Note: much of this essay is cribbed from an earlier one that appeared on SOS Forests last Equinox, September 21st, 2007.
The debate between evolutionists and creationists has been going on ever since Charles Darwin published his 1859 tome, On the Origin of Species. It has been a rancorous debate, with Monkey Trials, walking fish bumper stickers, and irreconcilable differences that have been erupting for nearly 150 years.
The evolution/creationism debate is often characterized as one with scientists on one side and religious fundamentalists, or Fundies, on the other. The insulting appellation reflects the animosity in the dialog.
There is another, similar debate going on that pits Fundies against Darwinists. It is the debate about Wilderness and the Balance of Nature. The Fundies in this case often describe themselves as Pagan or Atheist Fundamentalists. And many scientists (so-called) have planted themselves squarely in the Pagan Fundie garden.
The Pagan Fundies maintains that Wilderness is the historical and appropriate condition of Nature in Harmony and Balance. This is a matter of religious faith, although modern Paganism is mostly an unofficial religion these days. Modern Pagans believe that God, in the personage of Mother Nature, created and desires a natural world where human beings are absent or a minor, irrelevant species at most, and that Mother Nature seeks balance.
The best science, on the other hand, has revealed that our terrestrial landscapes have been profoundly altered by humanity since our species first evolved in Africa approximately 150,000 years ago. Human beings created vast savannas in Africa via anthropogenic fire. Then about 50,000 year ago humanity migrated eastward through the Indian sub-continent to Southeast Asia and Australia, again altering the vegetation and animal populations along the way.
At some point during the Wisconsin glaciation, no less than 13,500 years ago and possibly before then, human beings migrated to the Americas. The first arrivals swept across the New World (and it really was new then, to people) in a matter of a few centuries. They brought tamed fire with them, and burned landscapes from the sub-Arctic to Tierra del Fuego. They hunted the easy-prey megafauna and drove a few dozen mammalian species to extinction.
March 6, 2008 | 1 Comment | Topic: Federal forest policy
I highly recommend that you read Wyoming Attorney Harriet Hageman’s exposition on Clinton’s Roadless Rule [here]. She discusses the origins of the Roadless Rule:
It was developed in the waning days of the Clinton administration to deny access, management and use of, 58.5 million acres of National Forest lands (30% of the National Forests; 2% of the total land mass of the United States; 3.2 million acres in Wyoming). It was adopted following what was arguably the most truncated, superficial and scientifically-devoid NEPA rulemaking in history. The alleged “public process” associated with the Roadless Rule was politically driven rather than scientifically supported…
She discusses how NEPA lawsuits forced a suspension of the Roadless Rule. This is important. The Bush Administration did not suspend the Rule, federal judges did, responding to suits that arose outside the federal government. Bush’s Justice Department defended Clinton’s Rule, but lost in court:
The current dispute is a continuation of the State of Wyoming’s 2001 lawsuit, and stems from Judge Brimmer’s 2003 decision (found at 277 F.Supp.2d 1197 (D.Wyo. 2003)) to enjoin enforcement of the Roadless Rule based on the fact that it violated NEPA and the Wilderness Act.
Despite the injunction, the USFS has continued to uphold the Rule. Tearing out roads continues to take place on every National Forest in the country. The effect of this contempt of court is to decrease fire protection and increase the size of forest fires:
At the time that the Roadless Rule was being considered, the Federal Governmental Accounting Office (GAO) and numerous National Forest Managers warned that, because of its prohibition on treatment and management, the Roadless Rule substantially increased the risk of catastrophic forest fires and devastating insect infestations within the National Forests, as well as within the adjacent State and private lands.
Indeed, the largest forest fires in recorded history have happened since the imposition of the Roadless Rule. A prime example is the 2002 Biscuit Fire in Oregon.
March 5, 2008 | 11 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests
Guess what? The debate about global warming is not over. The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change took place March 2-4 in New York City, and 100 global warming skeptics made their case.
