Evidence of the Benefits of Thinning
You're right, trying to reason using science and common sense is like yelling into a storm. With SOME people, such as the tree hugging disciples of Henry David Thoreau. You'll never convince the leaders of groups such as the Sierra Club. Some of the individual members of these groups, and other folks who don't understand the whys and wherefores and haven't heard the other side, however, is another story. There most likely are people who genuinely care about clean air, clean water, healthy forests, etc, who buy into radical environmental groups, honestly ignorant of what they truely are about.
Recently, while researching what Pete Kostmeyer, who is running for state senator in my area against the incumbent, I came across some interesting information between the Zero Population Growth (which Pistol Pete was/is with, website and the Sierra Club (which praised Kostmeyer) website. There was a blub about opposing the Bush plan to thin forests. The writer noted that some of the folks in the Sierra Club said they wanted conservation measures in place but didn't think a total ban on logging, which the Sierra Club advocates. These folks were challenged -- the upshot was that a total ban was the only way to be good stewards of the environment, and that just wisely managing the woods and just limiting and regulating logging was like being half pregnant. Some folks look at issues as all or nothing and that the activity is inherently bad and it must be stopped alltogether, somewhat like some fundamentalists telling their kids not to dance or go to movies because these activities were degraded by some people.
A year or two ago, I emailed a columnist who was critical of some environmental groups role in public policy. I wrote that I was suprised to hear that the National Wildlife Federation, an environmental group which I respected and believed credible, was involved in private meetings with Forest Service personnel to sneak in some scientifically unsound and generally kookie policies. She responded by saying that all mainstream environmental groups have a radical element to it and that it's generally just a matter of time before they take over and dominate the group. I had to laugh at the Sierra Club's comment that they are following in the tradition of their founder, John Muir. It more like Henry David Thoreau. Co founders of Greenpeace Patrick Moore and Bjorn Lomburg left the organization after the nuts took over.
I agree with Patrick Moore that the nonsense spewed by the eco-nuts needs to be debunked -- not to convince the extremists, but to convince an unknowing public, which has heard just one side for the past few decades.
A book that helped turn my thinking around was ENVIRONMENTAL OVERKILL/WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COMMON SENSE, by scientist Dixy Lee Ray. And now for the other side of the story...
