Free Republic

In the last essay, titled "Paul Bunyan Meets Sierra Sue Happy and the Democrats," we learned that Paul Bunyan, as well as many other American folk heroes, were being deconstructed and then reconstructed into politically correct social icons by leftist groups like the Sierra Club aka Sierra Sue Happy. We found out that the Democratic Party has become the legislative arm of the radicalized environmental movement. We learned that 6 million acres of Western forests have burned to the ground, some of it to bedrock. This will ensure that some of those forests may take generations to grow back. That...

Still wrong after all these years Worldwatch misdiagnoses the planet again by Ronald Bailey The World Summit on Sustainable Development will convene in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2002. The World Summit is the 10th anniversary follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.At the Earth Summit, ideological environmentalism achieved considerable success in advancing its agenda for reshaping the world's economy. That Summit saw the adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the incorporation of the precautionary principle in international treaties.In the 10 years since the Earth...

POLSON, Mont. -- A U.S. Forest Service official told loggers Wednesday that some out-of-state environmental activists operating in Montana are terrorists trained in arson, vandalism and bomb-making. "Here in Montana, we are starting to see people from out of state and people who have direct ties to the Earth Liberation Front, and that concerns us," said Bill Fox, of the agency's Northern Region office in Missoula. Fox spoke Wednesday to members of the Montana Wood Products Association, gathered in Polson for their annual meeting. Earlier this summer, ELF told officials at the Bitterroot National Forest that all salvage logging in...

 The federal government is great at bothering the American people with a never ending barrage of laws, rules and regulations. Yet, they cannot seem to take responsibility for anything, no matter how much they mess up. This year alone, due to a mishmash of very stupid environmental laws and regulations, the federal government is responsible for allowing over 6.2-million acres (9,688 square miles) of good timber to burn. That's about double the annual average and this is still just August. The federal government took possession, unconstitutionally, of 196 million acres (over 306,000 square miles, total -- for comparison, the State...

A CSE core principle: "Environmental laws must respect the rights of property owners." For years, this principle has been violated by radical environmental groups. The Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the Nature Conservancy and others have relentlessly filed lawsuits, misusing the Endangered Species Act to restrict property use and confiscate private property without compensation.. Such groups, following an insatiable desire to acquire more lands for non-human use, are attempting to drive rural Americans off their land and into cities as part of "Wildlands Project" and "Sustainable Development" agendas. Logging in the West has essentially been shut down, making us dependent...

<p>There is little more revelatory to us Washington armchair, journo-politico, all-purpose, television/newspaper, expert, pundit/columnists than actually to talk with a fellow out West who works in an industry we just write about. I recently had correspondence with a man who, right up front, called himself "just a fat old logger now working on a farm." Well, as just a fat old lawyer now working on TV and a newspaper, I liked this fellow right off. I feel more comfortable around people who use ab crunchers to keep the refrigerator door open, and who get a six-pack at the liquor store, not a gym.</p>

Florida growth regulators notified Collier County on Monday that they had signed off on landmark changes to the county's rural growth plan, but opponents are vowing a legal challenge. County commissioners approved new growth rules this summer in response to a 1999 order from Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet that required the county to work with its citizens to come up with better environmental protections for its rural land. The rules apply to some 93,000 acres on the edge of Golden Gate Estates known as the rural fringe. Other changes, still under state review, would apply to almost 200,000...

‘We’re not willing sellers’, say River’s End property owners by Sue Forde, Editor Citizen Review Onlinewww.citizenreviewonline.org Published 08. 26. 02 at 10:24 Sierra Time Clallam County, WA – 8/26/02 – Mark Thomas, acting on behalf of the property owners at River’s End on the Dungeness River, appeared before county commissioners to let them know once again that the private property owners are not “willing sellers.” The commissioners planned to accept bid proposals for environmental impact studies and appraisals toward the buyout of property there. Mark Thomas, acting president of the Dungeness Beach Association, brought a letter to the Clallam...

Sunday, August 11, 2002 N.M. Suit Sets Off Habitat Backlash By Tania Soussan Journal Staff Writer     A successful New Mexico court case challenging habitat protections for a small, endangered bird has sparked a wave of similar lawsuits by ranchers, farmers and developers.     It all represents a turn of events in endangered species litigation.     Environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, had racked up a series of legal victories in recent years. Their lawsuits forced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate "critical habitat" more quickly — protecting the area essential to an endangered...

Failed Predictions: book review of 'Betrayal of Science and Reason' by Paul Ehrlich The Ehrlichs have a message--simplistic and wrong; the paranoid title of their book pretty much tells the story: They sense a conspiracy by "anti- environmentalists," who have "successfully sowed seeds of doubt among journalists, policy-makers, and the public at large about the reality and importance of such phenomena as overpopulation, global climate change, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity." But there is no conspiracy out there; and if journalists are listening, it may just be that they find scientific facts persuasive. Paul Ehrlich is a professor of...