SOS Forests

The Draft 2009 Quadrennial Fire Review

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) has prepared a draft 2009 Quadrennial Fire Review (QFR). The NWCG is made up of representatives of the U.S. Forest Service and the four U. S. Department of Interior agencies that constitute the federal wildland fire bureaucracy. The 2009 QFR, like its predecessor, the 2005 QFR, is “a strategic evaluative process that develops an internal assessment of current programs and capabilities for comparison to future needs for fire management.”

The draft 2009 QFR has been made available through the International Association of Fire Chiefs [here].

In the draft, facilitator Dr. Al Hyde (a senior staff consultant on public management innovation for the Brookings Institution’s Center for Public Policy Education) requested comments and constructive criticism. We were only too happy to oblige.

W.I.S.E.’s comments regarding the draft 2009 Quadrennial Fire Review are [here].

Please enjoy, and pass them on.

Monckton to Obama: You Are Wrong About Global Warming

In October the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley warned Senator John McCain [here] that his (McCain’s) “climate change” policies would present a terrible threat to the economies of the U.S. and the entire world. McCain lost; Obama won. Now Lord Monckton has taken Obama to task for similar foolish policies, which Obama expressed at  Beverly Hills cocktail fete (when did Beverly Hills become a science/policy center?).

We post the first few paragraphs only. Please visit The American Thinker to read the entire essay.

Obama on the ‘urgency’ of combating ‘global warming’

By The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, The American Thinker, November 26, 2008 [here]

Obama’s World View on Energy and Climate

In a video shown at a costly, two-day “global warming” jamboree at the Beverly Hills Hotel, hosted by Governor Schwarzenegger of California in November 2008, Barack Obama said:

“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.”

Obama said he would introduce “a federal cap and trade system to reduce America’s emissions of carbon dioxide to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050.” He said his administration would “invest” $15 billion a year in solar power, wind power, biofuels, nuclear power and clean coal to “save the planet” by creating 5 million new “green jobs”.

A Science-based Response

Few challenges facing America and the world are less urgent than combating the non-problem of “global warming”. On all measures, there has been no increase in global mean surface temperatures since 1995; and, according to the University of Alabama at Huntsville, near-surface temperatures in 2008 will be lower than in 1980, 28 years ago, the first complete year of satellite observations. On all measures, global temperatures have been falling for seven full years since late 2001. The January-to-January fall in temperatures between 2007 and 2008 was the greatest since global temperature records were first compiled in 1880, 128 years ago. The rate of new Arctic sea-ice formation in mid-October 2008 was among the fastest since satellite records began almost 30 years ago. There has been no decline whatsoever in the total global extent of sea ice since satellite records began. New records for the extent of northern-hemisphere snow cover were observed by the satellites in the winter of 2001 and again in 2007. This year, many ski resorts are opening early as Arctic weather strikes. Many temperature stations in the northern hemisphere recorded record low temperatures in October/November 2008.

These facts are inconsistent with the notion that “global warming” is occurring, still less that it is dangerous. The Sun continues to show very few sunspots. Many solar physicists now predict at least half a century of global cooling, which would be a far greater and more destructive problem than a little warming.

Obama is not correct to say, “The science is not in dispute.” Across all disciplines, some 31,000 scientists approached by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in 2007/8 signed a declaration to the effect that “global warming” is not a global crisis and that humankind has very little influence over the climate. A survey of climatologists and scientists in related fields by Van Storch (2005/6) established that a considerable proportion of respondents did not believe the alarmist notions disseminated by Al Gore or the UN climate-change panel. The office of Senator James Inhofe maintains a list of more than 500 scientists in climate and related fields who have made public statements questioning at least one aspect of what has falsely been presented as a scientific “consensus”. … [more]

Telltale Black Earth Indicates Amazon Not a Pristine Wilderness

I don’t have cable so I missed it, but last Thursday the National Geographic Channel aired a special entitled “Superdirt Made Lost Amazon Cities Possible.” For a review and a video clip from that show see [here]. An excerpt:

Superdirt Made Lost Amazon Cities Possible?

by John Roach for National Geographic News, 11/19/2008

Centuries-old European explorers’ tales of lost cities in the Amazon have long been dismissed by scholars, in part because the region is too infertile to feed a sprawling civilization.

But new discoveries support the idea of an ancient Amazonian urban network—and ingeniously engineered soil may have made it all possible. …

Scientists have long thought the river basin’s tropical soils were too acidic to grow anything but the hardiest varieties of manioc, a potatolike staple.

But over the past several decades, researchers have discovered tracts of productive terra preta — “dark earth.” …

With the increased level of agriculture made possible by terra preta, ancient Amazonians would have been able to live in one place for long periods of time, said geographer and anthropologist William Woods of the University of Kansas.

