Incinerating America’s West
As I write these lines, vast wildfires are sweeping through my home state of Colorado and other areas of the American west. Last week, two of my employees had to leave work early to rush home to evacuate their families from imminent danger. Hundreds of houses have already been destroyed, and thousands of acres of trees incinerated, and unknown myriads of wild animals burned alive.
This disaster was predictable, and promises to get worse. Over the past decade, from British Columbia to New Mexico, the world’s most rapid deforestation has been underway in the North American west, with an average of nearly six million acres of forest lost per year — roughly double the three million acres per year rate in Brazil. The culprits here, however, have not been humans, but Western Pine Beetles, whose epidemic spread has turned over 60 million acres of formerly evergreen pine forests into dead red tinder, dry ammunition awaiting any spark to flare into catastrophe.
Yet while the global green movement has made a cause célèbre of the Amazon rain forest, they have done nothing to oppose those destroying our woods. Quite the contrary, they have been doing everything in their power to assist the wreckers. Indeed, over the past decade they have launched over a thousand lawsuits to block every attempt by the National Forest Service or others to take necessary counter measures.
There is one word that sums up the required course of action: logging. The beetles have been spreading uncontrollably because continuously connected and extremely thick forests densely populated with mature trees provide the ideal environment for their proliferation. Logging to thin the forests of mature trees that afford the beetles their favorite homes would slow their growth considerably. Logging out tree-free gaps between sections of forests would impose quarantine limits on the epidemic. Logging out trees that have already been killed would remove fuel for the otherwise inevitable conflagration.
These facts are well-known, and in many places there are those who would be delighted to do the logging (not everywhere, unfortunately, as the shutting down of 90% of the American timber industry by the environmentalists over the past two decades has forced many local sawmills to shut down) because pine beetle kill wood is fine timber. Indeed, its striking blue stain endows it with beauty prized by many carpenters for ornamental purposes. Yet time and again, plans to allow controlled preemptive logging to proceed have been blocked by spurious lawsuits from a multitude of self-described environmentalist groups, who additionally have used these suits to bilk the taxpayers of billions of dollars.
The arguments that the putative environmentalists have used to justify their campaign have been risible. For example, in a legal brief filed August 29, 2011, on behalf of itself and several other groups, the South Dakota-based Friends of the Norbeck said:
Yes, bark beetles are killing many trees, but that won’t necessarily lead to large fires. Even if it did, there’s not much humans can do directly to forests to influence fire risk, except to begin reducing human causes of climatic change. Logging the forest will not significantly influence fire spread, and removal of dead trees has many negative impacts on forest ecosystems.
While as recently as this May, the allied “Native Forest Council” issued a statement saying,
Insects, fire and disease are part of nature. They keep our Commonwealth of forests healthy and alive. They did so until the white man came and began liquidating them, using them up because they were there. Nature’s insect, fire and disease don’t destroy forests. Man, chainsaws and greed destroy forests. Man, scientists, even foresters have never grown a forest, let alone a “like kind or better” forest. They don’t know how. They never have and they never will.
The illogic of the antihuman sentiments behind these, and endless numbers of similar statements put forth by the beetle’s Green apologists over the past decade, is incredible. Limited harvesting that would save the forest (and incidentally reduce damage to forests elsewhere, such as the Amazon, by driving down the global price of wood) is to be shunned — precisely because it would create jobs, useful products, and commerce. At the same time, vast depredations that destroy tens of millions of acres of wild habitat, kill countless numbers of terrified animals in the most horrible way, and throw millions of tons of smoke, pine-tar gas, and other pollutants into the atmosphere are discounted as irrelevant and unimportant by those who claim to care so deeply for nature and all its creatures.
Of course, there is another tactic that could be used to save the forests, and that would be to use pesticides. For example, as long ago as the 1940s, it was shown that DDT is extremely effective in countering the Western Pine Beetle. Thus on pages 287-288 of Biology and Control of the Western Pine Beetle, US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Miscellaneous Publication 800, 1960, authors J.M. Miller and F.P. Kern report on numerous studies done in the period from 1944 through 1951 that showed 90 to 96% mortality within hours among pine beetles that came into momentary contact with trees that had been sprayed with 5% dilute DDT solutions.
However, the same environmental groups that have halted western logging regard the idea of using DDT to stop the pine beetle with near hysteria. Rachel Carson’s 1962 tome Silent Spring (which falsely argued that the vital pesticide DDT should be banned because it was killing the birds, when actually it was protecting them — and us — from insect-borne diseases) is virtually sacred scripture to the greens, and the successful campaign to ban DDT that followed from its promotion serves as the core of their proudest creation myth. In enshrining this myth, the anti-technology cult has chosen to heartlessly turn its head away from the massive amount of human misery it has caused through its narcissistic sacrifice of millions of African children to malaria. It must perforce regard the very idea that its object of hatred might be used to save our forests and their wildlife from incineration as nothing short of outright heresy.
