By Erik Molvar, Western Watersheds Project
Dr. Edward O. Wilson, one of the world’s foremost ecologists and thinkers, will be in Washington, D.C. next week for a series of presentations on migration corridors in the United States and the diversity of life across the globe. This is part of Dr. Wilson’s ‘Half-Earth’ […]
Continue Reading →Montana GOP Senator Daines recently published a simplistic and misleading guest commentary on a wildfire in the Washington Post.
In that editorial, Daines, like many other misinformed logging proponents claims more logging would reduce large wildfires and he blames “environmental extremists” for delaying the forest reduction projects.
Most of the wildfires burning under […]
During the 1992 election campaign, Bill Clinton famously coined the phrase:
It’s the “economy, stupid” to admonish George H.W. Bush for his failure to understand the real problem facing voters.
Today the timber industry and Forest Service continuously advocate logging to reduce fuels and assert that this will reduce large wildfires. But fuels […]
By Erik Molvar, Executive Director, Western Watersheds Project
While Trump administration issues directives banning discourse on climate change and muzzles scientists in federal agencies, the fossil fuel industry may have an even tighter stranglehold over state institutions. In his new exposé of industry meddling in higher education, Behind the Carbon Curtain (slated for an April […]
Continue Reading →I recently attended a talk on biomass energy at the Bend City Club.
The Bend City Club presentation on biomass was another example of a juggernaut premised on unexamined assumptions without question. At every step of the way there are assumptions that are given and accepted. However, if any of these assumptions is incorrect than […]
Continue Reading →A recent article about the low flow on the Yellowstone River (Oct.6h) missed an opportunity to inform Montana citizens about water in Montana. http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/low-flows-high-temps-the-new-normal-on-yellowstone/article_85a816c3-3b81-50e1-9734-d9e733662f80.html#utm_source=bozemandailychronicle.com&utm_campaign=morning-headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline
What is not well-known is that water in Montana (as in the rest the West) is public property owned by the state’s citizens. Like the air, water is considered a […]
Continue Reading →Climate change and genetic isolation threaten famously tough predator-
MISSOULA, Mont.— Describing the wolverine as a “snow-dependent species standing squarely in the path of global climate change,” a federal judge today overturned an August 2014 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refusing to grant this rare and elusive […]
Continue Reading →Arctic mosquitoes explode in number
Scientists uncover likely pathogenic “giant viruses”
Superabundant mosquitoes-
One of the predictions about a warming, changing climate is that it provides conditions for the spread of biological material we hate and is harmful to wildlife as well. Two recent developments in the Arctic show that this is no longer […]
Another new study titled “Does wildfire likelihood increase following insect outbreaks in conifer forests?” by Garrent Meigs and co authors concludes that bark beetles outbreaks do not lead to greater likelihood of fires. This research joins a growing list of studies, all using different methods of evaluation, that finds that bark beetles are not a driving […]
Continue Reading →The paper Commentary: A critical assessment of the policy endorsement for holistic management published by David Briske and colleagues challenges proponents of Holistic Management advocated by Allan Savory. You can find the paper at this link.
This paper by Briske et al. 2014 confirms and reiterates many of the observations and conclusions I’ve made […]
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