Just in case anyone forgets about what happens in the real world when we ignore the Lefties and their hypocritical agendas
This is my personal favorite:
How the Sierra Club protects our forests
Thank Gaia, the loggers didn't get it.
Posted on 08/23/2002 9:44:49 AM PDT by dalereed
JOSEPH PERKINS
New thinking on managing nation's forests
?
Joseph Perkins
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
August 23, 2002
President Bush was in the Pacific Northwest yesterday where he unveiled a new forest management plan that aims to prevent the kind of catastrophic wildfires that have charred nearly 6 million acres this year.
That have destroyed more than 2,000 homes and buildings, sent tens of thousands of people fleeing for refuge and taken the lives of 20 brave firefighters.
That have laid waste to hundreds of millions of trees, destroyed wildlife habitat, and damaged forest soils and watersheds for decades to come.
Even before Air Force One touched down in Oregon, environmental groups were protesting that the White House was using the fires as a political smoke screen to roll back federal rules that restrict logging in national forests. "It is designed to put the timber industry back in the driver's seat," Jay Watson, California representative of the Wilderness Society, complained to the Los Angeles Times.
A "charade" that would increase logging and badly damage forests, Sierra Club spokesman Allen Mattison told The Washington Post.
In fact, the president does propose to shorten the interminable environmental review process that loggers have to endure before they are allowed to harvest timber. It is an outgrowth of an agreement reached in May between the Bush administration and 17 Western governors, tribal and local officials on a 10-year plan to reduce the threat of severe fires and promote "healthy forests."
As it is, the White House states, "the forests and rangelands of the West have become unnaturally dense;" are "overloaded with the fuels for fires – underbrush and small trees." When the thick, dry underbrush catches fire, flames leap from the forest floor to the tops of older, larger trees, touching off the canopy fires that have proven so difficult to contain.
"Currently," the White House states, "190 million acres of public land and surrounding communities are at increased risk of extreme fires." So its plan is to "reduce the unnatural buildup of fuels" through thinning and prescribed burns.
The Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and other vocal environmental groups do not oppose "fuel reduction," per se, in the national forests. Nor do they necessarily oppose prescribed burns. But they strenuously object to cutting down trees. Particularly older stands of trees. Their ideal forest would be one that is "preserved." Where nary a tree is felled, except by thunderstrike or some other natural occurrence.
But Thomas Bonnicksen, a professor of forest science at Texas A&M University, says the kind of forests environmental groups hold out as ideal actually are unnatural and are highly vulnerable to wildfires.
In recent testimony on Capitol Hill and in an Opinion page commentary in this newspaper, Bonnicksen made a persuasive case for what he calls "restoration forestry." He argued that the federal government ought to "re-create the magnificent forests that existed in North America 200 or more years ago."
"Unlike the popular idealized image of historic forests," said Bonnicksen, "which depicts old trees spread like a blanket over the landscape, a real historic forest was patchy." Each patch consisted of a group of trees roughly the same age. So there were some young patches, some old and some meadows.
The variety helped to contain hot fires, Bonnicksen explained. "Most patches of young trees, and old trees with few small trees and logs underneath, did not burn well and served as firebreaks."
That's a decided contrast with today's unnatural forests. The patchiness is gone, said Bonnicksen, so the forests have lost their immunity to monster fires. "Fires now spread across vast areas because we let all patches grow thick and there are few younger and open patches left to slow the flames."
So how would the forest scientist re-create the forests that the first European explorers encountered upon their arrival? By cutting trees of all sizes to restore the natural patchiness of historic forests.
Such an approach is very much along the lines of what President Bush proposed yesterday. The opposition of groups such as the Sierra Club and the Wilderness Society has little to do with forest science and much with politics.
Perkins can be reached via e-mail at joseph.perkins@uniontrib.com.
Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
As it turns out, they don't really pay any better than an LVN, and the country is full of leftist greeno-wannabes who survive for years on waiting lists just to get jobs that require good scientific, non-political approaches. These are the same people, for the most part, who live off mommy & daddy and attend every tree-hugging, terrorism oriented activist event during that waiting period.
The problem lies with higher education and subsequent job demand. Resource management is not attracting bright individuals, and there isn't any future in it for most.
Letting Daschle pass his little "self-serving" state forest policy was brilliant. Geez, talk about opening the door for a Bush policy....Thanks Mr. Daschle!! Another swift move on the part of the Dems.
To the enviro whackos. This is OUR land and OUR forests and we're not stupid!!
Sac
Bush seems pretty smart for a dumb guy.
I get so confused with what the Media says!. /sarcasm
The President was outstanding!
Now you can help people see the ugly reality of these Watermelon Green Jihadists: (link to how you can help balance America against the Green Demons)
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