From DDT, to nuclear power, to fossil-fuel development, to genetically improved crops, the green movement has used the pretext of nonexistent or grossly exaggerated environmental hazards to block enterprises that would be of enormous benefit to people. However, when faced with a real and catastrophic threat to the wild they have taken the other side — precisely because allowing the necessary protective measures would not constrain human liberty, but expand it, in however limited a way, and this would undermine the central purpose of the “environmentalist” exercise.
To those seeking environmental pretexts for enhanced control over society, all changes to nature effected by humans, no matter how beneficial, must be portrayed as criminal. Thus global warming and carbon dioxide emissions are denounced, despite the fact that they lengthen the growing season, increase rainfall, and accelerate plant growth. Thus no actions may be taken to save the forests.
By the light of a burning wildness the truth may be perceived. The purpose of the green prosecution is not to protect nature, but to put shackles on humankind.
Well said.
I worked for the Federal Govt fighting forest fires through the 1970s. Perhaps I am wrong but, as I recall, the old line local fire fighters were used to routinely going out, as a crew, and thinning out dead wood and brush. Missoula would send smoke jumpers on practice drops to thin brush in the high country.
Crews consistently thinned trees and brush in the thickest and steepest part of the forest as part of their training. Large fires did occur but most fires were stopped by aggressive local crews and early attack. This method being a response to some truly huge fires that dominated the news in the early part of last century.
Then the new college trained boys started to show up in the middle 70s who were “Ecology” minded. They had mostly never worked in nor fought forest fires and they pushed for the thinning of forests and brush to stop. They pushed to stop thinning, logging, brush thinning, and most preventative actions. They objected to the use of heavy equipment to fight fires.
They said their professors had studies which showed the forest would be more healthy if we “let the forest just grow naturally”. They often called the old methods European or The German method and denied it produced a healthy forest. They insisted that early attack fire attack was inappropriate because it was unnatural. They told us that fires would mostly burn themselves out if just allowed to go on their own. they especially advocated this in wilderness areas. They admitted that disease might increase a bit but it would be more healthy for the forest.
Old hands pointed out how healthy the forest was using the old methods. They said that without consistent thinning and logging, and controlled burns in conjunction with systematic brush thinning and early fire attack that insect infestation would increase and fires would grow in size. Their objections were gradually overcome and new policies were implemented.
Gradually the new hands took over. Their methods became the norm and thinning and logging slowed and in many cases stopped and native pine beetle disease grew and by 1999 some forest managers were complaining about dense non-managed forests causing large fires. They were shrugged off by the entrenched natural managers.
Some 40 years into this mistaken policy the forests are tinder dry with huge loads of wood and brush. This was caused by 40 years of consistent neglect of the forest by the now retiring and foolish natural managers.
Accounts such as yours display why intellectuals are the last people who should be trusted with any decision more important than what to have for lunch.
(Un)account such as yours confirms that there are people educated enough to spell intellectual but that is the closest they can get to any intelligence. Sorry, but you being unintelligent is as natural as I being intelligent.
At the same time, labeling someone WITHOUT a degree as unintelligent is snobbish, and many times more snobbish, as a degree is made to seem the end all to all end all, when, if not used properly, and for a good and useful purpose, is just a piece of paper, meaning nothing, especially these days. My husband would like to teach, especially the outdoor part of forestry, but they say he MUST have at least a Masters, even though he has worked in forestry, both federal and private, for 26 years, and that experience means nothing to them, but two years more in college, w/0 any actual forestry experience, means EVERYTHING. We MUST get back to our roots, where experience, common sense, and a great work ethic, along with character, are more important than a piece of paper.
Well, my husband was one of those “college boys” from the 70s, and they were not at that point, but just the opposite, still pushing for the means you mentioned. The USFS started changing drastically in the late 80s, early 90s, first with affirmative action being pushed on them, thus pushing aside many men that had worked hard for years, to go up in ranks, for women and minorites, many of whom had no Forest Service background, or Forestry experience, for that matter, and the “green” movement to start making so much noise that the USFS was not allowed to do its job anymore. Do not blame the Foresters, but blame the green movement. Maybe now there are many “green” foresters, but they are forgetting what “green” REALLY is. One of the main reasons my husband left, after working for the USFS for 16 years, starting with jobs as a cruiser, then going into tree nursery work, then as a nursery manager for 8 years, is that the USFS had been hobbled, by the green movement, who worked through congress and affectionately made the USFS just a shadow of what it is meant to be. Tim worked his way through school, worked very hard for his degree, and it is unfair to label him, and other foresters, as you did.
The last line is the bottom line. GOOD science points the way here, as in the “global warming” debate and the spurious “climate consensus”, that is being used tyrannously by the UN’s IPCC and is supported by the activist environmentalist “Greens” (and all of our institutions that have been suborned by that scientifically fraudulent “consensus”).
