It's obvious that no one here will change their minds about forest management. People will sacrifice the forests just to prop up their flawed agendas.

It's a shame that I will have to be proven right by seeing the forests going up in smoke. My conscience is clear. What about yours?!?

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1. deforestation
   
2. soil destruction
   
3. aquifer depletion
   
4. overfishing

1. fuel build-up in forests
   
2. nitrogen-based fertilizers creating dead zones in oceans and lakes
   
3. maybe in this category, global warming

Wouldn't it be worth avoiding that outcome?  Worth investing in green jobs, by stimulating the depressed, failing economy with renewable energy and conservation.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

First the "real" water problem in the Sacramento valley is that water is being shipped south to arid or semi-arid areas to grow water intensive crops with few attempts at water conservation being made in the destination area. In the actual Sacramento river basin row crops are being replaced with water-thrifty orchards; particularly walnuts that grow on native root stock. The water problems have nothing to do with locally available water and have more to do with poor resource use. As others have noted, if sea levels rise a mere two feet shipping water through the Sacramento delta becomes an unworkable proposition.

The "old growth" forests were products of regular early and late season burns by native americans for the purpose of acorn and game production. These burn schedules probably went back thousands of years. A return to this kind of burning would probably help the overall health of the forest but logging communities seem to object. Part of the reason is probably that they don't maintain proper fire breaks around their own houses and towns.

So the proposed solution is that we let the loggers cut the remaining old growth and they'll agree to cut the second growth also. This won't really help much as some areas are completely second growth with no old growth to provide funds for the cut.

So until Congress allows biomass harvest from national forests (don't hold your breath) for pyrolisis with retention and sequestration of char as carbon capture and soil treatment. (i.e. when the pope is a bear) Until then, it's fire that's going to do the work and firefighting will be a spectator sport.

Finally as the majority of water storage was always in the snowpack above the tree line your original argument is moot. Without the snowpack there isn't going to be the kinds of flows we've been used to; period. Without the delta the water cannot go south without a major water project. If the sea level rises the last thing we are going to have money for in the bankrupt state of California is.....another water project. Particularly one that the voters have voted down repeatedly.

The solution to megafires is to burn early, burn late and burn often and establish fuel denial regimes. If property owners can't maintain proper fire clearances tough cookies. All the kings horses and all the kings men are not going to save your house if it's too close to the fuel and the day is wrong.

The days when we could push the planet around are gone. We learn to live within the limits of the environment or go extinct.

Nature bats last.

Put the Carbon Back

Please read Dr. Helms' testimony to Congress, posted on the "High Cost of Doing Nothing" thread. He so eloquently explains what must be done to save our forests.

You can't place all the blame for our forest problems on "Climate Change". That's the easy way out. The problem is way more complex than that. We ALL are to blame for letting our forests become what they are today----> a slow motion disaster that few will acknowledge.

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Why?!?!? Because of partisan politics, eco-lawyers, lumber mill owners and ignorant high judges.

Looks like it's too late to save the forests, from my point of view. Too much "inertia" to stop many more millions of acres from going up in smoke (and toxic GHG's)

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This is why I have no hope for our forests. Go ahead and burn down that strawman, along with our old growth.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

That's been the problem all along, forestry strictly for short term profit.

What is need is a non-profit, government program to clean up dead and dying wood and recycle it, before it all goes up in huge firestorms.  A new Civilian Conservation Corps, green jobs saving the forest.

Economic stimulus directly into the most under employed, poverty stricken pockets.  And a revival of forestry jobs, formerly logging jobs.  Take the dead and dying trees and put them to good use, as paper pulp, chip board, or biomass for biogas energy and organic fertilizer.

Put some of the organic fertilizer back in the ground with every new tree planted.  Unforthunately the super computer genuises at Lawrence/Livermore have convinced everyone that trees cause global climate change.  kind of reiterating the raygun notion.

It's now going to be an uphill battle to get trees planted where trees are growing now.  The new administration will pay to have switchgrass fuel farms replacing forests.