Sponsored by the Heartland Institute of Chicago, the 2008 conference included the top names in the skeptics’ circle [here].
It is too early for this reporter to relate what transpired. I am 3,000 miles away and am not wired into the Conference proceedings. Various news outlets have given cursory reports, but none I have found report on the specific talks that were given. Various blogs have spouted off, though, and I see no reason not to do so myself.
The following are my opinions, based on my reading of all the major climatology sites and discussions with experts I know personally. I do not pass off the responsibility, however. This is what I think:
1. Climate change within the Holocene has been a relatively slow process. If the Earth’s temperature has risen 0.5 degrees C in the last 100 years, as is claimed by many, that change is very minor and difficult to separate from statistical error (noise). The very idea that the Earth has a measurable temperature is a rather vague one.
2. Paleoclimatology evidence indicates that we are still in the Ice Ages, albeit in an interglacial hiatus between deep cold periods. Interglacials have been as regular as clockwork for the last 1.6 million years, occurring 16 times at 100,000 year intervals. Each interglacial began with a sudden rise in temperatures and then a slow descent back into glaciation. The warm periods have lasted about 10,000 years, and the cold periods about 90,000 years.
3. The interglacials correspond exactly to Milankovitch Cycles, in particular to the eccentricities in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Our orbit swings from nearly circular to more elliptical and back again in a 100,000 year periodicity. The interglacials correspond to the more circular orbital condition.
Read more
March 4, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: Climate and Weather
The Warm Fire Recovery Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement notification letter came in the mail today. The Warm Fire (2006) was a whoofoo (Wildland Use Fire) that blew up and burned 60,000 acres of the Kaibab NF, two-thirds of which were old-growth ponderosa pine. You can read about it [here].
The DEIS lists three different “action alternatives” for recovering economic value from the burned timber, reforesting burned conifer stands, and breaking up the fuel continuity in the burned areas. The goal is to “move” the incinerated stands toward the “desired future condition.”
The EPA will soon publish a Notice of Availability (NOA) for the DEIS in the Federal Register. All comments must be received within 45 days of the NOA. Only those persons providing timely comments to the Kaibab NF Supervisor’s Office will have eligibility to appeal the subsequent decision under 36 CFR 215.
No doubt, whatever alternative is chosen, there will be a lawsuit filed.
The irony is that the whoofoo that destroyed the Kaibab NF was planned and carried out with absolutely no EIS, no action alternatives, no public comment, and no NEPA process at all. Destroying the forest, burning it to a crisp, was done with no legal guidance or authority required.
Fixing the mess afterwards does require all those things, and none of the proposed action alternatives will ever occur because “environmental” organizations will sue, and sue, and sue, and sue.
Read more
March 3, 2008 | 4 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests
from the New Mexico Biomass Blog [here]
Elected Commissioner of Public Lands, Patrick Lyons, just published a powerful op-ed in New Mexico’s largest newspaper, the Albuquerque Journal, wherein he defends the Estancia Biomass Project and concludes that with this project “Everybody wins.” His article—Many Benefits to Biomass Plant—follows:
I applaud Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prukop for granting a tax credit to Western Water and Power Production, which plans to build a $90 million, 35-megawatt biofuel plant on nearly 44,000 acres of state trust lands in Torrance and Socorro counties.
New Mexico’s legislative and executive leaders continue to drive an agenda that calls for utilities to meet renewable portfolio standards. Incentives, credits, exemptions, and mandates are passed, not only to attract new business to the state, but to make green energy sources affordable and readily available to New Mexico families and businesses.
The state Land Office is playing a pivotal role in the development of clean renewable energy supplies, including leasing trust lands for the state’s first large-scale biomass power plant.