It is all part of a general “War of the Insane Left”, pretending to good scientific justification but entirely lacking it–with the patently obvious result, ignored by the insane Left, that their policies are destructive in the extreme, to our resources and our political system of self-government, of inherent individual human rights.
Yep – you hear them everyday. Look at these fires! If it wasn’t for global warming these fires wouldn’t be happening. We need to bankrupt America so the trees stop burning. Morons!
To justify their illogic they are willing that have all that nasty smoke pouring into the atmosphere just so they can reduce mankind back to the stoneage. They really are evil.
Green policies causing people to be burned out of their houses? That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.
My favorite bit is how ‘white men’ have been cutting down trees. The Native American’s had been prior to European’s been engaged is large amounts of forest management. Basically this isn’t a return to ‘North America before white men’ but ‘North America before human contact’
Good point.
These fires in CO need to be explained. The destruction of the lumber industry and the shutdown of aerial tanker fleets are huge stories and directly traceable to our friends on the left.
Pine beetles are a blight on the state of Colorado – just driving from C-Springs to Vail gives you an idea of how widespread the problem is. But considering that they’re killing trees by the heracre, you’d think that the environmentalists would be a bit more willing to wipe them out. Trees or bugs… must be a hard one to resolve for those folks.
It’s not hard for them to resolve at all. They decide based on which cause is most in vogue at the moment. Eagles’ lives are SO last year. It’s all about windmills now. One year, it’s save the trees. The next year, it’s save the poor beetles. Geez, try to keep up.
I was in north central Colorado last fall and was shocked by the extent of the beetle damage. I saw that there was some logging occurring of the dead tress but do not understand why there was not a big push to harvest more of the dead trees before they rotted to the point of being worthless.
If I recall correctly – and I’m probably wrong – the trees are prefered live for cutting, not dead. As the tree dies, it dries out which changes the character of the logs for cutting and milling and other uses (aka paper etc). I don’t know that it makes such use impossible, or just tougher. But this could be the reason why they are not cutting more of the dead, besides that they are also proably baned by eco’s
Up here in BC, there have been two deadly sawmill explosions and fires due to the highly flamable nature of the dry pine sawdust.
it appears that dust control measures were based on wet (green) log milling.
mills have failed to mitigate the high risk from tinder dry pine dust.
From Ayn Rands mouth ( The Anti-Indutrial Revolution) to Bub Zubrins ears.Keep up the good fight Bobby.
It’s well past time to take care of our forests–we need proper thinning of the trees and to unleash the enemies of the pine beetles–birds, other insects (lady bugs), amphibians (frogs, etc.), reptiles (snakes) etc. Chemicals should be a last resort.
I agree with the author’s commentary. Here in Eastern Virginia, thousands of huge trees were toppled a few years ago by Hurricane Isabel and subsequent storms on National Park lands. The timber (oak trees and pines 2 feet or more in diameter) were allowed to rot to keep the forest “natural” instead of clearing out fuel for a future forest fire and providing jobs and commerce.
The practice is similar on other national park and forest lands.
Responsible people do not generally advocate uncontrolled clear cutting, but want managed care by the stewards of our resources, in this case, the federal government. The problem is not limited to just the “feds” however; similar policies are invoked on state controlled forest lands, state university lands, and so forth.
Congress needs to repeal the automatic legal “standing” to bring a lawsuit to any group that purports itself to claim alleged damage to the environment.
These so-called environmental groups have become “profit enterprises” in themselves, not only winning monetary judgments, injunctions and other commerce-restrictive measures, but have become a winning lottery ticket for the legal profession since the federal government allows for the awarding of all legal fees to be paid by the losing parties or the taxpayers.
My wife and I visited Yellowstone several weeks ago. Back in the late 1980s, there was a massive fire there. Over 20 years later, the signs of that fire are still visible in much of the park. Despite that history, the Park Service has let the dead wood accumulate all over the place. I guess they’re taking the natural course in letting the wood decay, but there’s so much fuel lying around that when (not if) the next fire breaks out, I don’t see how they could possibly stop it.
YES!! 1988 – I remember it! That was the first “let it burn” policy in action. Over a million acres burned before they realized it wasn’t going to stop on its own. Greens are evil!
Of course it will burn out on it’s own, eventually, but it may literally take a year, and the complete end-to-end destruction of the forest.
The green activists and ecological types are talking and theorizing about a much longer, anti-human timescale. A forest doesn’t live or die in days, weeks, months or years, but more along the lines of decades or centuries.
A massive destructive uncontrolled fire in Yellowstone that destroys the health of the forest for 50 years, on a planetary timescale, is a rounding error. In human terms, that’s 2 or 3 generations.
Talking about lettering natural processes run the forest may in fact be a good “long-term” plan, but the problem is that it exceeds the time horizon of plausibility for human non-intervention. It should be scrapped for active human-based management including selective clear cutting, barriers, thinning, logging, bug remediation (via multiple means, including chemical where appropriate).