The article and TV special follow a Nat Geo News article of last August [here]:

Ancient Amazon Cities Found; Were Vast Urban Network

by John Roach for National Geographic News, 10/28/2008

Dozens of ancient, densely packed, towns, villages, and hamlets arranged in an organized pattern have been mapped in the Brazilian Amazon, anthropologists announced today.

The finding suggests that vast swathes of “pristine” rain forest may actually have been sophisticated urban landscapes prior to the arrival of European colonists.

The topic of terra preta has been examined before at W.I.S.E., most recently [here]. For more on terra preta two excellent starting references are: Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2005. Alfred E. Knopf, and Denevan, William M. Cultivated Landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes. 2001. Oxford Univ Press. Both are extremely well-written and have extensive bibliographies/citations.

The take-home is that the Americas have been home to humanity for 10,000 years or more. The First Residents were more than wandering bands of savages; large and complex societies existed here with art, science, religion, and advanced agriculture. Those civilizations had significant impact on soils, vegetation, wildlife populations, and American ecosystems in general.

This continent was NOT a wilderness. People have been living here for a very long time. Human beings trammeled all over (including the Pacific Northwest) and affected our landscapes in complex and profound ways.

Wilderness and legal wilderness designation are false conceits grounded in ignorance and cultural bigotry. Wilderness designation leads to abandonment of stewardship and the subsequent destruction of history and heritage as well as natural resources. Roadless designation is also a form of conceited blindness, beacuse this entire continent has been well-roaded for millennia.

The wilderness myth is rooted in conquest and genocide and was reinforced by nineteenth-century romanticism [here]. The only thing wilderness designation protects is cultural delusion.

A far better approach to our heritage landscapes would be realization and study of the ancient human-environment relationships and a renewed commitment to stewardship. Instead of abandonment to ignorance and holocaust, perhaps we could begin to intelligently care for our forests and prairies once again.

Fire Kills Old-Growth Say Researchers

We have stressed repeatedly that wildfires kill old-growth. This is not news. It is a well-known fact. Old-growth was killed in the Biscuit Fire (2002), B&B Fire (2003), Black Crater Fire (2007), and Rattle Fire (2008), among hundreds of other recent fires covering millions of acres.

I don’t think there is any point to linking to all the previous SOSF posts on this subject. It would be a lot of work anyway, because there are so many. Here is one of many photos of fire-killed old-growth posted previously. Click on the pic for a larger image.

If you can find the unhappy blogging forester in this photo, it will give you some sense of scale.

Other forest experts have pointed out the obvious, that fire kills old-growth. Drs. K. Norman Johnson and Jerry F. Franklin gave testimony to Congress a year ago [here], and they were quite frank about the fact that fire kills old-growth.

Now a new study by US Forest Service researchers confirms what everybody already knew: fire is killing old-growth.

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Invoking Misconceptions About “Ecosystems”

Another in our seemingly endless series about the “balance of nature” and other intellectually bankrupt eco-babble concepts [see also here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and many others].

The Ecosystem Illusion

Review by Mark Sagoff, professor at the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park. 2000. [here]

of: Defending Illusions: Federal Protection of Ecosystems, by Allan K. Fitzsimmons. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999, 330 pp.

The protection of nature is a goal easier to embrace than to explain. If by “nature” we mean everything in the universe–all that is bound by the laws of physics–then our protection of nature is not required. Since we cannot perform miracles, our actions are as natural and fit as much into nature’s design or plan as the behavior of any object or organism. The opposite of nature in this sense is the supernatural, defined as anything to which the laws of nature do not apply. …

In Defending Illusions, Allan Fitzsimmons, an environmental consultant, argues persuasively that nature in this sense, above the level of the organism, possesses neither organizing principles nor emergent qualities that biologists can study. It has no health or integrity for humans to respect. The only laws or principles in nature are those that apply to everything and that human beings cannot help but obey. …

Historically, racists, sexists, and tyrants of all sorts have invoked conceptions of nature or of the natural to condemn whatever they happened to oppose. Fitzsimmons believes that environmentalists who appeal to the notion of the ecosystem similarly misrepresent their own preferences as those of Mother Nature. Because science must speak in secular terms, it refers to ecosystems instead of to Mother Nature or to Creation and ascribes design to ecosystems without any mention of the Designer. This conception of nature as orderly, however, derives not from any empirical evidence but from assumptions and beliefs that are essentially romantic or theological.

