Monday, October 22, 2007

Topic of the Day: Forest Fires-Part 1

Last night, 60 minutes had a story about the rise in intensity of forest fires in the US in the last decade. Missing from the story was any mention of the part that the Sierra Club and other organizations that claim to be interested in the environment have played in this disaster.

No mention was made of any of those organization's efforts to convert as many acres of forest as possible to roadless wilderness where fire fighting and insect mitigation are difficult to impossible.

No mention was made of the part politicians like Mark Udall have played in an effort to ensure that the forest service can not easily approve thinning even in areas that can be managed. His support, along with Diana DeGette, and John Salazar of roadless wilderness areas that can't be managed in any way wasn't mentioned, either.

In short, unlike most stories where 60 minutes is quick to assign blame, these forest fires are a natural phenomena that can be blamed on "global warming." The environmentalist extremists are blameless.

The largest fire this year was 600,000 acres. That is 1000 square miles. Another this year was 500,000 acres. Fires of 200,000 acres, once rare, are now commonplace.

If "global warming" is causing these fires and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are causing global warming, one wonders why 60 minutes couldn't make the connection between the megatons of CO2 dumped into the atmosphere by these fires and the environmentalist extremist communities' refusal to allow reasonable forest management.

60 minutes did report one fact that was new to this author: Half of the area burned was so badly damaged that it won't be reforested in the foreseeable future. That will have a serious impact on water supplies.

Nice Job, Mark! Keep those campaign checks coming from the Sierra Club and its allies.

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