In order to restore a natural equilibrium in a region that was once sparse woodlands and savannahs, we must reduce the ecological degradation created by the encroachment of piñon and juniper. Land analysis reveals that there are 250 to 520 trees per acre in the area now leased to Western Water and Power Production. According to staff biologists, the ideal number of trees per acre is 20.
Overgrown forests and rangeland are a direct threat to life and property, wildlife habitat and overall woodland health. For example, last November the Ojo Peak fire in the Manzano Mountains destroyed 7,500 acres and forced the evacuation of about 100 families. Decades of fire suppression, combined with years of drought and insect damage, created a tinderbox.
As a landowner from rural New Mexico, I believe that healthy lands and economic stability are directly related. Western Water and Power has guaranteed up to 150 jobs during the construction phase and 20 to 30 permanent full-time jobs over the lifetime of the facility. The average annual payroll has the potential to exceed over $1 million.
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Saving Forests
By David S. Cohen
from the Mountain View Telegraph, December 6, 2007 [here]
“Mega-fires are torching America as never before, with towering infernos scorching more than 1.5 million acres this year, consuming homes block-by-block, and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee,” the Chicago Tribune recently reported. “And as numerous large fires barrel over Southern California, experts warn things will likely only get worse, especially across the West.”
Recently, the residents of the East Mountains got a mild taste of what’s to come.
At a time like this, New Mexicans expect forceful and responsible government action, not foot-dragging, in addressing the looming catastrophe. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Sandia District Ranger Cid Morgan recently warned: “Don’t be surprised if we have a large, catastrophic wildfire in the East Mountains.” Given low moisture next year and the great number of dead trees lying at the floor of our overgrown forests, Morgan says “you’re talking explosive conditions, and if we get a fire in there (the Sandias) we will not be able to put it out.”
The Edgewood Independent added more bad news: “… the National Weather Service is now predicting a dry winter and a hot, windy spring— the worst possible conditions for potential wildfires. Add the climate forecasts to the (bug) infestations and you have the makings of a disaster.”
As evidenced by the California fires, the impacts could well be awful: loss of life and property, death of wildlife and habitat, water pollution and enormous plumes of dirty wildfire smoke traveling hundreds of miles, putting human health at grave risk.
Already the Manzano Mountains have suffered. During the Thanksgiving holiday, a fire destroyed 7,500 acres and at least three houses, while 100 families were evacuated from their homes.
So what’s our government’s response?
Important tax credits, which create incentives to clean up forest waste, are being arbitrarily delayed and withheld. The state government, contrary to the direction of the Legislature and the governor, is attempting to deny needed tax incentives on ever-changing, unreasonable and unlawful grounds to biomass projects seeking to clean up the dangerous forest and brush waste, which fuels these wildfires.
This is more than odd. The Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department categorically asserts on its Web site that biomass energy development would reduce the wildfire threat. Yet bureaucrats in this same department would now recklessly make biomass impossible.
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Saving Forests
This story was NOT printed in the Missoulian today.
Associated Press [here]
WOODINVILLE, Wash. — The radical environmental group responsible for the 1998 fires at Vail’s Two Elks Lodge apparently has struck again — in the form of fires that gutted three multimillion-dollar show homes north of Seattle.
Crews battled fires early today at the homes in a suburb north of Seattle. A sign connected to the environmental group Earth Liberation Front was found at the scene, officials said.
The sign — with initials E.L.F. — mocked claims the luxury homes on the “Street of Dreams” were environmentally friendly, according to video images of the sign aired by KING-TV.
“Built Green? Nope black!” the sign said.
Who are the arsonists, people? Is it those of us trying to halt the incineration of our forests, landscapes, homes, and communities? Or is it the Far Left eco-terrorist movement?
Make their case. Tell us again how the Sierra Club et al are merely making “political statements” and are not directly responsible for the HATE AMERICA arsonism they so strongly support.
March 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Saving Forests
The American domestic eco-terrorist network is alive and well, and they present a greater danger to this country than Al-Qaida. Eco-fascism imperils the U.S. vastly more than Islamo-fascism, illegal immigration, and “climate change” combined.
