Newspaper article

BobM

Scout
Dec 31, 1969
67
0
By the way Jeff, the emperor has no clothes. All that talk about environmentalists blocking thinning projects is a bold-faced lie by politicians cause they want a villian. This is from the same source you cited above:

Burning tree-huggers at the stake

E.J. Montini
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 25, 2002

The "Rodeo-Chediski" fire provided the smoke; the politicians provided the mirrors.

"The governor, along with our U.S. senators, are creating a climate of hate right now," said Sharon Galbreath of the Southwest Forest Alliance, an environmental coalition based in Flagstaff. "We're getting hate calls and worse. We could be polite and say she (the governor) is misinformed. But at this point, I'd say she is trying to make political hay and creating a firestorm of her own. And what she's saying isn't true."

Gov. Jane Hull and U.S. Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain have held press conferences in the past few days in which they've said lawsuits filed by "radical" or "extremist" environmental groups have prevented the U.S. Forest Service from clearing dangerous buildups of smaller trees and scrubs in forests.

"That's simply not the case," Galbreath said. "We've researched it, and we can find only two or three instances where anything like that was challenged in Arizona."

None of the politicians has mentioned specific instances of a legal challenge that occurred within the boundaries of the current fire.

One of Kyl's assistants told me they don't believe they have to. He said opposition to the Forest Service's effort to clear forest of what is called "hazardous fuels" has created a chilling effect that prevents the work from being done.

Is that actually the case?

Last year, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho asked the General Accounting Office to identify all of the Forest Service's fuel-reduction projects in the nation and tell him how many have been challenged. The report states that there were 1,671 such projects in fiscal year 2001. "Of these projects," the report reads, "20 (about 1 percent) had been appealed and none had been litigated." In other words, no lawsuits.

"Where there's a lack of leadership, what you get is finger-pointing," said Sandy Bahr of the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We have encouraged the government to thin the smaller trees, especially around communities. It would have been good if the governor had gotten her facts straight before spouting off."

Bahr and Galbreath describe the cause of the fire in broad terms, as does the Forest Service itself. There have been 100 years of logging, cattle ranching, fire suppression and home building in areas that were previously untouched wilderness. Add to that a drought. Add to that carelessness or criminal behavior, and you wind up with the hell that is the Rodeo-Chediski fire.

This isn't to say that some activists can't see the forest for the trees. Still, saying environmentalists are to blame for 100 years of change and mismanagement of our forests is the thickest kind of smoke screen.

When a fire-suppressing prescribed burn was suggested some time ago for Hop Canyon outside of Show Low, it was residents who fought the idea, not wanting to deal with the smoke.

Francie Noyes, Hull's spokeswoman, said the governor was speaking in general terms when condemning lawsuits.

Hopefully, President Bush won't add more fuel to the fire when he visits Show Low today.

"The only way this problem will ever be fixed is if we build a consensus," Galbreath said. "That can't happen by creating villains."

Unfortunately, politicians know less about building coalitions than they do about wildfire.

Although they're very good at burning people at the stake.
 

JeffD

Explorer
Dec 31, 1969
180
0
I've already read that article. What a crock of nonsensicial spin! And you wonder why we use the term "Disney Ecologist" and "Environmentalist Whacko?" Let's get down to reality. And use science. This is why the whackos now running Greenpeace call Patrick Moore Dr. Truth. They don't let anything such as science and reality get in the way of their dreams and schemes. Perhaps more about that later.

Here's a report about W's visit.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0811summerhaven.htm

Talk about stirring up flames! Let's just ignore the overcrowded forests that resulted from decades of mismanagement, or rather, management by neglect driven by those who just want to live in a past dream world and let nature alone. Take a look at the woods in the neighborhood of Pine Crest and High Crossing where a wildfire ran in a area that probably wasn't thinned nor cleaned up afterward. This is a wasteland! A wasteland isn't created by employing good silvicutural practices followed by a CONTROLLED burn. Danny, I mean, Emil Divito has it backwards! This past leave it alone policy was driven by a bunch of irresponsible people who live up in an ivory tower, who could care less about the destruction of property of everyday people in the real world. Well. fortunately people are not listening to the Disney Ecologists as much these days and all they can do is whine and carry on like the the cry babies they are.

