DecreaseChanceOfForestFires...LogThem'Th arHills

“I think it was on the Fox News website that I read that the real problem here is a Government rule. After what is called the "Big Blow Up" in the '30s , I think it was, the Government mandated that ALL fires must be put out by 10:30 the next day. By doing this, the lighting fires that occur naturally are put out and the under brush is aloud to build up. Before this mandate, the fires would just burn on the floor for the most part and clear up the under brush. Because the under brush is now aloud to build up, the fires now jump up to the canopies and speads much faster and does nore damage.

Also, more people are build homes in areas that are very wooded anf they do not have a proper fire break, which is cleared area 50 yards around the structure, and therefore become an insurance claim. I don't know if I feel completly comfortable with the fact that we risk the lives of fire fighters to protect against preventible (not in most cases, I understand) property damage.”

“Rosey makes a salient point. It can easily become a case of "My Biologist can beat up Your Biologist" which is an extension of "My Dad can beat up Your Dad" and "My Lawyer can beat up Your Lawyer".”

“Absolutely, Tilt. If you have the money to hire a PR firm or to lobby for your industry, you can certainly find a scientist who will come up with research that says something very beneficial to your industry. Then your PR firm can have one of its paid reporters run the story somewhere, have one its AP people pick it up, and the next thing you know, it's everywhere.

Then the PR firm will issue a statement calling opposing studies "junk science".

PR watch has details of the process”

“So, what is the alternative,,,,disregard science???


Then we can make decisions on "who can spend the most to lobby this" or "who can get the most air time to sway public opinion".

I am sorry, but IMHO, that is the worst way we could proceed on environmental issues.”

“No, Chili, of course not. The thing is to try to find out where the funding came from for the science that you're buying into.

Track the money a little and you might be better able to identify what you're dealing with.”

“Strat, please feel free to think your opinions through before calling mine blind rhetoric

well phead, i did think it through...i have thought of other alternatives.....steel? works great, i have worked with it in construction....where does steel come from? under the ground, they cut the trees down anyway, then move the mountain they were on. ver see a strip pit? clay....they hacve to dig it up, need i go on? every material has an eco-cost.


as far as there being more trees now....i dont have time to do your research for you. it has been prooven to me enough so that i believe it. the truth is out there, seek it like i did.



as far as me "blindly" following bush....i think he is adressing a very real problem that needs to be adressed. i happen to agree with him. big deal. i'm not saying that this or that is the solution, i'm just saying don't knee-jerk.




now, thank you all for a much more reasonable and logical disscusion... excuse me i gotta tater gun to try out, we gotta cabin at hasty oon the buffalo for the weekend & my brother & sister are comin down......WOOOHOOOO! cavin & beer!”

“good point about the regulations concerning control burns....if we do continue/increase prescribed burns some controls need to be loosened.”

“i'm back! the river was KILLER!”

“i like the undergrowth and all that it entails.

let it burn "naturally". it obviously has enough help right now.

saw a bumper sticker today. on a GOVT car!
"Suburbia- where all the trees are ripped out and the streets named after them"”

“Another site to visit for an alternative view:

www.evergreenmagazine.com”

“Ever try to hike through a logged area? Can't be done...it's THICK with the lush overgrown underbrush.”

“its amazing how quickly and vigirously nature reclaims itself. i saw an old paved road the other day that had been fenced off & there were trees and brush so thick the road had been swallowed up.”

“...the very techniques used by the environmental industry nationwide.”

“Give it a rest, Gordon. Your Boy from greenspirit, Patrick Moore, is a tool of big industry. He knows where his money is coming from and will make sure he says the right things to make them happy.

From PRWATCH:

ConsumerFreedom.org: Tobacco Money Takes on Activist Cash

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Full page advertisements in Newsweek magazine are expensive, so who footed the bill for an attack ad aimed at Greenpeace that ran in the January 28 issue? The Center for Consumer Freedom, which produced the ad, isn't saying.