Yes, and there was great suffering in the Yellowstone area by those who suffered from asthma and other lung problems. The whole summer the Bighorn Basin east of Yellowstone was overcast by the smoke.
The more I read and thought on the article the more amazed I was that these eco-groups that seem to jump up from behind every bush were tamed by a simple legal device that was invoked a few times here in the Old Country. That device? have such persistent, litigious eco-nuisances declared “vexatious litigants”, and banned from bringing any kind of lawsuit without the consent of a higher court.
No doubt they will scream out loud about denial of constitutional rights. I make no claim to more than the barest understanding of the US Constitution, but I venture to say that the Founding Fathers never had in mind the sight of any old ideological Tom, Dick, or Harry using the legal process in such a way. Maybe if the forest managers, and any who are prepared to support them, met these troublemakers head on, fighting them into bankruptcy, and stirring up public opinion against these eco-tyrants then some sanity will return to the scene…..or will it? Fanatical ideologues are by nature unconviceable by rational argument, so I wouldn’t put it past such to resort to lawless violence in the event of losing.
There is no doubt that the Americanized Left-Progressive-Secularists are doing everything in their power to destroy this country. Their dream is that we become a third world nation ruled by ruthless dictators like Obama and Pelosi. Their dream is to drive us into abject poverty to the point that we will be forced to worship them for a free crust of bread they throw our way. The sad fact is that most Americans are willing to accept this fate because they are gutless, mind numberd dolts. As we speak temples dedicated to the American god Obama are on the planning board of the Washington DC Progressive priest class who will benefit greatly as did the priests of Pharoh.
The wildfires are a perfect example of government destroying everything it touches. Our forests are a natural resource that, if properly managed, would generate billions in revenue. Instead, we’ve spent billions to allow them to go up in smoke. In many areas the government is working overtime to put formerly public areas off-limits and to minimize access to our Public Lands. I wonder if those lands will become the site of some kleptocrat’s dacha.
But there is some truth in advertising – The Forest Service does tell us “Only you can prevent forest fires”. It’s clear they’re doing nothing in that regard.
“But there is some truth in advertising – The Forest Service does tell us “Only you can prevent forest fires”.”
That line always bugged me because I personally know of not one person who can prevent lightening. But what do I know?
BTW, I think Smokey says ‘wildfires’ now.
One of the conspiracy theories out there is they are making all our land federal land and off limits to people so they can concentrate the population into pockets of humanity so they are better able to control us. The government doesn’t want any Daniel Boones out there who can survive on their own without Sugar Uncle Sammy.
Sounds crazy? Sounds EXACTLY what these people would do.
You are not paranoid at all. It is called the “Wildlands” project and it aims to connect wilderness areas in North America by moving people out of the project areas. The enviros have had some success in forcing ranchers off public (and sometime their own private land). Funny thing, though, the vacated ranches are soon taken over by employees, usually high level employees, of the Sierra Club and other enviro groups.
A couple of points to ponder — the pine beetle is native, and the damage it is doing is in response to poor forest management. Most western forests would burn naturally and frequently, but with much less intensity if left on their own. Logging will replace fire in the natural cycle, but logging has effectively ceased to exist on federal lands. Fire suppression, however, has been going strong. The result is a monoculture of 30 to 40 year old trees, prime habitat for the beetle.
If the government forbids logging, it should at least engage in a program of controlled burning. A series of small fires strategically placed and spread out over time and geography can regenerate the forest eco-system and prevent widespread conflagration.
Most Greens couldn’t care less about the environment. Humans have been using trees for shelter and fuel for hundreds of thousands of years. There are more acres of forests in the Eastern United States than there were in the 1700s. Greens care about power, pure and simple. Lawsuits are a form of power. Killing millions of poor African children without recourse is a form of power. Keeping people out of their favorite wilderness areas is a form of power. Making sure people lose jobs in the lumber industry is a form of power. If you can’t figure out why the Greens oppose nuclear power plants which produce zero CO2, it becomes clear when you realize they don’t want to reduce CO2, they want to reduce your ability to get electricity, because more electricity means greater freedom, from Greens.
Bingo.
Environmentalism in its most extreme form, along with the Peta/anti hunting groups, is not about nature but about controlling human beings who are doing something that offends them.
You will never find an anti-hunter out doing habitat improvement with the Ducks Unlimited guys (and gals) and so many of the other hunting and fishing conservation organizations. They’re all for “natural” processes when there is work to be done.
And frankly, I’ve lately come to be very suspicious of the Sierra Club, which I used to admire.
Be VERY suspicious of the Sierra Club. There is no conservation group that hasn’t been infiltrated by the eco-nazis.