Fitzsimmons quotes Jack Ward Thomas, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service in the Clinton administration: “I promise you I can do anything you want to do by saying it is ecosystem management. . . But right now it’s incredibly nebulous.” The utter nebulousness–indeed, vacuity–of the ecosystem concept accounts for its amazing prominence in environmental policy and planning, because researchers can absorb any amount of funding in trying to understand concepts such as ecosystem health, integrity, and stability. These concepts, Fitzsimmons argues, will always mean what anybody wants them to mean and thus will only add confusion to the already impossible goal of keeping nature free of human influence.

Fitzsimmons also quotes environmental scientists such as Oregon State University professor Jane Lubchenco, who concedes that the goal of sustaining ecosystems “is difficult to translate into specific objectives” in practice. He adds that “no amount of training–theological or ecological–can give substance to such notions as ‘the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.’” This does not imply, however, that Fitzsimmons opposes well-defined efforts to provide green space, protect wetlands, add to the nation’s parklands, preserve endangered species, and so on. Rather, he argues that vague imperatives implied in theories of ecosystem management provide no clear goals and offer no way to measure progress in these efforts. ..

For the entire review, please see [here].

No Trend In Idaho Snowpack Over the Last 75 Years

by Mike Dubrasich, forest biometrician

Maximum winter snowpack in the Snake River watershed has exhibited no trend upward or downward over the last 75 years.

Since 1918 snowpack has been measured at “snotel” locations in the Snake River watershed, which includes most of Idaho and portions of Oregon and Nevada. The snowpack has been measured in snow water equivalents (SWE) at over 700 snotel locations at monthly intervals during winter.

Not all locations have been measured for 90 years; some have been measured for fewer years than that, and some have small to large gaps in the record. Measurements at any particular station have not always been taken in every winter month, although remarkable efforts have been made to measure maximum annual snowpack at most stations.

I selected the 20 longest, continuously measured snotel records from 3 US Army Corps of Engineers databases containing 745 snotel records from the Snake River watershed. Of those selected, the shortest record was 75 years long.

15H04, BIG BEN SNOTEL, 1919-2007
16H01, JACK CREEK, LOWER, 1921-2007
11H03, TONY GROVE RANGER STATION, 1924-2007
11G32, FRANKLIN BASIN SNOTEL, 1924-2007
10E08, ASTER CREEK, 1930-2007
10E09, LEWIS LAKE DIVIDE PILLOW, 1930-2007
10E12, SNAKE RIVER STATION SNOTEL, 1930-2007
10E13, GLADE CREEK, 1930-2007
10E14, HUCKLEBERRY DIVIDE, 1930-2007
10E17, TWO OCEAN PLATEAU SNOTEL, 1930-2007
10F02, BASE CAMP PILLOW, 1930-2007
10F04, MORAN, 1930-2007
10F29, GRANITE CREEK PILLOW, 1930-2007
11H07, GARDEN CITY SUMMIT, 1931-2007
11H36, TONY GROVE LAKE PILLOW, 1931-2007
15H01, BEAR CREEK SNOTEL, 1932-2007
15H05, GOLD CREEK, 1932-2007
15H08, TREMEWAN RANCH, 1932-2007
17H08, GRANITE PEAK SNOTEL, 1932-2007
15F01, MOORES CREEK SUMMIT SNOTEL, 1933-2007

I extracted the maximum (recorded) annual snowpack (MASWE) for each selected snotel station. I graphed those MASWE’s together with the 20 station average and a linear trend (regression) line.

Click on graph for larger image.

The maximum average MASWE for these 20 measurement stations was 30.14 inches and occurred in 1943. The minimum average MASWE was 7.90 inches and occurred in 1977. The 75-year average MASWE for these 20 stations is 20.02 inches.

There has been, however, absolutely no trend in the average MASWE for these stations from 1933 to 2007. The linear regression line through the annual averages has a slope of zero.

Maximum snowpack in the Snake River watershed has neither increased nor decreased over the last 75 years. Although there has been annual variation, there has been no trend toward more or less snow. The trend line is flat, meaning there has been no trend. The Snake River watershed is not getting more snowier or less snowier.

In terms of maximum annual snowpack, there has been no detectable, much less statistically significant, “climate change” in the Snake River watershed over the last 75 years.

Expert climatologist comments are welcome, as are comments by everyone else.

Special thanks and acknowledgements go to George H. Taylor, CCM of Applied Climate Services LLC, Philomath, OR, for supplying the data, and to the hundreds of stalwart snotel technicians who have trudged on snowshoes in the dead of winter to the most remote places in Idaho for the last 90 years. What stories they must have!

Retardant Justice

This essay was written last March by the venerable Forrest Grump.

It must be spring. After all, environmentalists have “sprung” at least six or seven new lawsuits on the Northwest court system the past couple weeks — and Earthjustice is about ready to file against delisting Northern Rockies wolves.