Make no mistake about it. The Far Left espouses an eco-theology more fanatical than any major religion, including Islam. Theirs is not a humanist religion either, but one in which the entire human race is seen as evil and deserving of destruction. Eco-terrorists are not tree-hugging nature lovers despite what their propaganda cloak implies; they seek destruction of nature as well as civilization.
Eco-terrorist organizations in the U.S. today include Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, the Humane Society of the United States, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, Audubon Society, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and hundreds of others. The largest of these are the big, international NGO’s: the Nature Conservancy, the Wilderness Society, Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and others.
These eco-terrorist organizations are well-funded by large globalist foundations motivated by power, greed, and an endless lust for more. Large capitalist foundations such as the Rockefeller Fund, Pew Trusts, Packard Foundation, and the Ford Foundation that fund eco-terrorism are not acting out of guilt or shame for amassing obscene fortunes; on the contrary they are acting to expand their profits and control over the wealth of the world.
It is global warming alarmism that has quadrupled the price of oil in the last five years, not global warming skepticism. When millions of acres of U.S. public forests burn to the ground every year, globalist multinational timber interests benefit.
March 3, 2008 | 5 Comments | Topic: Saving Forests
The Montana Forest Landowners Network [here] posted the following comments they received from a survey they undertook in 2006. The comments speak for themselves, and quite eloquently:
Comments received from Aug. ‘06 Action Alert Survey to Family Forest Landowners:
* The State Wildlife management property adjacent to me is a fire hazard that threatens me and all my neighbors.
* The State land School Trust Sec 6 was selectively logged 3 years back. This was a great improvement removing beetle killed lodge pole and improving the remaining stand of larch and doug fir. The forest service land was logged four years back but not up to the boundary 300 to 500 yards buffer remains with very high fire hazard as a result of dead and mature lodge pole. The federal land’s forest is very thick with brush and trees.
* After more than two decades of forest and fuel management on several hundred acres of private property bordering national forest, in 2003 a wildfire, which started on public land (which had undergone NO forest/fuel management) raged into our wildland/urban interface and died out on managed private lands, but only after destroying two homes. If public land is handled in a negligent fashion, to disproportionately tax private landowners to defend themselves against their own government’s mismanagement is just plain wrong!
* The reason that State property fire risk is so high is because they cut trees and left them and because the county sprays weeds in such concentrations that highly flammable cheat grass grows on the slopes or other grasses in the borrow pits that are flammable when dry late in the summer. This is mainly a problem for south-facing slopes, which I have. I don’t have livestock so the grasses and ferns get pretty high. My neighbor to the west has a lot of cleared land that dries up in the summer. The USFS has no access, so they haven’t logged anything. They have lots of bug-killed trees in spots, but the trees are mixed species. We haven’t had a fire since 1910, but that was a big one—hit nearly all of my 65 acres. I am mainly worried about cigarette butt flippers, or vehicle accident fires. We hardly ever have lightning caused fires, except high in the mountains.
* One of the best forestry programs is the old 1960 to 1990 ASCS prune and thin payment program. A landowner could receive a per acre payment to thin the understory and then prune to best leave trees to a height of 18 feet. Yes, thinning put a lot of slash on the forest floor but in a few years it was flat on the ground and not much of a fire hazard. The pruned trees with no branches lower than 18 feet was a reduced fuel ladder. When combined with a logging thin first the fire danger was reduced by a big factor. The problem is cost. First federal funding has been cut or reduced. Second it is a lot of hard work for the landowner. Ten acres is a two to six month project. However, a lot of forest health and production is improved and in two, three years the fire danger is reduced. These are my thoughts on the subject. P.S. My wife & I were MT Tree Farmers of the Year in 1992. John Bowdish.
March 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Saving Forests, Federal forest policy