Also, be very aware that the EPA actually gives money (TAXPAYER money) to these green groups so they can SUE the EPA to “force” them into ever more restrictive policies meant to cripple this country.
The dire story of the Park & Forest Service’s utter mismanagement:
Christopher Burchfield’s book The Tinder Box
In the early 1990s the logging of public lands went under the greenies bus. Their policy then and now is to “let it burn”. Colorado Springs had an enviro-group who posted “let it Burn” on their web page.The policy was to let nature (chaos) take care of its own while laws protected endangered species.
Forget about the logging industry. Owls were more important. The carbon footprint of Colorado burning will not be billed to any department because of their neglect in management. The madness of the “Let it Burn”, roadless forests, and no motors in the wilderness have led to these eco-catastrophies.
Yeah – In Yellowstone the let it burn policy allowed over a million acres to burn before they realized it wasn’t going to stop on its own.
At the same time, vast depredations that destroy tens of millions of acres of wild habitat, kill countless numbers of terrified animals in the most horrible way, and throw millions of tons of smoke, pine-tar gas, and other pollutants into the atmosphere are discounted as irrelevant and unimportant by those who claim to care so deeply for nature and all its creatures.
Far away bureaucrats, heavily lobbied by the Sierra Club and so called Wildland groups, make decisions about forest management in the far west.
The groups agitate against logging and thinning and the bureaucrats respond.
Fire is natural and healthy for forests, the argument goes, so a very small 1/4 acre lightning strike deep in the forest in southeast New Mexico in early June was not extinguished, and 5 days after the lightning strike was fanned by winds into a conflagration that eventually consumed about 45,000 acres and about 250 structures, mostly homes.
Other reasons given by the forest service head honcho besides “let it burn” were that helicopters (most) don’t fly at 10,000+ feet and firefighters don’t want to go into deep mtns. and forest to extinguish lightning strikes.
The difference between losing a home and not losing a home is whatever the capricious high winds are doing in the moment. At least that NM fire was “natural” as opposed to the idiot in Arizona who fired a gun at a rock and the subsequent sparks set off a huge conflagration. And the arsonists.
When these infernos burn, the soil is sterilized and re-growth is delayed, if not actually truncated.
Areas designated ‘wilderness’ by the bureaucrats (wilderness designation invokes above (mis)management policies) are right up against communities.
States need to take back ownership of federal lands and apply their own intelligent, as opposed to bureaucratic, methods.
Pet theories of diehard environmentalists are killing millions of acres of forest.
It’s part of the larger problem of political ideology killing common sense in many areas of human activity.
I think this is a symptom of something even greater – the very idea of publicly held lands itself. As public lands, they are subject to the whims of whatever yahoos currently have the ear of those in our federal and state bureaucracies. There is no penalty to the bureaucracies for mismanagement of the land and no incentive for proper management. If private individuals owned the forests, they could reap the benefits of proper forest management (managed logging, nature preserves with paid admission, camp grounds, etc.) and put the land to other uses where desired and appropriate. The owners will then have a compelling interest (maintaining use and possibly avoiding civil lawsuits) to manage the land well and to prevent such fires. Entire industries could sprout up around forest maintenance and the use of culled trees and vegetation, spurring economic growth. Best of all, assuming private property rights are respected, the land owners could tell the “watermelon” (green outside, red inside) enviro-nuts to go pound sand when they start whining about hands-off forest management.
Clinton, back in the 90′s stole LOTS of land from states and designated them as protested federal reserves. To date, several of those states have sued to get the lands back and have lost every time in court.
I don’t know how they get them back unless as an act of defiance against the federal government. Which means they might come up against the military.
Same deal on the California coast. Greens prevent brush-clearing and thinning activity by filing endless “environmental impact” lawsuits. The forest fills up with dry dead wood, and when lightning hits it the whole thing explodes and burns down Santa Cruz.
Although the kind of people who think that clearing timber is Environmental Desecration probably consider burning down Santa Cruz to be a *feature*, not a *bug*.
It should also be noted that while fire is “natural,” it used to burn through low-elevation ponderosa pine SAVANNAS, not “forests” as light, frequent grass fires. 100 years of fire suppression (your tax money at work) turned those savannas into dog-hair, overstocked stands of “virgin” pondos that have developed for decades without having experienced a fire of any kind. As fire ecologist and Rx-fire practicianer, I can testify that such stands are bombs, even when burned under much more moderate conditions than typically rule during wild fires. Basically, whether with a prescribed fire or a wildfire, you’re paying off a 100-year fire debt with a balloon payment, not on the installment plan.
The overstocked stands are chronicly stressed by over competition, making them more vulnerable to beetles and other pathogens.
On first meeting Stephen Pyne(http://sols.asu.edu/people/faculty/spyne.php) who was keynote speaker at an Association of Fire Ecology conference at which he basically condemned federal fire “science” and fire management, he told me that if the national forests were privately owned, there would be no fire problem – they would be managed with logging.