Hard to fight cellulosic ethanol when you vote for a guy that's in favor of it.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/6/162022/2279

They're making recommendations to manage for climate change, anticipating catastrophic conversions in some areas due to temperature rises, but of course do advocate that overstocking be addressed aggressively, as you suggest.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: supporting grassroots groups working for conservation, justice, & more

The absolute truth is that everyone is "enabling" the forests to burn by ignoring science. We have a problem and people aren't willing to do what it takes to save our forests, clinging to their sadly flawed agendas. Both the eco's AND the Bush Administration agree that forests must burn.

Now hug them snags!! And manzanita. And whitethorn. Embrace the erosion! Welcome the hydrophobic soils! Fill your lungs with the smoke of the firewood that heats our atmosphere!!!! Bask in the ignorance of Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle. Build the biggest strawman you can (the FLAMES!!! the FLAMES!!!!!!)

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I think all that recyclable wood ought to be sold.  The solid saw logs as furniture and homes.  All processed right here in the USA.  

The wood suitable for pulp or chipboard, and even the biogas and organic fertilizer from the least solid stuff left over.

But i think government employees in a civilian conservation corps should get the forestry jobs.  Contractors would hire illegal crews for less than minimum wage with no benefits.  This is not a good way to stimulate the economy.

It merely stimunlates corrupt cronyism, between forestry administrators and logging companies, the same mess that got uS into this firestorm danger.

Why did eco-activists try to stop logging?  Because it's a disaster.  Loggers and their friendly foresters could have reformed the system to clean up and recycle dead wood long ago.  But it isn't "merchantable".  Hehey.  

So they lost control of "their" forests.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I quickly looked at the Sierra Club website, Backcut, since they seem to be implied in your criticisms, this seems to be their position in general:

The Sierra Club strongly supports prescribed burns as a way to restore fire's natural role to the forest. Sierra Club supports fuel reduction projects near homes and communities. For a decade the Sierra Club has been urging the Forest Service to do more prescribed burning, reduce flammable brush near communities and we've been asking Congress to devote more money to do the job right. The Forest Service should stop pushing for commercial logging and put more resources towards protecting lives and communities.

I don't know the history of this controversy, but to say that there is a lack of trust of attempts to sell the products of forests is quite an understatement.  So it seems to me that, much more than environmentalists, it's the loggers (and the Bush Administration) that are the main problem

The other problem is probably the lack of money to clear the fuel and perform other necessary maintenance (?) in the forests; 180 million acres is a large space.  

I think environmentalists, or more generally the public, is much easier to reach than the loggers and much easier than getting the necessary funds.

I've actually never understood why private companies should be logging; forests belong to the people as far as I am concerned, government companies would be easier to control than private ones.  I mean, most oil is now controlled by national companies, why are any natural resources controlled by private companies?

People dance around the forest problem, bringing up everything but sound science. "Mother Nature" will surely rebalance the land in ways us humans will surely not like. We have it within our power and intelligence to mitigate these problems if only people would open their minds. Otherwise, this "Let-Burn" program embraced by environmentalists and the Bush Administration will continue.

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I'm also waiting for people to attack Dr. Helms, instead of reading his words. KILL the messenger!!

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http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/KNJJFFTestimony.pdf

Please read with an open mind and be enlightened!

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Recycle all the dead potential fuel, that's the better plan.  Sure use the saw logs.

All I see here is a complcated excuse to let loggers into untouched preserves.  

Very carefully removing built up fuel from preservation areas should not include commercial logging contracts.  It should be done carefully under forest service direct management of CCC employees and environmental group scrutiny.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

"Untouched preserves"??? First you people say that there's so little of it left and then you say it's everywhere. Outside of National Parks and designated Wilderness, there's VERY little land that is "untouched".

Why not restore those forests, instead of letting them burn, often catastrophically? I'd be willing to bet that wildfires "offset" every hybrid and every CFL bulb on the planet. Priorities, folks, priorities!

