighbors,” Clark said. “We live in a civil society. There are other avenues besides burning someone’s house down.”
And on that, Dubrasich couldn’t agree more.
Dubrasich, of Lebanon, Ore., describes himself as a forester, a consultant and a blogger, among other things. His Web network - the Western Institute for Study of the Environment - includes 11 separate sites. Eight are what he calls “educational colloquia,” all about forests and fires and wildlife and paleobotany and rural culture. The others are a mix of news and commentary, clippings and first-person opinion pieces.
February 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
A Total Disregard for the Care of Our Forests
By LARRY MAHE, published in the Missoulian [here]
I remember that while growing up, the Bitterroot Valley was not filled with smoke month after month in the summer.
In those years logging was a strong industry in the Bitterroot, western Montana and Idaho. Now, because of environmental pressure, logging has all but stopped and the fires have begun.
The environmentalist agenda is not about holding loggers or the Forest Service to a higher standard. It is not about an exciting future of innovation, new machinery and technology, education and promoting a renewable resource into the future. It is certainly not about jobs, common sense or money going into our education system. Their agenda is about roadblocks and stopping all logging and forest management.
Some years ago I went on a “show-me trip” on a proposed timber sale. I was standing in a circle of Forest Service personnel and environmentalists. An environmentalist had listed elk habitat as one of the problem issues with this sale. I asked what damage we were doing by harvesting dead and dying mistletoe fir. He blurted out without thinking that he did not know because he was in a hurry the day he signed the appeal and had signed it without reading it.
February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
By Suzanne Penegor and Gienie Assink
Guest Viewpoint, Eugene Register Guard, February 14, 2008 [here]
In the 1930s, when the United States was mired in a Great Depression, Congress wisely and with great vision approved the O&C Lands Act to guide the management of federal lands that once belonged to the Oregon & California Railroad in Western Oregon. The act established a method for funding Oregon counties, allowing them to provide such vital services as public safety and road maintenance.
Now, because of the efforts of the environmental movement and its litigious attorneys, the O&C funding formula that was successful for decades has been severed. Alternative 2 of the Bureau of Land Management’s Western Oregon Plan Revision would restore this vital funding mechanism for 2.5 million acres of publicly owned lands in Oregon.
The BLM received approximately 29,000 responses for and against this plan for the restoration of our county tax base. Many folks who oppose the restoration of this tax base weighed in, as did Oregonians who recognize how profoundly businesses and Oregon counties are impacted by the inability to use this economic base for timber production.
Environmental groups and their allies argue that tourism can take the place of the millions of lost timber dollars and revenues from these O&C public lands. But tourism jobs and revenues often simply cannot replace the family-wage jobs and tax revenues that have historically come from timber production on these lands.
Read more
February 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
A fired government land buyer has filed a whistle-blower suit against Brevard County, claiming he tried to stop a non-profit that negotiates prices with landowners from misappropriating public money.
David Drake was hired as the county’s land acquisition manager for its Environmentally Endangered Lands program in April 2006 but was let go in March 2007, less than a year later.
Drake’s attorney, Maurice Arcadier, said Drake had told the county about problems with The Nature Conservancy, including overbilling and submitting wrong invoices.
“He was terminated for doing his job too good,” Aracadier said. “Basically, the county was getting ripped off left and right. There’s a lot of things that could potentially be corrupt.”
Drake’s former boss, Mike Knight, who oversees the county’s EEL program, said Drake had problems working with The Nature Conservancy.
“He was terminated in his probationary period because he couldn’t develop a cooperative working relationship with The Nature Conservancy,” Knight said. “He wasn’t able to work with them. He was very adversarial with them. It developed into a very nonfunctional relationship.”
Jill Austin, a spokeswoman for The Nature Conservancy, said Drake’s lawsuit doesn’t have any merit.
“The Nature Conservancy reviewed the claims that he made and found them without merit,” Austin said.
The county’s EEL program was established in 1990 when voters approved issuing up to $55 million in bonds to buy land and paying slightly higher property taxes to cover the bonds. Those bonds still are being paid off. In 2004, voters approved a renewal of the program, enabling the county to spend up to $60 million more… [more]
February 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
Conservation easements approved for pricey subdivisions, fairways, small parcels
An innovative state law designed to preserve Colorado’s scenic open spaces and working ranches has, in dozens of cases, been used to protect everything from multimillion- dollar home sites in gated communities to tiny pieces of land slated for oil and gas development.
The law allots generous state income tax credits to property owners who agree to protect their lands from development. But in some cases, a Rocky Mountain News investigation has found, the law has been used to generate tax credits on lands with questionable public value.
In addition, the investigation found, appraisals on some properties granted protection have been grossly inflated. The higher the appraisal, the greater the tax credit.
The tax credits, which have cost the state at least $274 million since the program’s inception, are potentially lucrative, because they can be sold by the property owner for cash… [more]
February 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
Affordable-housing activists in Brooklyn, N.Y., are proposing eminent domain be used to seize a prime piece of New York real estate from Pfizer Inc.
Pfizer is the same company that inspired economic-development plans in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London after the pharmaceutical giant started building its Global Research & Development headquarters there nearly a decade ago.
“Ah, irony,” says Scott Bullock, senior attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice, the group that defended Fort Trumbull resident Susette Kelo as the lead plaintiff in Kelo v. City of New London — the property-rights case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The city won the case three years ago.
“It shows that once the power goes to government to take properties on behalf of private parties, the tables can easily be turned on you … if you’re out of favor with the powers that be,” Bullock said… [more]
February 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
Indonesia is a land in turmoil, home to massive volcanoes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. On Monday, January 14, it experienced a brand new type of disturbance, the world’s first food riot caused by another nation pandering to the global warming mob. Indonesians took to the streets, demanding that their government to do something about the price of soybeans, a dietary staple.
All over the world, food prices are on the rise. For most of the late 1990s and up until 2005, the price of beans on the Chicago Board of Trade had remained stable at about $5 a bushel. Since then, they have shot up over 150 percent, to around $13. Corn has doubled, to $5. Wheat prices have tripled.
It all started with the 2005 Energy Policy Act, passed by a Republican congress and signed by a Republican president, mandating that an increasing amount of ethanol be admixed with gasoline. The bill was sold as a road to “energy independence” and as lowering the amount of carbon dioxide we emit, reducing dreaded global warming.
By now, 15 percent of our corn crop is being distilled, diverted from the proper purpose for such distillates (i.e. drinking), combusted, and sent out your car’s tailpipe… [more]
February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
WASHINGTON — A Senate committee Wednesday endorsed an Idaho land swap and a plan to create federal wilderness protection for nearly 14,000 acres of national forest land along Oregon’s southern coast.
The Copper Salmon Wilderness, proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will be included a huge public lands bill to be debated by the Senate. The measure was among 42 separate bills approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Seventeen bills — including the Oregon measure and the Idaho land exchange — will be combined in a measure that includes about 60 individual land bills, Senate aides said Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to bring the bill to the Senate floor soon.
Wyden said he was pleased at the committee’s unanimous vote and noted that Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., is a co-sponsor. The bill would protect 13,700 acres of coastal forest and salmon streams at the headwaters of the Elk River near Port Orford, Ore…
Wyden said later he would seek to bring to the Senate floor separate legislation expanding wilderness area around Mount Hood by about 125,000 acres… [more]
February 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Latest Forest News
