I've always been a right-minded environmentalist :~D
READ HERE: Dreaded New Pollutant: Rain
Whether Reagan was reviled for it or not, it happens to be true. Trees produce isoprenes and terpenes. Both cause ozone. Both are carcinogenic. The amount of VOC (volatile organic compound) produced by one tree exceeds the Bay Area Air Quality Management District threshold for Maximum Available Control Technology (MACT) by a factor or eight.
Commonsense environmentalism. But the greenies simply refuse to accept that technology, free enterprise and the rule of law that guarantee them are the best guarantors of the environment. There are so many examples. The horrendous destruction that the Soviet Union's command economy wrought on Russia, Central Asia and Siberia. The mess that China is becoming. Remember the "Asian Brown Cloud" the continentwide air pollution caused by a billion charcoal and cow chip cooking fires? Indonesia's gagging summers of smoke in the late nineties, caused by fires set by slash and burn farmers. The greenies only talk about third-world pollution if they can somehow set it in the context of Western exploitation. Poverty is bad for the environment and we know what perpetuates poverty, don't we?
It not only makes economic and social sense, it makes scientific environmental sense to manage resources instead of "preserving" them as if they were capable of being static.
For example, you can clearly see the dramatic results of the Cone Fire passing through "no treatment" forest vs. forest after various fuels treatment at the Black's Mountain Experimental Forest. http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/5098/5200.pdf
This shows that management makes sense ecologically as well as economically.