But it’s a just-dismissed lawsuit that has my attention, especially since I just got “carded” for this year’s fire season. It was filed by the Eugene, Oregon-based, so-called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) in District Judge Donald Molloy’s Missoula courtroom, way back in October 2003. I’ll spare you the stultifying federal acronym soup.

On the surface, FSEEE basically sued the Forest Service (USFS) in order to force a full-blown paperwork shuffle on the environmental effects of air-dropped fire retardants.

Judge Molloy took two years to rule for the paperwork shuffle, in October 2005, at which point FSEEE crowed “Group Wins Lawsuit to Protect Firefighters and the Environment From Toxic Aerial Fire Retardant.”

But the use of chemical retardants hasn’t been stopped. FSEEE never asked for that to begin with. Molloy’s 35-page ruling specifically pointed out the case was not about the safety or toxicity of retardants per se, but only a procedural case affirming the need to shuffle paper if and when “substantial questions” of environmental impact “may” exist.

The already-overwhelmed Forest Service dragged butt on the shuffle, goading Judge Molloy into threatening Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey with jail unless the paperwork hit Molloy’s desk –- which it did in late February 2008.

The Forest Service concluded that using retardant poses no “significant environmental impact” to Judge Molloy, who dismissed the case March 12.

Now, after four-plus years, FSEEE spokesman Andy Stahl (the guy who made “spotted owl” a household word) is telling reporters his group intends to file ANOTHER lawsuit over retardant in Molloy’s court. It’s all part of what Missoulian reporter John Cramer terms “another decade-long campaign” to stop “the war on fire.”

With  the “no significant impact” paperwork from USFS in hand, FSEEE apparently now plans to attack the paperwork in court, in the hopes of finding an uncrossed T or undotted I that will bring about a legal injunction against retardant use.

Now, how much environmental impact is at issue? Bomber slurry is basically 85% water, 15% fertilizer. The fertilizer binds the water, slowing evaporation, plus it sticks to everything it lands on. A bomber line of slurry therefore stays more effective at slowing or stopping a fire’s advance for a longer time than plain water drops. It work… so well that the Forest Service uses 15 to 40 million gallons of slurry per year. Using a 2,700-gallon P2V Neptune tanker as an “average” slurry bomber, that comes out to at least 5,500 to 14,800 “bomb runs” a year.

In its complaint, FSEEE raised the issue of retardant drops directly into streams or lakes, citing one in 1996, one in 2000, one in 2003, and most scandalous of all, a 2002 drop into an Oregon stream that killed 20,000 fish. Bad? Of course, but one run out of 5,000 (or more) is objectively a darned low “defect” rate for such technical flying. Never mind that Eugene’s ecotopians probably eat 20,000 organically-killed fish a week.

Nuts? Yep, yet FSEEE righteously claims its “mission is to forge a socially responsible value system for the U.S. Forest Service.” They intend to ram their retardant version of social responsibility through the courts, and just might.

Don’t be surprised if FSEEE files their case, and on some trivial technicality, an injunction comes down at the worst possible time. Some poor fire boss will have to announce: “Folks, we need to ground our air fleet and wash out the tanks today. We’re also pulling all our crews, as the bombers were the last chance we had of holding this line without killing someone. Sorry. The judge says a one in five thousand chance of killing a few minnows overrides any of your trivial concerns. We hope you got your heirlooms and families out in time, have a nice day.”

Retardant justice, indeed.

More Yellow Pine Photos

We have added some photos of the 2007 Boise NF and Payette NF fires and their aftermath, fires that burned 800,000 acres (1,250 square miles) of central Idaho forests.

The photos may be found on SOSF Photo Page 1: Boise and Payette Post-2007 fires [here].

It is difficult to find the words to describe the destruction. The pictures do a better job of that. Be that at it may, we have posted many words about these fires [here, here, here, here, here, and here, for example] in the attempt.

Special thanks goes to YPmule for supplying this new batch of photographs, many of which she took herself. The residents of Yellow Pine are special people. Our hearts and prayers go out to them.

Retarding Firefighting

Gag me!!!! ABC News just ran an anti-fire retardant video-bite on their national report. Mop-topped Tim Ingalsbee, sociologist and  executive director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics & Ecology (FUSEE) appeared with his line about fire retardant being a waste of money and polluting the environment.

For more on Ingalsbee and his Eugene radical associations, see [here]. For more on the radical enviro-Left’s war on fire retardant see [here].

But the real story is that fire retardant saves lives, saves homes, saves wildlife, saves habitat, saves watersheds, and thereby saves money.

The real “cost” of wildfire is much, much more than suppression expenditures. Fire destroys and kills. The damages that ensue from wildfires are anywhere from 10 to 40 times the cost of fighting the fires.

