Recently it was announced by Montana Senator Steven Daines that he plans to introduce a bipartisan bill with Senator Diane Feinstein of California to protect communities from wildfire.
The senators are concerned that wildfire season is getting worse and large fires are a threat to communities. On both counts, the senators are correct. However, the […]
Continue Reading →When I was a kid, one of the favorite games we played in elementary school was “dodge ball.” In the game, a circle is made around a person who attempts to “dodge” a ball thrown by the other kids. You get to stay in the middle of the ring until a ball hits you, and […]
Continue Reading →Currently, there is a bill in the Massachusetts legislature that would ban logging on all of the state lands. The premise of the legislation is that logging contributes significantly to CO2 emissions. The legislation sponsors argue that the best use of Massachusetts state-owned property is to maintain intact forests for carbon storage.
If […]
Continue Reading →We live in an age of Orwellian Doublespeak. Such doublespeak is exemplified by the euphemistically named “Resilient Federal Forests Act” (RFFA) sponsored by Rep. Westerman. Like previous versions, Westerman asserts RFFA will reduce massive wildfires and smoke, and promote more “resilient” forests.
In the name of fire reduction, RFFA is a Trojan Horse designed to […]
Continue Reading →The April 25th article in the Yakima Herald “Fewer low-intensity fires means more severe fires” quotes Ryan Haugo, director of conservation science at The Nature Conservancy and contained many misstatements that lack context about wildfires. https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/study-low-intensity-fires-way-down-in-northwest-s-dry/article_aef38135-95ca-5689-aaab-5fc9906c3818.html
It is possible that Haugo stated more ideas and simply wasn’t quoted in the article, but since he […]
Continue Reading →A new report by Friends of the Clearwater documents that 18,000 Idaho roadless acres and 22,000 roadless acres in Montana were logged while presumably protected under the Roadless Rule. While commercial logging is illegal, there is a loophole that permits logging for “forest health.”
However, where the Forest Service sees a “health” problem, ecologists such […]
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Dead. Most of us have negative associations with the word. After all how did Death Valley get its name? Not because it was a favorite vacation spot for prospectors. Is anyone interested in fishing the Dead Sea? And when we say someone looks like “death warmed over” it’s not usually taken as a compliment. […]
Continue Reading →The recent wildfires in California make me feel even more worried about the fate of anyone whose homes are built in the woods. California has experienced the 9 of the largest fires in its history in the past two decades, but large fires have occurred in many other western states during the same period.
What […]
Continue Reading →In Medieval society, if someone were sick, the common solution was to bleed the patient to rid the body of “bad” blood. If the patient recovered, then obviously bleeding was the cure. If the patient died, it was because not enough of the “bad” blood had been removed.
In many ways, […]
Continue Reading →The recent guest commentary by Joe Prinkki and Joe Skinner, members of the Custer-Gallatin Working Group, supporting the logging of Bridger Canyon was full of misleading and scientifically inaccurate common myths about forest health and wildfire.
The editorial asserts that the forest is “unhealthy” and at risk of death from wildfires and bark beetles. That […]
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