Demonstrate for an End to Global Warming

Posted on November 29, 2015 by GarryRogers

Climate-change demonstrations show our leaders that we want them to take steps to stop global warming. We must also ask our leaders to change the human activities that are causing climate change.

We want them to block corporate control over our government and the decisions it makes.
We want them to end international sales of weapons and begin to encourage peace and a focus on life style and resource use.
We want them to discourage unsustainable resource harvests.
We want them to encourage human rights and equality.
We want them to speak out for wild animals and natural ecosystems.
We want them to call for restoring the damaged lands and seas.
And finally, we want them to oppose gender inequality and overpopulation.

Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, activities causing climate change would continue. Farming, deforestation, industrial fishing, desertification, construction, and growth of the human population would continue to waste the Earth and release CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

‘Traditional authority’ linked to rates of deforestation in Africa

Posted on November 24, 2015 by GarryRogers

New analysis reveals a strong correlation between precolonial institutions in Africa and current levels of deforestation. phys.org

GR: It’s certainly true in the U. S. that century-old institutions are still the leading cause of deforestation.

Forest Service Revs Up Push to Open Over 170 Million Tons of Coal to Mining From Colorado Roadless Forest

Posted on November 19, 2015 by GarryRogers

Proposed Loophole Could Cause Millions of Tons of Carbon Pollution, undermine Obama Administration Climate Goals, and Degrade Wildlife Habitat

DENVER— National and local conservation groups today condemned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to continue pressing to open national forest roadless areas in Colorado to coal mining.
Bulldozer
Photo of bulldozer near Sunset Roadless Area courtesy U.S. Forest Service. Photos are available for media use.

In a notice filed today, the Forest Service announced it would move forward by issuing a draft environmental impact statement on the proposal to pave the way for mining. The proposal would reopen a loophole in the “roadless rule” for national forests in Colorado to enable Arch Coal — the nation’s second largest coal company — to scrape roads and well pads on nearly 20,000 acres of otherwise-protected, publicly owned national forest and wildlife habitat in Colorado’s North Fork Valley.

The loophole was thrown out by the U.S. District Court of Colorado last year because the Forest Service had failed to consider the climate change impacts of mining as much as 350 million tons of coal in the national forest. (Today’s notice reduces the estimated coal available to 173 million tons.) The Forest Service admits that reopening the loophole could result in hundreds of millions of tons of additional carbon pollution from mining and burning the coal. That carbon pollution could cost the global economy and environment billions of dollars, according to today’s notice. From: www.biologicaldiversity.org

GR: Apparently, the U. S. Forest Service isn’t satisfied with just clear-cutting the forests; it wants to widen its attack with more roads and more global warming CO2 emissions. Way-to-go Forest Service!

The Case for Restoration in the Redwoods

Posted on November 12, 2015 by GarryRogers

“Today, many still think of the coastal redwood forests as a dark, primeval rainforest, such as those depicted in the likes of Star Wars and Jurassic Park. However, the progress of human activity over the last 150 years has resulted in a reality which is in stark contrast to the idyllic images portrayed in Hollywood.

“The “progress” of human activity over the last 150 years has resulted in a landscape that would be unrecognizable to those first European-American settlers. Once, the ancient coastal redwood forests spanned some two million acres of California’s scenic and rugged coastline, from Big Sur all the way to the Oregon border. By the time Redwood National Park was created in 1968, a mere 100 years after the advent of European-American settlement, the once vast and mighty coastal old-growth redwood forest had been reduced to an estimated 10 percent of its original range. By the close of the 20th century, it was estimated that only five percent of the old-growth coastal redwood forest remained. And so it is today.” More at: www.wildcalifornia.org

GR: I like this use of “progress.”

World’s Largest Ecological Study on Palm Oil Deforestation Releases Five Year Review

Posted on November 10, 2015 by GarryRogers

Working with SAFE, climate scientist Stephen Hardwick found that palm oil plantations are on average 6.5 degrees Celsius hotter that primary (never logged) rainforest. This disparity means the difference between life and death for sensitive species like termites and earthworms that play a drastically important role in the rainforest ecosystem by controlling the rate at which things decompose. Even lightly logged forest was 2.5 degrees hotter than primary forests. In these forests, Hardwick found that the hotter it got, the more water trees used and the more vulnerable they became to droughts. This discovery casts doubt on the eco-friendliness of selective harvesting – a method of logging that in which only trees above a certain size are felled and which was previously perceived as sustainable.