There is utility to firefighting. That’s why we fight fires. The utility is that by controlling the fire (which can be expensive), we prevent the fire from destroying valuable property, resources, and lives (which are worth a great deal more than the costs of suppression).

Fire retardant is an important firefighting tool. The phosphate-based fire retardants in use today are similar to phosphate-based laundry detergents, also in wide use today. Fire retardant, when dissolved in water at parts per million, acts as a wetting agent. It spreads a thin layer of water across whatever it is applied to. That damps fires better than plain water, which tends to bead up.

It’s a wetting agent, people! Nothing magic. But fire retardant is effective. When dropped (in highly diluted solution) from airplanes, fire retardant damps the fire immediately. The flames die down. If you have ever seen a roaring wildfire get hit with fire retardant, you might think it was magic because the fire quiets right down.

The effect is not long-lived. Firefighters have only a few minutes to take aggressive action before the film of water evaporates and the flames rise up again. But in those few minutes lives can be saved. Hoses can be trained on hot spots. Fire lines can be extended. Helicopter pilots can see to drop more water. Those few minutes of quiet provided by fire retardant drops can mean the difference between stopping the fire here and now and not stopping the fire at all.
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Omnibus Monstrous Disastrous

The lame duck Congress has gone quackers. Harry Reid (D, Mafia) has honked his intention to burden American with the morbidly obese Omnibus Lands Bill. Dirty Harry has scheduled Monday as the day when he puts a gun to the head of rural America, and pulls the trigger.

The Omnibus Lands Bill is a humongous land grab that will shut down and lock up millions of acres of public land. Made up of over 150 separate pieces of legislation, the Omnibus Lands Grab designates millions of acres of Wilderness in eight states, at least three wild and scenic rivers, four national trails, and authorizes dozens of land exchanges and land conveyances.

Congresspersons are lining up to hang pet projects on this pig. Vicious little subversive acts that would never stand on their own have been larded onto the Omnibus Lands Bill. No due process, no public hearings, no consideration of public will, and no evaluation of environmental impact are the hallmarks of this sausage-making.

While families across the country struggling with their mortgages, excessive gas and food prices, and uncertain financial conditions, the Senate is scheduled to spend the few remaining legislative days of 2008 forcing through a bill that not only ignores these problems, but will exacerbate them.

The Omnibus Lands Bill will lock up land for holocaust incineration in megafires the likes of which this country has never seen. It will prohibit energy exploration on vast tracts of the public estate. It will restrict the use of the Federal domain for wealth-creation, recreation, wise-use, unwise use, and any use whatsoever.

Massive lock up, devaluation, and wholesale destruction of millions of acres of public lands is the most irresponsible program imaginable, especially when the country is reeling under an economic crisis that portends another Great Depression.

Harry has lost his mind. The King of Earmarks has finally gone completely bonkers. The Senate Majority Leader, fresh from stealing all the water in Nevada, now wishes to inflict a reign of terror across America. Burn Harry Burn was NOT elected by the People two weeks ago. He wasn’t on my ballot. I would have voted to dump Harry in Lake Mead wearing cement shoes, but that was not one of the measures we got to vote on.

Lame ducks are planning to steal your land. The heist is scheduled for Monday. Some of the myriad attachments include shoveling money to extremist cults. That kind of thing is all the fashion these days in ACORN-ville. Shakedown slush funds for eco-terrorist groups were also missing from the ballot, but not from the Omnibus Lands Bill grab bag.

The Omnibus should be thrown under the bus. We don’t need these multiple stabs in the back from Congress. Call your Congressperson and Senators today and explain to them why stealing from you is a no-no. They are dense, so be explicit.

The 2008 Weblog Award Nominations

Vote for the best science blog of 2008 [here].

I’m not telling you who to vote for, but the preferred URL for the Western Institute for Study of the Environment is http://westinstenv.org

We won’t win, but it would be gratifying to get some votes.

Reducing air pollution would save billions

The California winegrape crop [here] was not the only victim of wildfire smoke last summer. Human health also suffered. In both cases, the damage was in the untold $billions.

It seems that burning forests for “resource benefit” actually causes extreme resource degradation and losses. Which ought to be damned obvious, IMHO, but I guess it is just now sinking into the mass consciousness.

It is terribly tragic that so much damage has been done already in the name of “wildland fires used for resource benefit.” Perhaps the perpetrators of that hugely destructive program will have their consciousness raised a notch or two by news stories such as the following.

From the Fresno Bee [here]

By TRACIE CONE, AP, 11/13/08

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - Lowering air pollution in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley would save more lives annually than ending all motor vehicle fatalities in the two regions, according to a new study.