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

The scientific theory behind removal of some young trees such that older trees have enough resources to flourish, and fuel is diminished, does not seem unsound to me;  it is the messenger that is difficult to trust. If you remove profit from the equation, does the message remain?

Kaela

You might think this is getting off the topic, but the term "resilience" seems to have come mostly from forest studies (there is a rather dense book called "Panarchy" on the subject, and Thomas Homer-Dixon makes it his organizing principle in his book "the upside of down").  I think the word will have more and more meaning as we discuss all of the ecosystems and economies that will have to be transformed to keep the planet alive.  The idea is that instead of maximizing the economic output of our planet, we need to mimic natural ecosystems and allow redundancies and diversity to dominate, not monoculture.

The importance of this for forestry management is that I think people are more open to ideas of diversity and complexity in ecosystems, including forests, which may help with public understanding.

The "party line" says "forests have done great for millenia, why mess with them now?" Well, those people saying that just ignore the hundreds of millions of dead trees in our National Forests today.

Kaela has a great idea. We should not be wasting anything that comes from the woods, and to put it to non-profit uses is even better. Currently, where I live in California, no one will buy this slash, which is substantial and is currently removed from the forest and burned on the landing (sorry DrX, you're wrong again!). Thinning projects that use "whole-tree yarding" generate mountains of slash, and it is a requirement that loggers deal with it instead of leaving it out in the woods.

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Now assuming that's not a problem, any info on how much biomass from that forest fuel?  I'm sure I can find some figures if you don't have them, but it would be nice to plug in a number for a truly sustainable source of biomass -- as opposed to "biofuels" (see how it all links together?)

Restoring forests back to what they once were won't deplete soils, as the healthy, balanced forest ecosystem will provide ample nutrients to the soils in many ways. All too often, people focus on what is taken out of our forests instead of what is left. Removing the weedy and highly-flammable trees that do not belong there in the first place invigorates forest ecosystems in many ways (freeing up water and growing space are some of the nice side effects from thinning projects).

Cellulosic biofuels from the forests can only provide so much (if and when they finally arrive). We can't depend on a very large sustainable supply of it over the decades. AND, we just can't let our voracious appetite for vehicle fuels mow down our forests so that they are understocked. I'm all for putting massive dollars into funding truly clean sources of power for our American society. I'm convinced that the freedom that other forms of energy provide is the wave of the future.

Please be sure to read those articles by Dr Helms and Jerry Franklin/Norm Johnson. Since people won't believe what I have to say, see if you can trust these top scientists.

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zaneselvans -- thanks for the link, as a California native I must say it looks rather grim for the south in terms of sustainability.

Another eco-lawsuit seeks to eliminate the use of fire retardants used on fires for decades. They say it kills fish. And firestorms don't?!?! What about the other forest values that burn and go directly into our atmosphere?

While preservationism is fine for designated wilderness areas and National Parks, in National Forests it is accelerating the loss of forests and all the things we love about them.

Restoration forestry is where it is at. Unfortunately, judges and eco-lawyers aren't any good at it.

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And if pyrolysis is too high tech (!!!...?), just burn it completely for local heating etc.  Here in Germany we have many local heat supply stations burning wood and scrubs from local forests.

Beyond the little sticks there's lots of elder growth to be cut away before the bark beetle gets at it.

Perhaps that makes just too much sense for U.S. style "economic" think...

It's pretty interesting to me that Toyota (along with Diane Keaton...who knew?) is taking steps to be green. Also, they're sponsoring this season of PBS' Nature series--there's a schedule on the site.

Just wanted to share :)

That being said, the Sierra Club wants to turn our forests back into what they were before man crossed the land bridge. The trouble with that is no one knows just what those forests looked like, back then. The native style of management produced mixed results but, it served their purposes and there was balance in their world, for the most part. Big healthy trees, very little understory, plentiful and easy to get game animals and bubbling perennial streams were the norm.

Today, we have forests that are 180 degrees away from that and the Sierra Club would rather see it all burn than to have a few stumps. They want to preserve a tinder-dry, dynamic unpreservable ecosystem that will go up in smoke, sooner than later.

