IDAHO'S MAGRUDER CORRIDER TRAIL AND PLENTIFUL IDAHO FORESTS
Posted on 03/11/2012 7:40:44 AM PDT by Jeff Head
I saw Lorax yesterday with five of my grankids, ages 10 down to 5.
It was a fun kids movie, but clearly slanted towards environmentalism and particularly with an anti-business and anti-lumber company...really, and anti-capitalism bias.
On the way home it provided teaching moments. I asked the kids how many of them did not like lumber companies that cut down and harvest trees and why. All of them said they did not like them because they are "stealing our air," hurting animals, and destroying their places to live.
I pointed to the Boise Mountains which we could see from the windows of my Pickup Truck, which they love to drive in...crew cab, 4x4 with a big V-8, and said,
"You see all that dark green on the mountains as far as you can see...that's forests. Almost all lumber companies do not cut down "all" the forests. In fact, they plant more than they cut. We have more forests in the US now than they did 300 years ago in Colonial America."
I then asked..."Who likes wooden playground swings, see saws, etc., pencils, your furniture, your houses?" They all said they did. I asked them to start looking for things made of wood as we drove...they saw fences, signs, roofs, paper, carts, trailers, etc., etc. I told them that all of that was made from wood by companies who, yes make a profit because those people have jobs...but who also try and make the forests better, and bigger in the process.
After a good ten minutes of them pointing out all of these thigns, I then asked, "Who likes lumber companies now, and why?"
At that point they all said they did because they are really making more forest which makes more air, and trying to protect the forests even if they do cut down some of the trees and all of the neat things we have in society because those companies are working in the forests.
This is a long explanation...but it was a good teaching moment for grandpa and I thought I should share.
AMEIRCA AT THE CROSSROADS OF HISTORY.
Well, I won't get on your case because a few others have already done so (accurately pointing out there was not even a single post that either said or implied what you assert.) I don't want to pile on.
I think what most people have a problem with is being unable by federal fiat and law to utilize natural resources in this country. Take a look at this map:
The states with the highest levels of government ownership are also those that are richest in natural resources, for the most part. Look at Alaska as a case in point.
The problems with this are manifold, but primarily it takes large parts of the most resource rich parts of our country, places them off-limits, and requires us to get the same resources from other countries who do not care at all about the environment, and in many cases dislike us intensely and wish us ill. We end up having to send our money to these countries, enriching them, and causing us to pay more for these resources than we would normally have to if we could exploit them here.
So, in addition to making any industry in our country pay more for the raw resources to produce products because we have to buy them from other countries, we also fund them by funneling money into their economies, and our economy withers because we are not allowed to grow and develop the industries to obtain those resources here which would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs.
On top of that, it would enlarge our industrial base and make our products more attractive not only at home, but also abroad because they would be more competitive from a cost perspective.
From your comments, I would find it difficult to classify you as a conservative, though I will table that assessment to give you the benefit of the doubt, simply since I don't know you or your posting history that well.
But I need to say this: Most conservatives are not anti-government. We understand that government is necessary and has a role to play. We simply do not think it should be monolithic, overreaching, and all-powerful.
Most conservatives are not anti-environment. We do not subscribe to the rape and pillage of the environment. We believe that government should have a role in promoting environmentalism by various mechanisms, but what we see today is so far-reaching and overreaching that it is far, far outside the scope of any role that we think government should play.
The reason we think this is evident, and it is because resources that are part of our national right to exploit have them placed off-limits in the name of radical environmentalism. As a result, it has made our industry far less robust and competitive than it should be. In a growing world, we should be growing our industry, and being able to provide for ourselves, both things are not happening.
The problem we have has a semantic aspect to it that you have illustrated very well with your rhetoric. It boils down to this: Conservatives do not feel that exploiting our natural resources is abusing the environment. Liberals and environmentalists believe that exploiting our natural resources is by its very nature abuse of the environment.
I am willing to agree or disagree on this movie. But I don't think that I'm willing to compromise on the basic principle of what is being done via indoctrination, and how much I condemn it.
I remember driving down I-84 in Oregon five years ago. I drove past occasional large stands of trees that were obviously planted by foresters, in neat rows. They were tree fields.
The Lorax needs to get out more.
I live in Massachusetts, and while I admit was not alive to see with my own eyes what the countryside looked like back in 1776 ( to the disbelief of some young people in my life) we do have plenty of eyewitness accounts and artwork from that era in museums up here.
What is striking is the complete absence of any trees in large swaths of places around where I now live. (I live about 5 miles from Concord Massachusetts and the old North Bridge)
This area is pretty well forested now, but it is nearly impossible to stand near that bridge and imagine what it looked like back then, with no trees (or very few) as far as one could see. Just lots and lots of low stone walls and farming fields.
My wife and I flew to Europe a few years back, and what struck me looking down at Europe from the air was that there appeared to be very little forested area. It appeared to be mostly patchwork, not green canopy. (Note: this is only the observation I made from the area we flew over, I know there are parts of Europe that do have canopy, I just didn’t see them in large areas…)
But when we flew home, we flew into Boston (a fairly densely populated portion of the eastern seaboard) and the contrast was absolutely amazing to me. Flying in over these heavily populated areas, approaching a large urban area, there were large swaths of green canopy from trees. I found that contrast to be nearly eye-popping.
So, to me, having large areas of deforested areas in the United States back in 18th century is entirely believable, and I don’t doubt for a second that process proceeded apace into the first portion of the 20th century.