The study, which examined the costs of air pollution in two areas with the worst levels in the country, also said meeting federal ozone and fine particulate standards could save $28 billion annually in health care costs, school absences, missed work and lost income potential from premature deaths.

The price tag amounts to $1,600 annually per person in the San Joaquin Valley and $1,250 in the South Coast Air Basin.

Researchers at California State University-Fullerton sought to assess the potential economic benefits that could be achieved by reducing air pollution to levels within federal standards.

“For decades there has been a tug of war over what to do about air pollution,” said Jane Hall, lead author of the study at Cal State Fullerton. “We are paying now for not having done enough.”

To illustrate its point, the study noted that the California Highway Patrol recorded 2,521 vehicular deaths in the San Joaquin Valley and South Coast Air Basin in 2006, compared to 3,812 deaths attributed to respiratory illness caused by particulate pollution.

Studies have indicated a relationship between ozone and particulate pollution and asthma and other respiratory problems, including chronic bronchitis. They also have connected particulate pollution with an increase in cardiovascular problems.

Hall and colleague Victor Brajer analyzed ozone and fine particulate concentrations across the two basins in 5-by-5 kilometer grids from 2005 through 2007. The researchers applied those numbers to the health affects they are known to cause, then assigned peer-reviewed economic values to each illness or death that could result.

“It may be tempting to think California can’t afford to clean up, but in fact dirty air is like a $28 billion lead balloon on our economy,” Hall said.

The findings were released Wednesday as the California Air Resources Board considers controversial new regulations to reduce diesel truck emissions, a move that could cost 170,000 business owners $5.5 billion. According to a board staff report, the savings in health care costs would be $68 billion by 2020 if the regulations were adopted next month.

The Cal State Fullerton study says that particulate pollution levels must fall by 50 percent in both regions for health and economic benefits to occur, something they acknowledged would be “very difficult to achieve.”

If pollution levels were to improve to federal standards, the study says residents of the two air basins would suffer 3,860 fewer premature deaths, 3,780 fewer nonfatal heart attacks and would miss 470,000 fewer days of work annually. School children would miss more than 1.2 million fewer days of school, a savings of $112 million in caregiver costs. There also would be more than 2 million fewer cases of upper respiratory problems.

“As a society we make decisions to spend money on things such as railroad crossings or air traffic control - things that improve safety,” Brajer said. “There are a lot of ways society spends money to make things safer, and that’s what we’re trying to get at.”

Native Americans Shaped Eastern Hardwood Forests and Prairies

A new addition to the W.I.S.E. Library and Colloquium: History of Western Landscapes [here] is Native Americans as active and passive promoters of mast and fruit trees in the eastern USA written by Marc D. Abrams and Gregory J. Nowacki and published this month in The Holocene.

This excellent and cutting-edge study cites many of the greatest works by New Paradigm thinkers such as Steve Pyne, Tom Bonnicksen, Charles Kay, and Omer Stewart. In fact, many of Abrams’ and Nowacki’s references may be found in the W.I.S.E. Library. That’s a good sign, and we are pleased to add this latest study to our collection.

An excerpt from the Introduction to Native Americans as active and passive promoters of mast and fruit trees in the eastern USA:

… Several researchers have concluded that climate is the primary driver of vegetation change in the eastern USA (Parshall and Foster, 2002; Shuman et al., 2004). While we agree with the importance of climate, we also believe that the impact and extent of early Native American land use in shaping vegetation types is more substantial than previously thought. The large disparity in presettlement vegetation expression between climax forests (set by climatic controls) and that of shade-intolerant, disturbance based vegetation types strongly points toward human intervention (Stewart, 2002; Nowacki and Abrams, 2008). Indeed, vegetation modification by Native American burning and agricultural land clearance has been particularly well documented (Cronan, 1983; Pyne, 1983; Williams, 1989; Whitney, 1994; Bonnickson, 2000).

For example, forests dominated by oak, chestnut, hickory and pine prior to European settlement are thought to require periodic fire for continued recruitment and long-term success (Abrams, 1992; Lorimer, 2001). Bromley (1935) concluded that Native American populations in southern New England were of sufficient size to burn most of the landscape on a recurring and systematic basis. Indians regularly used broadcast burning to clear forest undergrowth, prepare croplands, facilitate travel, reduce vermin and weeds, increase mast production and improve hunting opportunities by stimulating forage and driving or encircling game (Whitney, 1994; Stewart, 2002; Williams, 2002). Accidental wildfires also occurred from escaped camp and signal fires and burned into the surrounding forests. Once fires were set, there was little incentive or means by which to put them out (Stewart, 2002).