Kay, Charles E. Are Lightning Fires Unnatural? A Comparison of Aboriginal and Lightning Ignition Rates in the United States. 2007. in R.E. Masters and K.E.M. Galley (eds.) Proceedings of the 23rd Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference: Fire in Grassland and Shrubland Ecosystems, pp 16-28. Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL.

Full text

http://westinstenv.org/wp-content/Kay_Lightning_Fires_vs_ ...

Selected excerpts:

ABSTRACT

It is now widely acknowledged that frequent, low-intensity fires once structured many plant communities. Despite an abundance of ethnographic evidence, however, as well as a growing body of ecological data, many professionals still tend to minimize the importance of aboriginal burning compared to that of lightning-caused fires. Based on fire occurrence data (1970-2002) provided by the National Interagency Fire Center, I calculated the number of lightning fires/million acres (400,000 ha) per year for every national forest in the United States. Those values range from a low of <1 lightning-caused fire/400,000 ha per year for eastern deciduous forests, to a high of 158 lightning-caused fires/400,000 ha per year in western pine forests. Those data can then be compared with potential aboriginal ignition rates based on estimates of native populations and the number of fires set by each individual per year. Using the lowest published estimate of native people in the United States and Canada prior to European influences (2 million) and assuming that each individual started only 1 fire per year--potential aboriginal ignition rates were 2.7-350 times greater than current lightning ignition rates. Using more realistic estimates of native populations, as well as the number of fires each person started per year, potential aboriginal ignition rates were 270-35,000 times greater than known lightning ignition rates. Thus, lightning-caused fires may have been largely irrelevant for at least the last 10,000 years. Instead, the dominant ecological force likely has been aboriginal burning.
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Of course, this will get buried amongst the blathering about Ralph Nader and coal-powered electric toothbrushes and which hybrid is greenest. People just don't want to hear the truth and will actively squelch it for their own selfishness and greed.

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And we had 10 million acres burn in just the last year. Mind you, that all of those acres weren't in coniferous forests but every acre causes serious pollution and not just CO2

Also, state fire agencies, who are charged with structure protection much of the time, are becoming strapped for cash in fighting fires that roar off our National Forests and into communities who have to be evacuated. Many poorer western states just don't have that kind of cash. Will the Sierra Club insist that we adopt a let-burn policy of people's houses now? Maybe the intent of the Sierra Club is to "re-wild" every acre into "natural brushfields", including private property. Ask the folks who lost their homes in the Angora Fire!

How can people be so morally bankrupt to support such an agenda?!?

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Uh, Backcut, the average American releases over 12,000 lbs of CO2 per year per vehicle (and many people own multiple vehicles).  12,000 lbs = 6 tons of CO2.  That 2/3 the amount ya stated come from an acre of forest burned.

By those calculations, it should take only 2 cars one year to produce more CO2 than an acre fire.  I'm not quite sure where ya get 1040 cars for a month (or the equal to 87 cars in a year) to get the same amount.

Then again, ya did say it was 1040 new CARS (but didn't specify what type or their fuel mileage), and of course many Americans don't drive cars (and many that do aren't very efficient), so maybe thats true.

I'm not sure 'bout the hydrocarbon or NO2 releases from average vehicles.

Please provide a link if ya can, I'd be interested to know where they get their numbers.

CO2 is carbon DIOXIDE!

The figure on CO2 coming from firestorms in dense forest is more like 300 tons of CO2 per acre, an addition to those other pollutants (including spotted owls, rare plants and the riparian vegetation that filters our drinking water, amongst others).

Quite the eye-opener, eh?

But, people don't care because scientifically-sound forest management deniers are willing to sacrifice their forests in clinging to the faith-based dogma drama of preservationism.

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The overburden, the blackberry brambles, the snags, the dense clumps of undersized trees, that will burn first. Well that and all of west Marin county but that's a known hazard.

When low-intensity, out of season fires are allowed to burn, or encouraged to burn the high intensity fires can't find the fuel to get out of control. They hit the fire-breaks, drop down from the canopies and get smothered by cold night air. On the coast you can light fires as the fog comes in and the fog will kill them just as it smothered the Oakland fire.