On the plus side, nature takes the long view, and is resetting the clock – someday, not in our lifetimes, the burned over areas will be health forests again.
Tens of thousands of square miles of the Yukon Territory and Alaska are nothing but dead spruce trees and brush because of the Spruce Beetle. Mile after mile of the AlCan goes by without a healthy tree in sight and, trying to make the best of a bad situation, the Yukoners even have a roadside park with a walking trail and summer docents to explain spruce beetle damage to tourists. Of course, almost all of it is on Canadian or US federal lands. Though the State of Alaska’s spruce beetle controls on its lands are little if any better. Unfortunately, even without all the environmental restrictions, there’s no market for even healthy Black Spruce of the sort common in the YT and Interior Alaska, where a knarled 20 foot tall tree may be 200 years old. There aren’t a lot of stuctures in the YT and Interior Alaska, so “let it burn” is the common thought and such fire-fighting as there is concentrates on protecting structures. Some summers hundreds of thousands or even millions of acres are burning and the smoke is so thick it even effects the weather and ground temperatures tens and even hundreds of miles from the fires. Many believe that the shrinking of the Arctic icepack and the glaciers and icecaps a few years ago was largely caused my soot and ash falling on the snow and ice and speeding its melting.
I was Georgia’s 4-H Forestry State Champion in 1966 with a demonstration on controlling Black Turpentine Beetles in commercial pine forests using benzene hexochloride and diesel fuel spray. Can you imagine spraying Mother Gaia’s noble trees with BHC and diesel fuel today? It is probably a crime to even say the words.
Where are these people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElJFYwRtrH4
We need new media to couneract old media propaganda. Yet another argument for shutting the Forest Service?
Yet another argument for ending the Bureau of Land Management and turning all federal lands that aren’t a fort, post office, or customs house over to the states. In the West the US and its leftwing employees are an invading army. The fed is the original credential factory with college required for almost any initial hire – unless you fit the right AA block. The resource and regulatory agencies are where all the “environmental studies” majors, people otherwise unemployable, go to work as GS-7 and 9s making the world safe for Mother Gaia’s wild creatures.
The EPA guy who recently called for oil and gas producers to be “crucified” was apparently too extreme (or too honest) for Lisa Jackson and her assembly of statist micromanagers.
He lost the gig at EPA, but quickly found a job at The Sierra Club.
Blame Congress. Congress has passed laws that allow “green” organizations to use the courts to keep responsible management techniques from being carried out. Nature has its way in any case. But nature doesn’t really care how things get done or the pain and suffering involved. Neither do the “greens.”
Thank you for this! People here in Wisconsin just sigh and look at me like I’m crazy when I try to tell them what’s going on out west and with our forests. When I was reporting in NE Wyoming, USFS guys told me that environmentalists challenged every single timber sale–every one. These were in the Black Hills. Back then, it frosted me that eastern journalists wrote stories about how the USFS forest management was just a money loser for the government. Well, duh! Having to fight the enviros every step of the way costs money. Finally, what sawmills were left in the Hills started buying private timber. Now today, my acreage (and my son’s home) in Wyoming is under threat from the Oil Creek fire. The small town of Osage (400 people) has been evacuated. There’s an oil refinery right in the middle of the town of Newcastle and major effort is being made to keep the fire from that town. Ranchers are desperately moving livestock out. The West is burning and the press is, of course, buying into the climate change hysteria as the cause. I’m disgusted.
I did not know the connection between these fires and the beetles. This is horrifying.
Ideas have consequences.
The problem of pine bark beetles has been going on for decades; from the 1970s, at least. It used to be that the problem was controlled by cutting and milling dead trees into lumber during the winter months. Milled lumber infested with pine bark beetles does not further contribute to the infestation; it stops the infestation. Unfortuantely, Congress pays attention only to the loudest voices and those who make contributions to reelection campaigns. So much for represenative government.
Five-day, time-lapse video of the Colorado Springs fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZBA7eHY022k#!
Thanks for posting that link. I’m not positive but it looks like the primary camera location is 2-3 miles north of our house. This was almost exactly the view we had from our deck. Tuesday and Wednesday were the worst days. The fire is mostly contained now and we hardly see or smell any smoke. It’s still burning but the firefighters have done an outstanding job. It’d help if the temperatures came down some. Tuesday the 26th was the hottest day ever recorded in Colorado Springs (101) and it has been in the 90s for the past couple weeks. Some rain would be nice.
We can’t spray DDT because it would kill eagles and other birds.
As we know, the slaughter of birds is RESERVED for wind turbines.
DDT is ineffective against pine bark beetles.
Page two, second paragraph of the article suggests otherwise and gives a source. Can you present more recent evidence that the current beetles have developed a resistance or immunity to DDT?
