Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Only You Can Exploit Forest Fires
National Review Online ^ | July 6, 2012 | Michelle Malkin

Posted on 07/06/2012 3:45:26 PM PDT by neverdem

Colorado Springs, Colo. — Good news: The Waldo Canyon fire, which claimed two lives, forced 32,000 residents (including our family) to flee, and destroyed 347 homes, is now 100 percent contained. Bad news: Radical environmentalists won’t stop blowing hot air about this year’s infernal season across the West.

Al Gore slithered out of the political morgue to bemoan nationwide heat records and pimp his new “Climate Reality Project,” which blames global warming for the wildfire outbreak. NBC meteorologist Doug Kammerer asserted: “If we did not have global warming, we wouldn’t see this.” Agriculture Department undersecretary Harris Sherman, who oversees the Forest Service, claimed to the Washington Post: “The climate is changing, and these fires are a very strong indicator of that.”

And the Associated Press (or rather, the Activist Press) lit the fear-mongering torch with an eco-propaganda piece titled “U.S. summer is what ‘global warming will look like.’”

The problem is that the actual conclusions of scientists included in the AP’s screed don’t back up the apocalyptic headline. As the reporter acknowledges under that panicky banner:

“Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time. Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.”

So, this U.S. summer may or may not really look like “what global warming looks like.” Kinda. Sorta. Possibly. Possibly not.

Furthermore, the AP reporter concedes, the “global” nature of the warming and its supposed catastrophic events have “been local. Europe, Asia and Africa aren’t having similar disasters now, although they’ve had their own extreme events in recent years.”

A more hedging headline would have been journalistically responsible, but Chicken Littleism better serves the global-warming blame-ologists’ agenda.

More inconvenient truths: As the Washington Times noted this week, the National Climatic Data Center shows that “Colorado has actually seen its average temperature drop slightly from 1998 to 2011, when data is collected only from rural stations and not those that have been urbanized since 1900.”

Radical green efforts to block logging and timber sales in national forests since the 1990s are the real culprits. Wildlife-mitigation experts point to incompetent forest management and militant opposition to thinning the timber fuel supply.

Another symptom of green obstructionism: widespread bark-beetle infestations. The U.S. Forest Service reported last year:

During the last part of the 20th century, widespread treatments in lodgepole pine stands that would have created age class diversity, enhanced the vigor of remaining trees, and improved stand resiliency to drought or insect attack — such as timber harvest and thinning — lacked public acceptance. Proposals for such practices were routinely appealed and litigated, constraining the ability of the Forest Service to manage what had become large expanses of even-aged stands susceptible to a bark beetle outbreak.

Capitulation to lawsuit-happy green thugs, in others, undermined “public acceptance” of common-sense, biodiversity-preserving, and life-saving timber harvest and thinning practices.

Local, state, and federal officials offered effusive praise for my fellow Colorado Springs residents who engaged in preventive mitigation efforts in their neighborhoods. The government flacks said it made a life-and-death difference. Yet litigious environmental groups have sabotaged such mitigation efforts at the national level — in effect, creating an explosive tinderbox out of the West.

Stoking global-warming alarms may make for titillating headlines and posh Al Gore confabs. But it’s a human blame-avoidance strategy rooted in ideological extremism and flaming idiocy.

 Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies. © 2012 Creators.com



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: agw; climatechange; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax

1 posted on 07/06/2012 3:45:28 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Enviro nazis tagged this one as a spark from a fire arm at a shooting range. reaching.................


2 posted on 07/06/2012 3:52:23 PM PDT by ronnie raygun (B B)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Thanks. That photo made my day. Very refreshing personage. She is a national treasure.


3 posted on 07/06/2012 3:53:31 PM PDT by shalom aleichem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
The large Denver fire was started by a Forest Service employee. The big High park fire was started by lightning in a “No Road” area as dictated by the enviro wackos. The enviro wackos stop cleanup in court. Are they stupid or are they trying to burn us out of the forests?
4 posted on 07/06/2012 3:56:02 PM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ronnie raygun
Enviro nazis tagged this one as a spark from a fire arm at a shooting range. reaching................

There is an active investigation on with Federal investigators involved. There were 20 arson fires in the are before the big one. The investigators have not said what caused the fire.

5 posted on 07/06/2012 3:59:54 PM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

The Left will use ANYTHING as a tool to gain their evil agenda. Environmentalists are nothing but pawns for that agenda. The fact that these fires are getting blamed on both “global warming” AND guns is a home run for the radical lying left.

While we have had this discussion before - someone please remind me - how does a copper-jacketted lead slug cause a fire? Wild sparks by bullets are a thing of hollywood making (outside of the slight chance of a steel-core bullet hitting just right on a pice of flint or other sparking rock?).

Also - the whole global warming crap. When we have had recent record low temperatures and even seasons, when parts of the world have record winters - there is still global warming...

Science (geological record) and history record global temperature swings far in excess of what we are seeing today - what use to be considered natural temperature swings, is not global warming that “mankind just has to stop”. Even in man’s history, periods of warming have been a GOOD thing - the dark ages gave way to the Renaissance when the globe warmed.