I believe I could enjoy the animation and storyline of this feature, but I have difficulty getting past the intended moral of the story.
Living in a sophisticated urban setting with the benefit of college education under your belt is no guarantee of any specific knowledge of nature, never mind anything else… you certainly have that right.
Too many urban liberals have some really bizarre fantasies about flyover country.
When I first saw those fields of trees, I did some research and found they have enough planted now, they can have continuous harvest. They cut them for pulp and have a basically endless supply due to replanting.
That’s your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it.
“Vixin the fox”
Hmmmm.... Check your memory. I think you’ll find that was Granny Fox and Reddy Fox. :) Great stories (though there are many who will criticize them) and I have quite a few of the books.
Good job Jeff. (I live a couple of hundred miles north of you)
Moe, I have to take issue with your timeline and the really broad brush you paint with. I seriously doubt you can show me a clear cut in western Washington from the turn of the last century that still looks like a bomb went off - unless it’s now part of Seattle or other such place. Certainly the monster old growth won’t be there, and the species may be different, but it’s hard to keep trees from growing over there. Back about ‘75, my silviculture class visited an 8000 acre clear cut on timber company ground near Shelton. It was that big because it was cut in the early ‘40s to feed the war effort and it came back in alder. As it was a top site for Douglas-fir, they cut off the alder and were in the process of replanting it. The slash was so thick they had to cut paths through it to plant. It was so deep (8’ in places) that you couldn’t see the planters. This isn’t to say there weren’t abuses. There are plenty of examples of “cut out and get out” from the early years, but there were many examples of good stewardship as well.
Rl, your post of the chart about government ownership is one that folks really like to harp on. What must be remembered is that when much of that ownership was laid out, nobody else wanted that land. People like to point to Nevada. Good grief! You ever drive across that country? Much of south Idaho is similar. There’s few trees and not much grass. A rancher needs 10-40 cows to make a go of it (that’s a cow with a mouth 10’ wide and moves at 40 mph to get enough to eat). Move north in Idaho, and you have plenty of trees, but most of it stands on end so much that you can’t economically harvest it. Most of the ground that can stand commercial harvest has been cut, much of it numerous times, and, until the unfortunate spate of overboard environmentalism, provided a good income for the area. People like to whine about how much better the state or private would take care of these areas, but think about it. They are already subject to the same regulations that constrain the feds (although they certainly would have more incentive than some agencies) and what will they do when fire season hits? Even now, when a fire gets too big on state or private ground they throw up their hands and ask the feds to take over.
Well, enough of my rambling and ranting for the night....
Thanks for the focus on that, Old Forester...I will say I was focusing more on mining and such rather than forestry with my eye on that map.
I have been there, and I know what you mean.
Make public “education” illegal!!!
God's speed.
And yes, ageniceis of the US government participate in this all the time because particularly liberal presidents politicize this and put in place appointees who hire career people who have an agenda and they doctor numbers all the time. Like the USBR did regarding the sucker fish in Klamath in 2000-2001 and finally when Bush's people got in there they doscovered all the errors and had to reverse "the science" because it had been politicized in favor of their interest groups.
Same thing has been going on against the timber industry since before the magical spotted owl.
So, give it a rest, no whoppers have been told. There are numerous documented sites indicating that the number of trees is larger than it has been in over 100 years.
You may say all you want and bring up different data to try and prove it wrong...but it is different data and not at all what I told my grandkids.
I explained the whole idea about the amount of land in forstation (and that does not include anything but what is considered harvestable or reserve) and why we have more trees now, despite having less actual acres of land in harvest or reserve.
And, as I said, none of thaty includes green belts, urban areas, parks, etc., etc.
See my last. The arguement that there is less land under forestation is not being taken issue with...though the numbers quoted include foretable land and reserve, not a lot of land in urban and suburban areas not included.
But my statement that there are more trees (as a result of the massive increase in production from the forestable land) than there wer in the 1800s stands. We are getting much more yield per acre and much quicker growth times which I have explained in prior posts.
Happy Feet was very similar in the subliminal, and not so subliminal messages.
Unless you do something to prevent it, tropical forests, aka jungles, will grow back on their own, and quickly at that. Much of the clear cutting is for crop production. The much ballyhooed "rain forest" is not generally really all that fertile. But the people who live there figure they have to eat. But they grow a crop or two, and then move to another spot. Meanwhile the old spot starts to grow over.
Since I'm not the one doing it, I would tell them to study hard, get a Horticulture Degree and go fix it.
Talk is cheap.
BTW - For every argument, there is a ridiculous premise.
OMG Your right and I never thought I would run into someone that read them also. I loved Sunday morning was daddy reading to me on their big bed...I don’t understand how anyone could find fault with them....:O) Some of the characters had whole books about them...Sometimes when he would read a sentence, he would follow the words with his fingers and I learned how to read before starting kindergarden... GG
The study author is a Mr. Douglas MacCleery. He was Dep Assistant Sec of the USDA during that well known "liberal" President, Ronald Reagan. The study was published during another "liberal" Presidency, that of George H.W. Bush. The USFS graph shows that trend has continued. It was published in 2002. Care to guess what "liberal" was in office then?
"We have more forests in the US now than they did 300 years ago in Colonial America."
Sure. If you say so.
Do you suppose the idiots who tell kids ‘’trees make air’’ ever had a good look at the Sahara desert?
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