At first glance, with its photo of a diving whale in the ocean, the ad looked like it might have been placed by Greenpeace itself--until, that is, you read the nasty quote from Patrick Moore, identified as a "Greenpeace Co-Founder," calling his former colleagues "a band of scientific illiterates who use Gestapo tactics."

The advertisement featured a web address, www.ConsumerFreedom.com, which belongs to the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF). Like the advertisement itself, the name is misleading. CCF doesn't represent consumers. It's just the new name for lobbyist Rick Berman's latest front group.

Until January, the CCF called itself the "Guest Choice Network." Its name change coincided with the launch of a second website, called ActivistCash.com, which purports to reveal a vast, left-wing financial conspiracy among major foundations and nonprofit public interest organizations.

Berman's specialty as a lobbyist is what he calls "shooting the messenger": attacking activists who criticize his clients. PR Watch first exposed Berman & Co. in our First Quarter 2001 issue, detailing his work for the restaurant, tavern and alcoholic beverage industries. Since then, we have uncovered new information documenting his ties to Philip Morris.

Although ConsumerFreedom.org isn't saying who funded its attack advertisement against Greenpeace, Philip Morris is a distinct possibility. The tobacco giant is also now the largest food company in the United States. Greenpeace is one of the international leaders in the fight for safety and environmental testing of genetically engineered foods, and recently Greenpeace targeted Philip Morris Kraft for its sales of such products.
”

“there's more trees here now than ever before(in the USA).alot of forested land was once prairie back in tha day.

stratdewd
10:10:23 PM
08/22/02



I cannot believe this statement. Can you support it?"

le Subtil
11:23:52 AM
08/23/02



as far as there being more trees now....i dont have time to do your research for you. it has been prooven to me enough so that i believe it. the truth is out there, seek it like i did.

stratdewd
05:22:41 PM
08/23/02



If you are going to blindly spew rhetoric, at least be prepared to provide some support when you are called on a point. For someone who belongs to the party that is big on personal responsibility, you should try practicing some.

According to FAIR, Rush Limbaugh said on his 2/18/94 radio show: “Do you know we have more acreage of forest land in the United States today than we did at the time the constitution was written."

The fact is that in what are now the 50 U.S. states, there were 850 million acres of forest land in the late 1700s vs. only 730 million today (The Bum's Rush, p. 136). Limbaugh's claim also ignores the fact that much of today's forests are single-species tree farms, as opposed to natural old-growth forests which support diverse ecosystems.”

“better now?”

“Thank you, Violin.”

“I really despise Bush and his big-biz policies (sorry Biz)

Hey how about the cows in the forests, chomping down undergrowth? Nothing like that herd of Black Angus I saw on the Encampment River Trail in south central Wyoming.

3:-O moooooooooooohahahahaha”

“Apparently, all those forestry jobs Bush said would result from wholesale rape of public forests is a lie too.”

“Damn! Gordon's links have me all irritated. These corporate flacks are involved in everything from "grassroots" movements to public reporting.

Do any of you remember that whole "smoker's rights" thing that happened in the late 80's? It was basically staged by phillip morris.

Wherever big business has money to make, they will find a way to rally people to their cause - whatever the cost to the environment or peoples health. Then you end up with people who have bought into it, and consider themselves better "educated" than others, who spew the party line back at you without without considering the effects for themselves.”

“Genuine Imitation 'grassroots' activism... known in political circles as ASTROTURF.”

“Greenwashing.”

“Violin: The 730 million acres today is approximately the same acreage as 1900. The nadir year was 1970. Forest cover has been expanding since then, and plateaud during the 1990's. Of the increase since 1970, only about 20% is due to artifical regenration, the rest is natural expansion.

Phaedrus:

The classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

“The environmental industry lies. They admit they lie. They have lied in court, lied to Congress, the media, lied to the public lied to their own members. Now they have been caught red handed, and deny they lie the same way neonazis deny there was a holocaust.”

“"there's more trees here now than ever before(in the USA).alot of forested land was once prairie back in tha day."

stratdewd
10:10:23 PM
08/22/02

Not true.”

Violin
3:58:35 PM
8/26/02

---

“

Oops! Sorry.”