During the latter part of the Holocene, Native Americans planted a wide variety of crop species in well-managed agricultural fields adjacent to their villages (Trigger, 1978; Fogelson, 2004). MacDougall (2003) lists a total of 35 herbaceous plant species cultivated by eastern Native Americans. By the sixteenth century, the most abundant crops were maize, beans and squash, known as the ‘Three Sisters’ when planted together (Martinez, 2007). In contrast to our understanding of Native American use of fire and the cultivation of crops, we know very little about their direct and indirect impacts on the distribution of the mast and fruit trees that were important in their seasonal diet. If Native Americans had the skills to develop sophisticated systems of agriculture, did they possess similar skills to manage forests?

Mt. Hood Wilderness Expansion Is Bad Public Lands Policy

Wilderness designation is fatal to forests. As we pointed out in our (not yet completed) series entitled Fraudulent Wilderness [here, here, here], wilderness designation destroys forests, wildlife, habitat, watersheds, airsheds, heritage, and other environmental values by eliminating stewardship, stewardship that has been ongoing in the Americas for 13,500 years.

For example, this summer catastrophic fires incinerated old-growth forests, habitat, and heritage in the Boulder Creek Wilderness, Sky Lakes Wilderness, South Sierra Wilderness, Jarbidge Wilderness, and Ventana Wilderness. The damages beyond the Wilderness boundaries from smoke, fire, and watershed destruction were severe and will be long-lasting.

Other designated wilderness areas subject to catastrophic fires since designation include Alpine Lakes, Bandelier, Black Canyon, Bob Marshall, Bull of the Woods, Frank Church-River of No Return, Golden Trout, Gospel Hump, Hells Canyon, Lake Chelan-Sawtooth, Manzano Mountain, Marble Mountains, Mount Adams, Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Mount Washington, Okefenokee, Rogue Umpqua Divide, Saddle Mountain, Selway-Bitterroot, Siskiyou, Tatoosh, Yolla-Bolly, San Rafael, Dick Smith, Three Sisters, Kalmiopsis, Matilija, and many others.

The lame duck Congress is gearing up to declare millions more acres “wilderness” in contempt of the true nature of those lands and without regard for the environmentally disastrous consequences.

The following letter from Mr. John Marker, USFS (ret.) points out to Congress, once again, that wilderness designation is fraught with negative externalities, not the least of which is the inevitable destruction of watershed values. SOS Forests kudos to John for his unwavering devotion to good stewardship and indefatigable efforts to educate Congress about the on-the-ground realities.

10 November 2008

To: Senator Ron Wyden

Dear Senator Wyden:

Once again I write to you urging reconsideration of your support for expanded legislated wilderness on Mt. Hood. The past summer provided another wake up call of why wilderness expansion is a bad idea.  The Gnarl Ridge Fire, the second major fire in the last five years on the North side of Mt Hood, burned 3280 acres, killing most of the trees on half of the burned area, and damaging trees on the remainder. The fire would have also destroyed Cloud Cap Inn and Tilly Jane recreation area, both historic sites, without several accurate air tanker drops and good luck. Control costs of the fire are estimated at $15 million.

The Gnarl fire burned through about 40% of the Crystal Springs Water District’s Zone of Contribution, land that collects snow and rain for Crystal Springs, a major source of domestic water for the Hood River Valley.  Damage to the watershed is still being studied.  Insect killed trees, heavy fuel loading from overstocked forests, topography and lack of access were major obstacles to control of this fire.  Half of the land burned was in designated wilderness.  Wilderness areas, as the two recent fires illustrate, neither save or protect Mt. Hood.  Fire on the mountain with today’s fuel loading and changing weather conditions is not natural, but destructive, and healing the damage is in decades if not centuries. The expansion of legal wilderness area on the mountain is bad public policy, in my opinion, based upon 50 years as a forester.

The goal of protecting this magnificent natural resource is commendable, but proposed wilderness expansion will, in my view, place the mountain at greater risk of damage, and also increase risk of harm to neighboring lands and communities. The proposal also ignores the 1897 Organic Act’s mandate of sustained production of renewable resources from the national forests with water and wood priority.  Wood supply may no longer be critical, but water is, and certainly from Mt. Hood.

Legislated Wilderness provides no protection for the land from impacts of fire, insects, disease, catastrophic storms, air pollution or climate change. This designation severely limits the ability to control or prevent damage from such forces by strictly limiting management and treatment options as well as access.  Wilderness constraints jeopardize protection of adjacent non-wilderness areas such as Bull Run, Government Camp, Cooper Spur and other land and communities adjacent to the national forest.