And put this in your peace pipe and smoke it:

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0728smoke.htm
 

JeffD

Explorer
Dec 31, 1969
180
0
I just reread through testimony on the wilfire management meeting held the summer before last, which I posted further up this thread. After whining about not being able to be insured for more "controlled burns" and his short diatribe about W's HEALTHY FOREST INITIATIVE, which, using the old cliche about it being for the timber interests, I came to Emile Devito's punch line at the end of this paragraph in his testimony at the meeting. "And we know that wildfires are never going to be common again. We can’t just go out and set summer wildfires and let them burn because some butterfly needs them. But we can do things to mimic that. We can do our controlled burns in a safe way that might help that butterfly, or we can do timber management practices that might help that butterfly. But we’re never going to be able to just let fires rip like they did a thousand years ago when the Native Americans set them and created this ecosystem. But we need to find ways to mimic that in a safe way." So, Dr. Devito wants to turn back the clock and just, in his words "let fires rip like they did a thousand years go..." There are different ways to "mimic" the manner in which the Indians, which Devito and the other Disney Ecologists have so romanticized, weeded out the forest. Based on Devito's call for lots of fire, not the small, isolated controlled burns that have been done in the pine barrens, but for increased burning, and his poo-pooing of the mechanical harvesting (tree cutting) found in the HEALTHY FOREST INITIATIVE, I conclude that he wants to use fire exclusively as a way to keep the forest healthy and protect the community from forest fires. Earlier in his testimony, Dr. Devito says there's a problem getting the insurance he needs to conduct so-called controlled burns because people have images of the monster wildfires out west. Well, yeah. The controlled burn at Bandelier National Monument was a result of using fire to thin out forests that were much to dense, a plan he wants to impliment. It would have been better if the forest in that area were thinned before a controlled burn was done. It also, of course, would have been better if done when weather conditions were better.

This brings me to Texas A & M Professor of Forestry Thomas Bonicksen's testimony before contress, where he explains why the exclusive use of fire to restore forests is bad and proposes to use private timber companies to accomplish this. The timber companies wouldn't be given carte blanch, but would have to conform to a plan to promote the ecological health of the forest, while protecting property, lives, and human welfare. This what the guy who worked in timber production in Arizona did (see the link a couple of posts up), who explained that the Forest Service told him where he could cut.
Unfortunately, the mill closed because of policy driven by people who are living in the past and want as little human intervention as possible in the forest. Fire is acceptable for these folks, I guess because their beloved NATIVE AMERICANS, as they call them, did this. I guess that's because they were here first. By the way, I am a Native American; I was born in this country.

Here's Dr. Bonnicksen's testimony: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/107cong/forests/2002jul11/bonnicksen.htm
 

JeffD

Explorer
Dec 31, 1969
180
0
I just saw Thomas Bonnicksen on Fox News, whose headline was FOREST ECOLOGIST. Dr. Bonnicksen said that you can either just leave the forest the way it is, overstocked with trees and allow fires as bad or worse than the ones destroying Southern California, or you can thin out the forests. Fox News explained that W's Healthy Forest Initiative would include having loggers come in. They would clear the brush (which is no benefit to them) and be allowed to cut certain trees for commmercial use.

I guess the fires out in Southern California is an example of what New Jersey's Emile Divito's wish to "let fires rip like they did a thousand years ago." Oh, such nostalgia!

THE RIP
[parody of Chubby Checker's THE TWIST]


Come on everybody
Hug a tree
It won’t take long
For the woods to burn strong

Come on let it rip
Like it did in summer
Come on and rip
Like it did a thousand years
Ago
Do you remember when?
Things were really burnin'
Come on let it rip
Ripping time is here

And rip and rip and rip and rip around
through towns
Rip and rip and rip and burn everything down
Again

So let it rip again
Like it did in summer
Let it rip again
Like it did a thousand years
Ago
Do you remember when?
Things were really burnin'
Come on let it rip again
Rippin' time is here

And rip and rip and rip and rip around
through towns
Rip and rip and rip and burn everything down
Again...
 

JeffD

Explorer
Dec 31, 1969
180
0
Do you remember when?
The cars were idling, humming
On the Garden State Parkway
When the fire reached by there

It ripped around and around and around
Though towns
Again
Burning homes and anything in its’ path
It brought down
Again

So let it rip again
Like it did that summer
Let it rip again
Like it that year
Do you remember when?
Things were really burnin’
It may be rippin’ time
In the Pine Barrens next year

Is it absurd?
No!
Is it a twister?
No!
Is it a forest fire?
Horray!

So let it rip again
Like it did that summer
Let it rip again
Like it that year
Do you remember when?
Things were really burnin’
It may be rippin’ time
In the Pine Barrens next year
It may be rippin’ time
In the Pine Barrens next year
Burn! Burn! Burn!
 
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