DDT will kill pine bark beetles, along with lots of other things we’d like to keep. DDT is effective against swarming beetles (that’s a relatively short time period). In all other stages they emebedded in the trees and DDT can’t touch them. That’s why it’s ineffective.
Your view is reinforced by the 1960 study, which talks about “momentary exposure”, which means DDT exposure when the pest is exposed and out of the tree.
DDT as well as most contact pesticides are no match for a dug in beetle or pest.
The inconsistencies in this article and most of the comments is simply… breathtaking – as is a fundamental lack of understanding of natural systems and all the forces coming into play to create this terrible disaster.
It is also breathtaking to see how quickly specific groups (the “usual suspects”) are being rounded up for lynching in the discussion, with out any critical examination of the full depth of the problems we see.
For example – accusations of criminal negligence at reduction in the air tanker fleet & resources for fighting wild fires, from people who no doubt rail against excessive government spending, and through who’s efforts, budgets for both of these things were reduced.
And in understanding systems… blaming the current administration for forestry practices and problems in forests that *originated* with decisions taking place during administrations 30-50 years ago.
There is plenty of blame to go around no doubt. However, the issue is far more complex than writers here would have you believe. There is no one villainous group you can blame. There is no single act, or even simple set of actions you can apply to “Fix” the problem. NOR is it true that some of those being singled out for criticism are actually doing many of the things they are being accused of.
I think many of you are failing to appreciate the unintended consequences, both of actions you want our government to take, or which you (successfully) demanded and they carried out.
I think many of you are failing to appreciate the unintended consequences, both of actions you want our government to take, or which you (successfully) demanded and they carried out.
And the same can be said about you and the environmentalists. I think you’re also failing to appreciate the unintended consequences of those environmental policies, both of actions you want our government to take, or which you (successfully) demanded and they carried out.
I’ll giving the benefit of the doubt that the consequences were unintended, for if they were intended, the whole lot should be brought up on criminal charges under the RICO statutes. At some point, the extremism of the more radical environmental groups need to be reigned in.
“There is no one villainous group you can blame.”
Yes there is; it is the so-called environmental movement, first and foremost. It is the environmental movement that prevents forest management practices that limits pine bark beetle infestations and ultimately minimizes them. The beetles have been around a long time and are good at what they do. Having dense forests only makes it easier for infestations to spread.
Please, educate us then. I would like to hear your perspective on this.
Just to answer a couple of your charges:
Of course several factors are to blame. No one believes that the beetles alone are responsible for this problem. However, they are a big factor.
Who is blaming the current administration? We are talking about *decades* of mismanagement, while Mr. Obama has only been president for about 3.5 years. We don’t believe he has the capability to influence the past (nor possess any other supernatural powers, for that matter).
Your own ignorance is breathtaking. The practices of husbantry for the last couple hundred years have worked very well to control not only the flamable undergrowth and dead trees. Logging also helped to thin out portions of the forests to create a fire and beetle break – containing both.
That you condone hundreds of millions of acres (and everything living within them) to burn is criminal.
As for wishing for government involvement – quite the contrary. I wish government would get the hell out of the way. We did quite well before their involvement. As for the greens – well they are guilty of murder and the genocide of trees and animals. They need to be punished for their crimes against both nature and humanity.
I live in Los Alamos, where we had two fires causing evacuation, 2000 and 2011. This summer already we were inundated from smoke, although not fire, and some of us got really sick AGAIN. It is well known around here that thinning forests will help stop huge fires from forming. The undergrowth at Gila, where we had our biggest fire this year. was astonishing, according to a neighbor who visited the area earlier. There have been some thinnings of what is left of forests around here, visible from roads I travel. But also on roads I travel I see dying pines. This makes me sad that the last remaining pines may be destroyed in this area, by bark beetles and by drought. I am for use of DDT on what’s left of these areas, and I say that with some knowledge, as I am acutely chemically sensitive from an inherited condition, and I know the effects of pesticides and herbicides on ME as well as beetles. But I am convinced from long reading about DDT that it was a less harmful product than what we got in its stead.
What we need more than anything, though, is water from the heavens. Prayers welcome.
Well said about needing rain. I live over on the east side of New Mexico and last summer was the hottest and driest since records began to be kept. We know from tree ring data that the southwest has undergone tremendous droughts in the past, some lasting over 50 years. I hope we are not in one now but quite possibly are.
As regards DDT, its use post WWII dramatically reduced the number of deaths worldwide due to malaria. Later the greens have lobbied to discourage if not outright ban its use.
Robert Gwadz of the National Institutes of Health said in 2007, “The ban on DDT may have killed 20 million children.”
It’s not a simple issue, but typical of green thinking: we’re right, ban the evil unnatural chemicals, and who cares if a few humans die. There are too many people on the planet already.
Saying that the DDT ban/reduction killed 20 million children is not a fair assessment, in my view.
The proximate cause was poor sanitation and living conditions, usually helped along by kleptocratic governments who block NGO’s and outside groups from really making a difference.
