LIBERAL ENVRIRONMENTAL POLICIES;COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, DANGERIOUS AND DEADLY

THE LOGICAL VIEW ^ | 10/30/03 | MARK A SITY

[logic101.net]

LIBERAL ENVRIRONMENTAL POLICIES; COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, DANGERIOUS AND DEADLY

10/30/03

MARK A SITY

At last count there are 20 dead people, 1400 destroyed homes, over ½ million acres of destroyed wildlife habitat, and untold millions of formerly happy and health wild critters now incinerated; they had no place to run to.

Some of this destroyed habitat no doubt sheltered and fed threatened and endangered species, many of which are now crispy critters. A few of these may even be the all-important Deli Sands Flower Loving Fly. This was the fly that stopped construction of a hospital because someone thought that maybe he might have seen one a few hundred yards away from the construction site. This fly is so important that to the best of my knowledge even though no one can confirm a sighting of one in the area, the hospital project has been abandoned in mid-construction. Some of the crispy critters might even be spotted owls. Some snail darters may be downstream from the run-off and fall ill.

Hundreds of tons of pollutants have been released into the atmosphere, more than a coal-fired power plant and a SUV could hope to produce in a year. Many residents of California have been told to stay indoors unless they are being evacuated, even those without respiratory problems are warned to stay indoors; this is worse than any smog or ozone alert in history. One has to wonder about the future indirect deaths from the pollution being spewed into the atmosphere from these wildfires in CA. Some of the pollutants are very toxic, tar from shingles, insulation in burned homes, fumes from incinerated SUVs and such.

Hundreds of thousands of acres of formerly prime forest land is now charred and barren, ripe for erosion of topsoil into the rivers, streams and lakes to choke off those fragile environments.

The destruction doesn’t stop at the fire’s edge though. Those 1600+ homes need to be re-built. This means more logging in our forests. The furniture burned up in those homes needs to be replaced. This may even mean a few trees in the rain forests may need to be cut down ! More wire and nails will need to be produced; this means more strip mines for the ore.

Thousands of people are now homeless.

If a foreign power had done this destruction we would consider it an act of war. All of these disasters are things that the left continually warns the public that Republicans will do if they are left in charge of the environment. Yet all of this destruction was caused by liberal environmental policies. Please allow me to correct a line from former VP Al Gore; ‘Liberal environmental policies will kill more people, destroy more wildlife habitat and may cause extinction of some rare species.’

Some may ask how I can lay all this destruction at the feet of the liberals. I’ll be happy to answer their question. The Democrats have to keep the eco-nuts happy so that the eco-nuts deliver the votes and the contributions for each election cycle. In return the Democrats have anointed the eco-nuts as the “experts” on all environmental issues. The Democrats control most of the press, the bureaucracy, and the infrastructure. They have also had a strangle-hold on CA politics for years.

Long ago state and federal lands were leased to timber companies for logging. These contracts tended to allow “clear cutting” of large tracts of forest. Even though the timber companies, (who were interested in coming back again to re-log the areas) re-planted trees, the eco-nuts insisted that this practice caused erosion of top-soil. This erosion weakened the soil’s potential use and clogged streams. Clear cutting was banned on most government controlled land. The eco-nuts then got that ban expanded to include any sort of logging on government lands (with a few exceptions). They then prevented even the Forest Service from cutting fire-breaks which would have allowed fire crews a line to defend to keep a fire from getting out of control. Next they insisted that even dead trees not be cut down, left to fall on their own and rot (or burn). That ban was then extended to diseased trees, so these were allowed to infect other healthy trees, creating even more dry dead wood. Finally they not only banned the Forest Service from removing dried out brush from the forests, but (as Roger Hedgecock continues to point out) banned removal or use of any dead branches on the forest floor. Hence, the perfect situation for an environmental catastrophe. We had vast tracts of dry tinder, kindling and fuel, all in place to ignite the not so dry fuel of living trees.

Just like all liberal solutions, be they for poverty, homelessness, energy, pollution or a host of others, their “solution” only aggravates the problems, requiring even more liberal “solutions” to correct the problems their last solution created.

I can envision a great TV ad for Pres. Bush and his Healthy Forest Initiative. I know it won’t ever happen since Republicans don’t have the guts to take on the left; even when they know the truth they are afraid to speak it. They are always afraid they will be called “mean spirited”. They are called that anyway, but no matter, they might get called it yet another time if they speak up.

The perfect TV ad:

The picture starts with a small pretty bird happily hopping from branch to branch on a dead tree limb on a forest floor. The camera goes up and up from there to show a few acres from a chopper. A few houses can be seen on the perimeter. The fire line comes in, consumes everything in its path. The camera comes back down, after the fire has passed to show the ashes of the trees and brush, and the crispy body of the bird. The scene fades to black. In bold white letters the screen shows:

LIBERAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES:

COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE

DANGERIOUS

DEADLY

It is sad this advertisement will never be produced, much less aired.