Backcut's abstract there supports the idea and Native historians will tell us that is exactly what they did. You have to torch the underbrush under the oaks before the acorns drop so you can easily harvest them. Otherwise you have to try and hand pick them from leaf litter, grass and bramble instead of sweeping them into piles and scooping them up.

Low intensity fires also renew grasses and brambles so the the browse production and quality goes up for deer and bears. Anybody who walks forest paths knows that bear scat is blackberry in August-September and acorn and salmon (extinct) after that.

This kind of management is NOT going to happen as too many pricy homes were built up tight to piles of fuel so instead we are going with the mega-fires plan. That works out great for home-builders but stinks for the rest of us.

Put the Carbon Back

Still, a link to the info and where the got those numbers would still be nice.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/qaweb/ertoutside/socalfires/data/re ...

I have a very personal link to the more recent fires around San Diego. Although my Uncle's house survived the fires, he did not last more than 2 months after the smoke pushed his previously hidden cancer over the brink.

Maybe one of your family memebrs will be next when wildfires rage?

On a side note: The California Air-Resources Board severely limits the amount of prescribed fires the Forest Service can set. The windows for performing this work are getting smaller all the time.

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Think about it, seeds are encased in fruit for a reason.  So animals will leave  them on the ground with some fertilizer around them.  Tree seedlings ouight to be planted right in their own organic fertilizer blob, made from recycled forest material that has been biodigested.

The healthy trees that survive could benefit from blobs of organic soil amenment injected around their roots too.

These forestry jobs, working comfortably from the cab of safe machinery, are good ones.  That will produce really valuable products.  All while saving forests and cutting back on GHG from fire.

And renewable energy will come from the biogas from digested forest biomass.  Clean kwh to backup the renewable grid.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Well, I imagine livin' with California's polluted air probably didn't do his lungs much good in the first place.  Still sorry for your loss.

And yes, wildfires can be hazardous to people and to some extent animals as weel.  But the fires also help to rejuvinate the ecosystem and increase the carryin' capacity of most species as a whole.

Obviously, people should try and avoid wildfires whenever they sprout up.  But it's just one of things you've gotta accept if ya live in a fire zone.  Just like earthquakes or tornadoes or hurricanes or any other form of natural "disaster".  If ya don't like it, or worry ya can't survive it, then it's best not to live in an area that's historically prone to it.

I've presented tons of good reasons why we need to actively manage ALL of our forests. The West is a fire zone, from Mount Rushmore to the Golden Gate. We can't move people out of the forest and into cities, although the Sierra Club is intent on burning those people out, pioneer-style. DrX claims that the Forest Service just wants to clearcut all the old growth and he fling misinformation like monkey pooh. (I haven't installed a clearcut since 1989, and that was a patch of bug-kill.) His plans for the forest aren't too bad except he offers no way to pay the BILLIONS of dollars needed to treat the fuels. Ditto for Pangolin, as he buys into the rhetoric that fires alone can do the job, ala the Sierra Club again. Economics HAVE to play a key role in restoring our forests back to pre-European health, form and function.

People, we've reached the "tipping point" in our forests and these "deniers" care more about sticking it to the (lumber) MAN, the (Freddy) MAN and the (woods) MAN. Forest ecosystems take centuries to return, and forest management deniers are quite willing to sacrifice them to stick it to the MAN.

BTW, there's a lawsuit that wants to eliminate the use of fire retardant, as well. They say it kills fish but it is mostly fertilizer and water. Those kinds of people won't be happy until all people are removed from the forest, one way or another.

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Uh, Backcut, fertilizer DOES KILL fish...that IS why this flame retardant is so dangerous.  Why else do ya think we're all so worried 'bout agricultural runoff?  Ever hear of the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico that appears at the mouth of the Mississippi River ever year?  It's caused mostly by agricultural fertilizers.

Yep, eco's are for it and Bush is for it....UNITED in destroying our forests!