DDT could kill the flys, but on the other hand, a $1 dose of chloroquine could prevented virtually of those deaths.
Nope – Uncle is right. The deaths from maleria that could have been spared by the use of DDT HAS positively been linked to the DDT ban. All because of some moron who didn’t hear any birds in the winter.
When the role of the earth worshipers in the destruction of our forests is written it will be a sorry tale. All of the western states had at one time a thriving lumber industry that provided lots of good paying jobs. No more. Now we have forest fires that have become conflagrations. Ignorance may be bliss but we are learning the hard way that it’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature, especially in the wrong way. The forests will be thinned one way or the other.
Exactly right!!!
Used to be, years ago, Forest Management had active programs scheduling the removal of dead underbrush in every community and municipality.
Enter the “tree huggers,” Green Peace types seeking an immediate halt to this practice because it destroys habitats of “endagered species” thusly would dangerously imperil and eliminate these species’ chances for survival.
So, enter a new program…put out rampant spreading wild fires. It’s a notorious fact…lightening emanates from the ground up…not from the clouds down. This is a recipe for “wild fire disaster” as occurs in Colorado (Poco fire), California (Malibu Canyon), Arizona (Tonto National Forest), to a lesser extent Utah and New Mexico.
Then there are the developer and home buyers enthused to buy a quasi-rustic existence among flora and fauna.
Three formulas for continuing disasters, loss of personal property and human lives. Just takes a bit of “cojones” and bravado by National, State and local governments and administrators to recognize this wandering down a “primrose path” to nowhere…Alice-in-Wonderland??? type of philosophical sophistry. Wake-up America. Amen.
These would be the same Greens who killed 173 and injured 414 Australians in 2009. Here they did it by introducing local government bylaws requiring trees be planted close to houses. The disaster was predictable and predicted by many.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires
Environmentalists, the EPA, and state eco-tyrants like CARB are killing this country, taking out industries, closing businesses, diverting water resources to save the smelt, and banning effective remedies to control pestilence. Environmentalism has been raised to a religion, and people are sinners for simply living on this earth. It’s out of control.
Our forests were never in a natural state. Native Americans have been managing them for thousands of years with low-level burning in spring or fall. They knew open forests attract game and prevent big fires.
Documented in the Summer 2000 issue of Fire Management Today, US Forest Service.
Forest fires are a part of nature.. In British Columbia, the lefty government of the day would not allow a wilderness fire to burn itself out. This option must be on the table as fires are an intricate part of the health of our wilderness. Because the government extinguished the fire the beetles got a hold and became epidemic. A single season fly over use of DDT would eliminate the immediate threat. I agree with the idea of thinning on a regular basis. Why is it that I am forced to fund these wacky NGO’s through taxes paid. I do not agree with much of what they say. If you can imagine, they are worse than government bureaucracies. Please legislate the end of lobbying as we know it.
The problem with every (most?) federal government program is the lack of accountability, cost, and open science. We have Exxon science and EPA science. Both are slanted so as to provide organizational power. I know nothing about the pine bark beetle, or logging, but I do not trust government science or media reported science on this policy topic. Example: After resigning as a high level EPA enforcement officer, under criticism for laughingly proposing the crucifixion of polluters to whip industry into line, the former EPA boss took a job with the Sierra Club. If he, as a EPA boss, issued a study on pine bark beetles and the interaction with logging, I would know his conclusions prior to reading his report. I do not believe EPA cost impact studies. Most of the scientific bases for their major studies are held close and can not be divulged. They pay researchers to do the work, and their papers are considered private.
Image telling the IRS that your tax return is based on calculations which are private, they may not see the numbers.
If the government regulates an industry out of business, then discovers errors in the government paperwork, who gets fired? Who loses all retirement benefits? Who is regularly sued by environmental groups who are on a first name friendly basis with the other litigating party? Whose settlement always increases cost on the private sector?
The solution is to defund government agencies until accountability is restored. When federal employment experiences the lay offs similar to some destroyed private industries, we will have limited government which works. Example: DOE has thousands of employees who are retiring after a career in energy technologies. What do we have to show for this investment of uncounted billions of dollars? Is our energy cheap? Stable? If not who should pay for the wasted investment? Who is accountable to the tax payer?
You can’t spell “environmentalist” without EVIL.
Abolish the EPA.
Everyone needs to quit referring to the communist eco-freaks as “greens.” Use the far more descriptive term “watermelons” — green on the outside, red on the inside. Clear-thinking Europeans coined that epithet back in the ’80s to describe the far-left “green” parties that had formed on that continent.
Besides, green is a beautiful color and doesn’t deserve the insult.
Has the longevity of the wood been established? There were concerns. Hopefully evaluation is well under way, given the years since the epidemic began.
As for the colour, I don’t belief there is much market for that, but inside walls for example colour is not an issue.