MARK A SITY

http://www.logic101.net/

[finnsheep]

What needs to happen is the folks who have lost their homes or, worse yet, family members need to sue the environmental groups that sued to prevent logging or thinning even of dead trees in the area where the fire occurred. 66% of thinning and brush removal projects were held up by environmentalist lawsuits which were later thrown out, but substantial delays happened and dollars that could have been spent on removal of brush and trees was spent on lawyering.

If a few class action suits are successful against enviro-groups, they won't be able to get insurance and will cease to operate (like the doctors) in that state.

[Marylander]

I may want to send this piece (minus the tv ad suggestion)to my liberal soon-to-be-former friends as a letter to the editor on Free Republic.com. Would that be a correct representation? I would include your name, but as to directing them to your web site, they wouldn't read past the Diane Frankenstein thing there.

The points you make above are similar to ones I made that had some influence on a liberal I know who has a degree in botany. I prefer your presentation because it is much more detailed and authoritative sounding.

[buffyt]

We have lived in Calif. three times. I remember walking in Sequoia national forest and being told by a forest ranger that you can't even pick up one dead pine cone to take with you. The forests are now a huge keg of kindling. A tossed match or cigarette is deadly to them. They need to clean out the dead wood and underbrush at least in enough areas to cut down on fire. They have burned down the forest to "save the underbrush and dead wood".

[meenie]

The main support for enviral groups came in the form of control. Everybody that wished to show that they had the means to control joined the enviral bandwagon. Politicians, elite, rich contributors, socialists, joined to exhibit their power to control. They forget that Mother Nature had more power than they, if She decided to go on a rampage. The "greenest" of all states has been the victim.

This does not take into account the damage that has been suffered over a longer period of time in many other settings, against many other victims. The ebb and flow of the many victims dispossessed in other enviromental mistakes has been unnoticed because of the small number involved at any given time. It took California to bring attention to the disaster our enviromental laws have caused.

[nicmarlo]

BTTT

[buffyt]

That is true. Just heard yesterday that in Houston the enviroMENTALwackos are now concerned about the Houston Toad, and they don't care about the Houston PEOPLE. They are trying to block development. Last time I checked humans were way up the scale above TOADS.

[SierraWasp]

They want the US to suffer from ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT!!!

[Marauder]

Last time I checked humans were way up the scale above TOADS.

I happen to agree with that statement, but only in the case of environmentalists, whom I consider sub-human.

finnsheep's scenario of scoring a knockout punch against the green weenie mobs with class-action lawsuits is something I fervently hope will happen.

Remember that Daschle voted not to allow cleaning out the undergrowth tinder in any state except his own South Dakota.

[yoswif]

If any federal prosecutor in Southern California had sufficient courage, they'd get a federal grand jury to look at the forest service bureaucracy, "environmental groups", and politicians that have produced this "the only good trees are dead, dying, or spewing smoke" federal forest management policy. Was mismanagement deliberate for the purpose of increasing management costs? Who benefits from increased management costs? Was mismanagement deliberate to make well managed foreign government, corporate, and privately owned forests more valuable? Who pays politicians and "environmental groups" to promote disastrous environmental policies on federal forest land?

What federal forest managers, "environmental groups", and powerful politicians are doing to federal forests for the financial benefit of themselves, as well as foreign government, corporate, and private forest land owners, should be seen as fraud and a criminal conspiracy.

[farmfriend]

Have you talked to Carry_Okie? Or read Carry_okie's book? If not, you should.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the ping!

The OC Register has a story this morning on the bark beetle and its destruction and how FEMA denied last Friday a request from Gov Davis for money to clean out the dead trees in the San Bernandino Natl Forest.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

For real time political chat - Radio Free Republic chat room

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[Carry_Okie]

What needs to happen is the folks who have lost their homes or, worse yet, family members need to sue the environmental groups that sued to prevent logging or thinning even of dead trees in the area where the fire occurred. 66% of thinning and brush removal projects were held up by environmentalist lawsuits which were later thrown out, but substantial delays happened and dollars that could have been spent on removal of brush and trees was spent on lawyering.

The environmental groups are exempt from lawsuit. Clinton invoked EO-12986 to indemnify members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) from all civil liability. The IUCN is essentially the EPA of the UN. Bush has not rescinded that EO.

[logic101.net]

Interesting take; use their own weapons against them. I like it! My second published ltr to the editor in the local rag was about the tobacco law suits titled "who's job next". I really like your idea of bringing that scheme back on them!

Mark A Sity

[logic101.net]

Well, MS Frankensien scares me too! Sure, go ahead and forward it. Too bad you don't want to also send the ad part also though! Best wishes, Mark A Sity

[logic101.net]

What is so amazing is that it is so obvious that the cause of this devistation was radical eco-nuts being given a blank check. But who will have the guts to say it? No one in the main-line press! Sure on Rush's show and other talk radio programs you will get the info, but that is about it.

And people wonder why they feel confused!

Mark A Sity

[logic101.net]

You fail to get the point of the eco-nuts. People don't matter. Nor do the critters they made crispy matter. What really matters is that the eco-nuts get whatever they want.

Think of them as spoiled 2 yr olds.

Mark A Sity

PS. Facts don't matter either.

[logic101.net]

Thank you