(sorry....couldn't resist!)  smirk

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If this guy was an actual "ecologist", he would be brazenly displaying where is certificate came from. Just because you've written a book, like Al Gore, that doesn't mean you know what you're talking about or make you a "scientist". Maybe I should write a book and call myself a "scientist", without a degree from a respected university, eh? My extensive woods experience in many different eco-types qualifies me to express my observations.

Now, I'm NOT saying that Forest Service doesn't abuse the NEPA system to cut trees that shouldn't be cut. There are still some dinosaurs out there who work hard to help their local sawmills stay in production and continue to employ the local workforce. The proper cutting prescription still has to match the stand conditions.

Go ahead and fight against corruption but don't doom our forests to destruction by saying that high-intensity fire is a "good thing", all you eco-MarthaStewarts....LOL.

No matter what I say, the green anarchists will tell you any lie you want to hear in their quest to stick it to the MAN and take your generously ignorant monetary donations. A friendly eco-lawyer will gladly sue (for profit!) to preserve the fuels and perfect bark beetle habitat for your next catastrophic fires.

The results are always the same. Death and forest destruction. Consensus with the Bush Administration, which will allow increased harvesting of big trees through salvage logging. YES, you are now a big part of the "Bush Machine", imposing a new management scheme on our forests without that pesky "public input".

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While I am not a fan of diameter limits, I do appreciate the value of big trees, structure, form and function. Tree farms don't cut it for me. Quality sustainable scientific economical forestry is here but, no one seems to be ready for it.

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Now the logging industry runs forestry through their surrogates in government.  We have seen the disastrous results.

As a result environmentalists try to block any access to as much forest as is left by these tree "farming" corporations.  

A new CCC would put it right again, put the forestors back in forestry leadership roles.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I've actually never understood why private companies should be logging; forests belong to the people as far as I am concerned, government companies would be easier to control than private ones.  I mean, most oil is now controlled by national companies, why are any natural resources controlled by private companies?

My reasoning is the exponential nature of economic growth. That is, say a logging company needs to grow its profits (to satisfy shareholders and repay loans) by 7%. Then it must double its cut every 70/7= 10 years. Soon there will no forests left. This model is not sustainable for communities, forest workers or companies.

So as we move from the era of high-growth/abundant natural resources to the era of sustainable economics (net steady-state)/peak resources, we will need to manage the economy is a much more proactive way. We will need to direct private capital into the areas of the economy that we want to grow most (eg, renewables).  

The government-sector will have to expand into those areas of the economy that depend on the exponential growth and use of resources, like forestry. Preferably the government would work  as locally as possible and encourage cooperatives to manage these (non- and low- profitable) areas of the economy. (Accountability structures would have to evolve to prevent corruption, of course. Really we need new models of non-alienating government and participatory economics.)

The countries that best manage their economies by directing private capital and developing industrial policy will do best as we move through peak energy. Currently it seems that our public policies (energy, industrial, health, trade, etc.)are written by the corporations with the heaviest Washington presence. Sometimes literally.

Only a dr of divinty so far (like dr Hunter Thompson), but I'm working on it.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

When I worked on a Bitterroot National Forest thinning project, we marked a ton of trees in an overcrowded patch of mostly pine. The same stands were sampled by students and, when they began, they awere appalled by the "sea of blue" marked trees. As they set up plots that randomly sampled the "cut trees" and the "leave trees", they realized that there were quite a bit more trees left than they ever thought would be. We precisely met our goals of reducing the stocking levels back to a more natural level.

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 Save the live trees and make them healthier.  This is a plan.  Maybe bring back some over 70 retired forestors who want to work on this.  They remember how the forest is supposed to be managed, and could guide the yong CCCers.