6 posted on 07/06/2012 4:10:25 PM PDT by TheBattman (Isn't the lesser evil... still evil?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ronnie raygun
Enviro nazis tagged this one as a spark from a fire arm at a shooting range. reaching.................

I thought GLO-BULL WARMING caused it!!!/s

7 posted on 07/06/2012 4:26:14 PM PDT by ExCTCitizen (If we stay home in November '12, don't blame 0 for tearing up the CONSTITUTION!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: mountainlion

“The ending of the human epoch on Earth would most likely be greeted with a hearty ‘Good riddance!’”

Paul Taylor

“Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

David M. Graber

All you need to know about environmentalists.


8 posted on 07/06/2012 5:07:14 PM PDT by RWB Patriot ("My ability is a value that must be purchased and I don't recognize anyone's need as a claim on me.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I’m less concerned about the “global warming” whackos than I am about the “target shooters” whackos. I don’t think the global warming will take. I think the anti-shooters will get traction on this one cause they have the fire agencies saying it was target shooters, even though they have no proof, and that hasn’t been a real issue in the past.


9 posted on 07/06/2012 5:13:29 PM PDT by Domandred (Fdisk, format, and reinstall the entire .gov system.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Domandred; TheBattman
TheBattman wrote upthread:

While we have had this discussion before - someone please remind me - how does a copper-jacketted lead slug cause a fire? Wild sparks by bullets are a thing of hollywood making (outside of the slight chance of a steel-core bullet hitting just right on a pice of flint or other sparking rock?).

Domandred wrote:

I’m less concerned about the “global warming” whackos than I am about the “target shooters” whackos. I don’t think the global warming will take. I think the anti-shooters will get traction on this one cause they have the fire agencies saying it was target shooters, even though they have no proof, and that hasn’t been a real issue in the past.

I'm dubious about regular ammo causing a fire unless something strange happened. We're some yahoos using incendiary ammo? Exploding targets are usually not a fire hazard, IMHO.

10 posted on 07/06/2012 6:18:03 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Dr. Bill (Wattenberg) who had a radio show on KGO-AM and still does on KKSF-AM which is call in “Ask Mr. Wizard” type show claims that a great many forest fires are started by a shard of broken glass getting hit by the sun just right for it to become a magnifying glass onto some dry brush or grass. I am a tad skeptical, but it certainly seems possible.


11 posted on 07/06/2012 7:59:19 PM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (A conservative, a liberal and a moderate walk into a bar. Bartender says "what'll it be, Mitt?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: mountainlion

This insanity started under Clintons hands off forest policy. What is the Forest Service’s job? To manage the forest. Lately all they do is collect fees at the entrance to National Parks. In the Indian Peaks Wilderness area near Grand Lake, CO., every tree is dead. If this roadless area goes up in fire, there will be no way to stop it. Clinton’s policy of forest management is like his venerial disease. The gift that keeps on giving. Grand Lake will be gone, and millions of acres of forest will be lost thanks to the enviromentalists who say “It’s better fire kills the forest than the beatles!”


12 posted on 07/07/2012 12:48:43 AM PDT by DISCO
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
No mgmt in Oregon forests either. When there is a catastrophic fire the enviorn-mentals will not allow anyone to harvest and replant. So they let the burnt out forest sit, illegal to spray for weeds so when my group visits these burnt out Federal and State forests hundred's of acres are covered with dead burnt still standing trees surrounded by weeds everywhere. Saw one 17 years old.

Then when a new fire comes through it burns so hot that it leaves this thick black glass surface which will leave the ground completely sterilized, not able to grow anything for years.

13 posted on 07/07/2012 8:58:34 AM PDT by thirst4truth (www.Believer.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: thirst4truth

I hate the no killing weeds crap. Especially when you want to make sure that real trees actually have a chance at regrowing.


14 posted on 07/07/2012 2:27:15 PM PDT by Morpheus2009
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Domandred

All right the whole argument that bullets start fires sounds rediculous. I would sooner believe the story of a moron throwing a cigarette on the ground than a simple stray bullet, unless you are talking a flare gun, but that’s a totally different story.

In fact, we had two fires over here where I live in Delaware, started by none other than some guy working at a Dairy Queen who figured that a mulch pile would be too wet to catch fire until well, it turned out the 90+ degree heat, which happens at least a few days out of every summer in Delaware, literally dries out the mulch, which burst into flame and burned away almost everything but the steel framework of the Dairy Queen.

That combined with a barn fire from another idiot who figured that a cigarette wouldn’t light it up because it was all too wet.

Sheesh, if anything, there’s plenty of fires started way more directly than by some fact chance of a bullet, they started because of human error with cigarettes, and overestimation of how wet everything was.


15 posted on 07/07/2012 9:00:22 PM PDT by Morpheus2009
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Morpheus2009

Cigarettes have long been blamed for fires even in areas where there were no humans because non-smokers love to vilify smokers.

A very liberal thing to do.


16 posted on 07/07/2012 9:04:05 PM PDT by Eaker (When somebody hands you your arse, don't give it back saying "This needs a little more tenderizing.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson