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Photos Reveal Changes in Sierra [Carry_Okie was right!]
Los Angeles Times ^ | December 27, 2001 | BETTINA BOXALL, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Posted on 12/27/2001 1:32:35 PM PST by snopercod

Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:48 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

CARSON CITY, Nev. -- A drive into the Sierra Nevada can seem like a retreat from time, a return to landscapes unmolested by the 20th century...blahblahblah...

The 74-year-old retired federal wildlife biologist hiked, bushwhacked and occasionally helicoptered his way to dozens of mountain spots recorded in photographs taken in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He hunted for the same peaks and boulders, the same vantage points. And when he found them, he took another photo. In a just-published book, Gruell matches the new and old images, showing how much the landscapes have changed. In scene after scene, the contemporary photographs document dense forest and lush growth. Their historical twins show leaner country in which the trees were fewer, the ground more open, the meadows more abundant....


(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: enviralists
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To: Carry_Okie
The cleanest and purest of natural waters is that which has flowed through a marsh or fen, which absorbs most of the nutrients, sunken through deep sand, and has been in underground aquifers for varying periods of time, perhaps centuries, essentially "fossil" water. Flowing streams only clense to the degree excess nutrients are absorbed by the vegetation in the stream bed and on the stream banks.
21 posted on 12/27/2001 2:42:58 PM PST by alloysteel
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To: Carry_Okie
I love Garret Hardin. He's one of the few people who makes sense in my opinion because he both denounces communism and shows the fallacy of "sustainable growth."
22 posted on 12/27/2001 2:46:26 PM PST by Demidog
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To: alloysteel
soil must be seeded with the desired vegetation

Some species are rare and local. Propagation can be tricky and their ability to resist introduced cultivars is poor(particularly against varieties selected for forage). Some introduced species have pre-emergent properties. It isn't easy. Some interesting work is being done in the sheep industry, teaching the sheep to graze specific species.

23 posted on 12/27/2001 2:47:27 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: Demidog
I am not a fan of Hardin's, primarily because he is an unreconstructed elitist. He may be correct in his observations as a critic, but he hasn't offered a workable alternative to civic environmental management.
24 posted on 12/27/2001 2:54:14 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
Recent "over-forestation" occurs throughout the U.S., not just in the Sierra. Just check out any historic photos of mining areas in Rocky Mtns for example, and compare to today.

The loss of "open space" really hit me when I went back to my boyhood home in suburban NY. The field where we used to play sandlot baseball 35 years ago had 8" diameter trees growing on it!

Driving around New England many areas of former farmland are now second growth forest. Those famous postcard vistas of Vermont are disappearing. All you can see from many "scenic" roads is a wall of trees on either side. There are no more views to be had...

25 posted on 12/27/2001 2:56:30 PM PST by BigBobber
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To: snopercod
--same thing was done in the Black Hills (South Dakota) about twenty years ago. A photographer re-traced the path of the Custer expedition, taking shots from the exact points as Custer's lensman. Results? Much more tree coverage today than then--
26 posted on 12/27/2001 2:59:58 PM PST by rellimpank
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To: Carry_Okie
God bless you sir!
27 posted on 12/27/2001 3:03:07 PM PST by one2many
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To: Carry_Okie
Sure he's offerred a solution: private ownership of lands.

It can be seperated as an issue from the population issue, which even if it is loathed by conservatives is in fact a problem.

However, the problem will be solved without man's help. Nature has a way of cleaning house. She will again and it will be extremely unpleasant just as was the Plague.

Hardin has a brilliant chapter on usury and in fact proves to my satisfaction that economics really is a zero sum game when you factor in the natural resources taken and used in the manufacture of products.

This is another unpleasant fact that I find libertarians and free market proponents (of which I am one) are loathe to examine.

Noting that these problems exist are tantamount to actual solutions being discovered. Some want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that of virtually all of the economic theories ever posited, none mention the actual cost in natural resources to produce goods. So they poo-poo the zero-sum economic theories. I suppose that is partly because most "zero-summers" are for strict controls.

That's sort of knee-jerk in my opinion and has no place in the debate.

28 posted on 12/27/2001 3:04:50 PM PST by Demidog
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To: BigBobber
Yep. Those forests on abandoned farms aren't exactly the picture of health either.
29 posted on 12/27/2001 3:06:21 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: Carry_Okie
.....without considering the cost BECAUSE it is "free."....

The Tradgedy of the Commons
(No pun intended)

It was a good book, in it's time
Still is

I haven't read your book yet. I will get it soon
God Bless
30 posted on 12/27/2001 3:13:11 PM PST by Fiddlstix
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To: Carry_Okie
Here in southern Oregon, a hot bed of old hippies and tree huggers, we have a 7000 foot mountain named Ol' Greyback. Seems the BLM did a survey to find the age of the "old growth" -- max age was a 170 years. The old loggers here tell of their fathers and grandfathers tales of whole areas of the mountain not covered with any trees. Seems some of the real old photos seem to prove them out..
31 posted on 12/27/2001 3:17:15 PM PST by OregonRancher
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To: Demidog
Sure he's offerred a solution: private ownership of lands.

Together with civic regulation? To control is to own without payment. That is no solution and it is not privatization.

It can be seperated as an issue from the population issue, which even if it is loathed by conservatives is in fact a problem.

I doubt that anyone knows what global carrying capacity really is. I have seen analyses that vary from 500 million to 40 billion.

However, the problem will be solved without man's help. Nature has a way of cleaning house. She will again and it will be extremely unpleasant just as was the Plague.

I have no love for self-fulfilling prophesies. The people who advance Hardin's ideas are deliberately setting the world up for such plagues.

Hardin has a brilliant chapter on usury and in fact proves to my satisfaction that economics really is a zero sum game when you factor in the natural resources taken and used in the manufacture of products.

Better read my book. I doubt that you would be satisfied with Hardin's explanation thereafter. He doesn't know and neither does anybody else. I would gladly debate the issue, but this is the wrong thread.

This is another unpleasant fact that I find libertarians and free market proponents (of which I am one) are loathe to examine.

By no means is this established as a "fact," although there are LOTS of people who want to believe it because it justifies their actions.

Noting that these problems exist are tantamount to actual solutions being discovered. Some want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that of virtually all of the economic theories ever posited, none mention the actual cost in natural resources to produce goods. So they poo-poo the zero-sum economic theories. I suppose that is partly because most "zero-summers" are for strict controls.

My theory not only takes it into account, it relies upon and motivates continuously improving measurements to account it.

32 posted on 12/27/2001 3:22:36 PM PST by Carry_Okie
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To: snopercod
bump!
33 posted on 12/27/2001 3:30:27 PM PST by VOA
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To: KneelBeforeZod
Carry Okie is a libertarian????

Not by any stretch. It's a new approach and therefore requires a new category. I hope people read the book and see the reason behind all of it. Everything has value that if recognized will eliminate these continuous confrontations between owners and users. City planners should be required to keep the book in their library, and maybe even refer to it from time to time.

34 posted on 12/27/2001 3:33:33 PM PST by RightWhale
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To: RedBloodedAmerican
Although the majority of their efforts was only to lobby in order to line their pockets. What a surprise!!

I think the majority of "environmentalists" are well-meaning "useful fools", who think that by joining the Sierra Club et.al they are acting morally to protect the environment.

It can objectively be proven otherwise.

35 posted on 12/27/2001 3:42:17 PM PST by snopercod
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To: RightWhale
BUMP to keeping the book in their library ... but then, they wouldn't be 'managing' things would they! Way to go, CO. Will be purchasing your book this coming year ... budgetary restraints, don'tcha know.
36 posted on 12/27/2001 3:46:03 PM PST by MHGinTN
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To: alloysteel
But then the forest biologists made a crucial policy mistake. Rather than maintaining a steady-sustainable harvest, the decision was made to stop ALL harvest, which leads to the uncontrollable burns that break out on dead and diseased understory today.

Sounds like you've read Carry_Okie's book.

I'm in North Carolina, and my property was clear-cut about sixty years ago. It came back just fine, although I am in the process of weeding out the "trash" trees, like Virginia Pines (locally called Jack Pines).

Private stewardship of the forest is a great concept, invented - BTW - not far from where I live by the Biltmore family. It's now called "Pisgah National Forest" AKA "The Cradle of Forestry".

37 posted on 12/27/2001 3:49:32 PM PST by snopercod
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To: snopercod
Good find.
Some of the most memorable days I've had in my life were from the time I spent at the Pickle Meadows Mountain Warfare training camp (near Bridgeport). The Sierra Nevadas are maybe the most peaceful and beautiful woods in the world. We slept under the stars (and under canopies of branches) in the Sierra Nevadas for weeks and climbed to higher elevations each day until we eventually got to snow-covered areas. And this was in the middle of June! This was 20 years ago and I can relive it like last week.
38 posted on 12/27/2001 4:00:29 PM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: snopercod
At the same time, old forests in many parts of the west are dying at an alarming rate. Huge tracts of forests in Montana, for example, are turning dead brown as a result of the infestation of the bark beetle. The uncontrolled beetle has already devastated thousands of acres of pine trees in several states.

Why is the bark beetle uncontrolled, you may ask? Because the Sierra Club fought and won a three-year battle with the Forest Service that wanted to spray the trees and kill the beetles. The courts believed the Sierra Club's argument "that the beetles are part of nature's plan to save the trees." Is that incredible, or what?

Next summer, please be sure to watch the huge forest fires that will devastate the west. It will make previous fire seasons look like backyard barbecues. This is one of my most accurate predictions and it will happen. Thank the Sierra Club as you watch the fires on TV. It will be a hot, black tree trunk the tree huggers will hug.

39 posted on 12/27/2001 4:10:53 PM PST by Paulus Invictus
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To: Carry_Okie
i read this article in the lat this morning over coffee. i didn't realize that it was you. good going!
40 posted on 12/27/2001 4:17:07 PM PST by ken21
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