I bet they'd love to go back to work.  Just use modern, safer machinery.  Working in the woods, the way bottomline corporations run it now, is even more dangeous than working in a coal mine.  Yikes.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Greenhouse Gases (tons/acre)

Angora Fire: 46.2
Fountain Fire: 53.4
Star Fire: 76.7
Moonlight Fire: 74.7

Total Wildfire Greenhouse Gases (tons)

Angora Fire: 143,129.0
Fountain Fire: 3,196,172.2
Star Fire: 1,240,688.5
Moonlight Fire: 4,910,941.6

These figures come from a new analytical model that estimates GHG emissions from forest fires. These figures have NOT been corrected for additional GHG production from the rotting of biomass.

The thought that wildfires are good for our forests just isn't true in any way. When you people are ready to truly "save" our forests ....when you are progressive enough in your thinking ........when you understand all the sciences that go into "forestry" ....we'll be waiting to clean up the mess you've gotten us into during the last 20 years.

Hug them snags!!

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This slanted story at least comments on this startling work. Notice that the forest management deniers are already clawing at the messenger. How can someone buy a Prius AND embrace wildfires at the same time?

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March 24, 2008

To the Honorable Nick J. Rahall II, Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman

This letter expresses our support for HR 5541 - the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act).

Last year we wrote to you of our concern about the way funding of fire suppression on the National Forests was handled in the Federal budget. We pointed out that it was putting the Forest Service in an untenable financial position. We urged you to find a way to finance emergency firefighting costs outside of the agency's discretionary budget. We believe the FLAME Act will accomplish this.

Unfortunately, since we wrote to you the situation continues to deteriorate. Proposed funding for fire suppression, reflecting the rising ten-year average cost, increases by $148 million in the FY2009 proposed budget. Fire funding is approaching 50 percent of the Forest Service budget. As a result, staffing for basic stewardship of the National Forests is well below that needed to protect and manage these valuable public lands. In the last six years, the available staff on the National Forest System has declined 35 percent. The number of resource specialists available for basic inventory and monitoring has declined 44 percent; the number of personnel to provide services to the 192 million annual recreation visitors have declined 28 percent, and the number biologists and technicians available to manage some of the most important fish and wildlife habitat in the nation has declined 39 percent. Loss of these essential personnel is intolerable. Our nation must find a way to fund the increasing costs of protecting these lands from fire without decimating the organization needed to protect and manage them for the American people.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for taking the initiative, along with Congressman Grijalva and Congressman Dicks, to separate the costs of emergency fire suppression from the discretionary budget of the Forest Service and the other land management agencies. We also appreciate the recognition by the Agriculture Committee of the need to solve the problem. If money is appropriated for the FLAME Fund, we believe this will create the opportunity to rebuild the capability of the Forest Service to protect and manage the resources of the National Forest System for the benefit of the American people. We urge enactment of HR5541 - the FLAME Act.

Sincerely,

signed:

R. Max Peterson, Chief, Forest Service 1979 - 1987
F. Dale Robertson, Chief, Forest Service 1987 - 1993
Jack Ward Thomas, Chief, Forest Service 1993 - 1996
Michael P. Dombeck. Chief, Forest Service 1997 - 2001
Dale N. Bosworth, Chief, Forest Service 2001 - 2007

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Anythin' else would just make the situation worse in the long run by allowing an even greater buildup of material.

The first kind of fire is the wildfire that burns where it will, despite what firefighters may try to do.

The second kind is more accurately described as "prepared fire", which means that conditions are carefully controlled and fuels have already been removed, reduced or concentrated.

The third kind is the WFU fires that are allowed to burn, without ANY human interaction. All because a fire manager has decided for ALL of us that it needs to burn, despite a good chance it will grow into an uncontrollable fire like the first kind (see Biscuit Fire for the best example).

There is so little of the second kind being done these days, because of funding and eco-backlash. The other kinds of fire are increasing in both size AND intensity. However, some areas have no choice at this point. Once the millions of trees are already dead, there is very little choice, other than to watch it burn all that endangered species habitat, watersheds for drinking water, and all the other resource values of a healthy forest into GHG's going directly into our atmosphere. Around 50-80 tons per acre of GHG's, offsetting all your precious hybrid vehicles and CFL's.

Welcome to the New National Forest that only manages fires so that we'll never run out of fires.

Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com