Currently many areas of forest inside the proposed Wilderness expansions are threatened by aggressive insect and disease activity, plus the continuing build up of fire risk from dead and overcrowded trees. If, as many scientists predict, the Northwest climate pattern continues warmer and drier, the risk of destruction will expand as forest ecosystems are weakened by this change.  The increasing human use of the mountain also raises the threat of damage to the land from overuse and abuse. To ignore these realities contradicts the stated goal of “protecting” and “saving” Mt. Hood.

An alternative for protecting Mt. Hood is available.  It is development of the plan called for in the Walden-Blumenauer legislative proposal, starting with acknowledgement of the biological and climatic forces constantly at work on the mountain, which recognizes Mt. Hood’s critical role of providing clean and abundant water for more than a million people living in its shadow. The plan must also recognize the reality of federal budget constraints.

Once these fundamentals are understood, a plan for the mountain’s future, with watershed value as the critical resource, can be built. It will establish guidelines for protecting watershed values, the forests, recreation and other values.  This process can be expedited by using the existing congressionally mandated national forest plan as a starting point.

To my way of thinking, recognition up front of the priority for Mt. Hood management, and understanding that locking up the land is not the way to save or protect against the challenges of people and nature.  Stretching and bending the intent and provisions of the Wilderness Act to “protect” and “save” this land does a disservice to the intent of the act and those who created it, and to the public’s land.

Sincerely:

John F. Marker, Forester (ret.)

Chief Climate Hoaxer Emits Call For Revolution

There is no global warming. It’s not happening. The planet has been cooling for the last ten years and the outlook is more cooling for another thirty or more (see Global Cooling Is Here! Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling For the Next Three Decades, [here]).

But that doesn’t faze chief climate hysterical alarmist Al Gore. From yesterday’s NY Times [here]:

The Climate for Change

By AL GORE, NY Times, November 9, 2008

THE inspiring and transformative choice by the American people to elect Barack Obama as our 44th president lays the foundation for another fateful choice that he — and we — must make this January to begin an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis.

The electrifying redemption of America’s revolutionary declaration that all human beings are born equal sets the stage for the renewal of United States leadership in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.

The world authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, after 20 years of detailed study and four unanimous reports, now says that the evidence is “unequivocal.” To those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late.

Revolutionary rhetoric from Al to be sure, but flat earth wrong! Here’s the TRUTH. There has been no significant global warming since 1995. From Ross McKitrick, U of Guelph, testimony before the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee in Washington last summer [here]:

Weather satellite records for the mid-troposphere are available from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) in California and the Earth Systems Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH). I obtained the data from each lab for the mid-troposphere layer covering January 1979 to September 2008. Over this interval the annual average atmospheric concentration of CO2 measured at Mauna Loa Hawaii rose from 337 ppm to 384 ppm, a 14% increase. I have graphed the RSS and UAH tropical mid-troposphere series and compared them to the CCSP- and IPCC-predicted trends (0.25 C/decade and 0.5 C/decade respectively). In contrast to climate model predictions the data indicate neither significant warming in the tropics nor greater warming than at the poles.

There is no connection between CO2 and global warming. A doesn’t cause B. CO2 has been going up (gradually) but global temperatures have been going down. Al Gore’s theory is wrong.

Arctic sea ice has not been melting. From Arctic Ice Extent Now Likely Highest Level Since 2002 by Joseph D’Aleo of ICECAP [here]:

The latest daily arctic sea ice extent chart from IJIS shows the current year ice extent at the highest level in the record back to 2002. This represents an increase of 655,781 square kilometers over last November 7 or 7.4%. Side-by-side images from the Cryosphere show there is more ice on both the Pacific and Atlantic side this year.

What would truly be “inspiring and transformative” would be for the governments of the world to reject Al’s bogus hypothesis in the face of the actual facts to the contrary. “America’s revolutionary declaration” ought to be that bogosity and hoax should not and will not be inflicted on the citizenry.

As Lord Monkton put it [here]:

With every respect, there is no rational basis for your declared intention that your great nation should inflict upon her own working people and upon the starving masses of the Third World the extravagantly-pointless, climatically-irrelevant, strategically-fatal economic wounds that the arrogant advocates of atmospheric alarmism admit they aim to achieve.

The globe is NOT warming, and if it was, it would be a GOOD thing. Warmer climate means more biological and agricultural productivity, less expense for heating, more rain, and more biological diversity. The planet was warmer than now during the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, and the Climatic Optimums of 9,000 and 6,000 years ago. Those were good times, with bumper crops, a green Sahara, and intellectual and cultural advancements. The historical warm periods mark the rise of civilization and the Renaissance.

Al Gore’s revolutionary rhetoric is absurd and disingenuous. He is a laughable clown. In these days of pending worldwide economic collapse, the very WORST thing we could do is hearken to the jibber-jabber of the Carbon Foot Prince.