“That doubt that was furthered by studies showing how the extra, unclaimed logs left behind in selective harvesting are actually doing harm to the environment. Living trees suck CO2 out of the air, but dead trees actually release it. The significant number of dead trees in partially logged rainforests could be emitting more carbon than was previously thought, potentially nullifying what air quality improvements result from not completely cutting a forest down. This oversight could mean that partially logged forests (which make up 30 percent of rainforests worldwide) thought to be carbon sinks are actually sources of CO2 emission, and suggests that global calculations for CO2 are wrong 30 percent of the time.” More at: cleanmalaysia.com

GR: Here’s another study finding that logging is bad for forest ecosystems and it is bad for global climate. It’s time to stop.

Forest Service stalls on Wolf Creek land trade order

Posted on November 7, 2015 by GarryRogers

The U.S. Forest Service continues to delay the release of records related to a controversial land trade in southwestern Colorado.

Last week, a federal court granted the agency’s request for a 30-day extension to turn over letters, memos and other documents from a long-running review of the Wolf Creek land trade — a swap that would enable a massive resort development in the middle of an important wildlife area.

In September, U.S. District Court Judge Wiley Daniel ruled that the Forest Service violated the Freedom of Information Act and ordered the agency to release the documents on the controversial land trade by Oct. 30. Conservation groups critical of the trade say the paper trail may show that the decision-making process was tainted by political influence.The land trade was approved earlier this year by Rio Grande Forest Supervisor Dan Dallas. It would give the developer, Leavell-McCombs Joint Venture, a way to access a parcel of private land that’s nearly surrounded by public national forest lands by swapping 205 federal acres for 177 acres of private land. If it stands, the trade would enable construction of a resort village for up to 8,000 people. More at: summitcountyvoice.com

GR: From past experience, it is reasonable to suspect the U. S. Forest Service of improper conduct. Now let’s see what the documents show.

As demand for African timber soars, birds pay the ultimate price

Posted on November 6, 2015 by GarryRogers

Tropical forests are home to more of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity than any other habitat, but are increasingly threatened by the impact of human activities. Illegal logging, in particular, poses a severe and increasing threat to tropical forests worldwide. But, until now, its impact on tropical wildlife has not been quantified.

A new study co-authored by scientists at Drexel University, published in the most recent issue of Biological Conservation, reveals the devastating impact of illegal logging on bird communities in the understory layer of Ghana’s Upper Guinea rain forests, one of the world’s 25 “biodiversity hotspots” where the most biologically rich ecosystems are most threatened.

Researchers found that the level of legal and illegal logging increased more than 600 percent between 1995 and 2010 — six times greater than the maximum sustainable rate. They also discovered that the abundance of forest understory bird species declined more than 50 percent during the same period. Species richness, or the number of different understory bird species represented, also showed declining trends. The bird communities showed no evidence of post-logging recovery.

“The numbers don’t lie and they don’t have a political agenda. These numbers are shocking,” said . . . . More at: www.sciencedaily.com

GR: Logging has to stop, but how do we do it? We need massive social changes right now if our wildlife are to survive.

Lodgepole pine and bark beetles

Posted on November 6, 2015 by GarryRogers

Another new study published by the Ecological Society of America titled “Does wildfire likelihood increase following insect outbreaks in conifer forests?” by Garrent Meigs and coauthors 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 force in wildfire. Rather climate, terrain, and other factors are more important.

Yet the Forest Service continues to promote the idea that logging beetle kill trees will reduce future fires in direct conflict to contradictory research. More at: www.thewildlifenews.com

GR: Another example of how the U. S. Forest Service works to increase corporate profits even when it harms the forests. Oh, by the way, the U. S. Forest Service is funded by the American tax-paying public. How many of those taxpayers benefit from Weyerhaeuser and other logger profits?

Why fuel reductions and thinning are poor forest strategy

Posted on November 2, 2015 by GarryRogers

One of the assumptions behind federal legislation like the Resilient Federal Forest Act is that more thinning of our forests will halt or significantly reduce large wildfires. Yet the scientific evidence for such a conclusion is ambiguous at best.
Any number of studies have find that thinning usually fails under severe fire conditions.

First, . . . (From: www.thewildlifenews.com)

GR: I have long believed that the U. S. Forest Service uses taxpayer money to thin forests so that the trees will grow faster and let the timber companies cut the trees and take their profits sooner. There is no clear evidence that thinning was ever good for forest ecosystems. Now that temperatures are rising and fires are burning hotter, a massive network of fire brakes might be a much better idea.