Violin
4:09:14 PM
8/26/02

---

“

Time for a "Hey Matt" thread.”

Violin
4:10:43 PM
8/26/02

---

“

”

“Trees don't grow fast enough for either of the plans outlined on those web pages. Plus they don't note that lots of the wood that is being cut down is coming from places like tropical rain forests where tree will never be able to grow again for thousands of years because of the poor quality of the soil do to the fact that the rain leeches out minerals. Replanted forests have a ton less biodiversity and it is against the interest of timber production for them to have large biodiversity because that biodiversity competes with the trees that are best for harvesting. A book by James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, will give you all you need to know about this problem. Finally, there is something inherently wrong with the idea that we want to protect biodiversity just simply by protecting the species that we have right now and that the answer is for us to manage our wild areas. The point is that these areas are supposed to manage themselves. The point is not to have Condors in the wild that have been bred at zoos and that have been freed, so that we can do this perpetually both with this species and with others. It is to achieve some sort of harmony, not a system where humans manage nature.”

“Stratdewd's statement is partly right. Forests today are (national average) 30% denser than historical levels. So add 30% back onto the 730 million acres and there are more trees now ever before. Those more trees are just packed into a smaller space.”

“Denser forests is not a good thing, and its again the result of trying to micro-manage forests, but without any real understanding.”

“Violin: The 730 million acres today is approximately the same acreage as 1900. The nadir year was 1970. Forest cover has been expanding since then, and plateaud during the 1990's. Of the increase since 1970, only about 20% is due to artifical regenration, the rest is natural expansion.

Do you have the source you pulled this from, Gordon?


Phaedrus:

The classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Any specific FACTS you'd like to site to defend that position?

The environmental industry lies. They admit they lie. They have lied in court, lied to Congress, the media, lied to the public lied to their own members. Now they have been caught red handed, and deny they lie the same way neonazis deny there was a holocaust.

Lies? Such as? Do you have a source, or is this just one of those Gordon-isms? "It's true because I say it's true".”

“The environmental industry lies. They admit they lie. They have lied in court, lied to Congress, the media, lied to the public lied to their own members. Now they have been caught red handed, and deny they lie the same way neonazis deny there was a holocaust."

Holy Moly... that is mega-trolling. Comparing environmentalists with neo-nazi holocaust deniers???

Besides, the whole notion of an environmental industry is a lie. There is no environmental industry.

Please dear Gordon, for once back something you say up. Give me an example of environmentalists lying to congress. Explain what you mean by the "industry" denying that it has lied.”

“Hack this

By the way strat, it took 0.18 seconds to do a Google search for "environmental , rush limbaugh, more trees".”

“Strat: The idea of the environmental industry is a piece of bad distorted rhetoric. I know people who have received law degrees and management degrees. The salaries available to people who go work for basic for profit corporations are much higher than in non-profits. Compare the budgets of environmental organizations to the big timber companies.

I'm sure environmental lobbiests have lied sometimes, I'm sure researchers have fudged data sometimes. When it comes to paying people to twist the truth, its not the environmentalists. Look at who has the bucks and who is making big bucks and you will see that talk of an environmental industry is misleading.

I've had arguments with people on the left and people on the right. People on both sides spout and recycle misleading rhetoric and rumour. I think this damages the quality of discussion and debate.

I try to think for myself and come up with my own conclusions. I look at evidence and try to dig a little in forming my opinions. I can't say my opinions are better than anyone elses, but if you want to argue with me... if you want to persuase me, show me evidence. Show me evidence of your thought and analysis. Build a case. I don't know everything. I take it as a point of pride that I do change my mind when confronted with evidence. I'm sure that I am wrong about some things that I beleive right now, but I am not going to change my mind just because someone says I'm wrong or has great rhetoric. No matter what I believe, there will be someone around to say I'm wrong.

I'm not sure what you think you called me on that I didn't respond to. By the way, not everything I say in these arguments is an attack... some of it sometimes is encouragement to look deeper and to kick over a few rocks and see whats behind and under them.”