“A clearcut is about as beneficial to the climate as a new coal-fired power plant.”
- spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity
Spin consumes science
Such a sound bite is ‘spin;’ and we should not confuse such political posturing with fact. Perception trumps truth and the California Air Resources Board has caved to [...]
Will the Center for Biological Diversity’s lawsuit filed against Cal Fire have the putative result of slowing global warming? Not likely, probably the exact opposite [...]
Recently, Barnes and Noble launched its own e-book reader, the “Nook,” to compete with the Amazon Kindle.[i] E-readers are handy electronic devices, they can hold hundreds of books, and use an ‘electronic paper.’ They have been heralded as alternatives to ‘dead-tree publishing.’
Without doubt, digital technology improves lives. Consider mobile phones: once isolated African fishermen now [...]
As a child of the 1960’s On April 22, 1970, I, along with 20 million others that day, attended one of the first Earth Day celebrations. We had heard the predictions and we were duly frightened. In those days, most of us in the environmental movement worried about air pollution causing another ice age through [...]
That’s the motion debated (Oxford-style) January 2009 on National Public Radio’s Intelligence Squared. The program runs about 45 minutes and was well worth my time.
FOR THE MOTION:
Peter Huber, co-author of The Bottomless Well and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Bjorn Lomborg, creator of the Copenhagen Consensus
Philip Stott, [...]
Environmentalists Say Plush Toilet Paper Wipes Out Forests
Does buying soft toilet paper really threaten the environment?
The blogosphere overflows with hyperbole saying it does. “Americans Wipe Their Butts with Non-Renewable Trees,”1 one site trumpeted. Another gushed, “Use recycled toilet paper and paper towels and reduce the demand of destroying virgin forests!”2 I’m sure she meant toilet [...]
Note that I fundamentally agree with the World Wildlife Fund of Sweden:
“Sweden should follow the examples set by its northern neighbors in developing systems to halt deforestation…Stemming deforestation is one of the most efficient tools we have to slow down climate change.”
- WWF CEO General Lasse Gustavsson
It’s worth noting that deforestation does not [...]
Well, an article in the October 2, 2009 issue of The Week caught my attention. It’s titled “Soft toilet paper: Environmental threat?” If you’re not familiar with The Week, it draws from multiple sources to give an idea of the news and opinions currently filling newspapers, magazines, and our airwaves.
One of the sources quoted is [...]
An article on the California Progress Report website says that California Assembly Bill (AB) 1066 would weaken environmental protections provided by the the Z’berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act. Taking An Ax To Forest Protection: Legislature Poised To Weaken Timber Harvest Plans was written by Traci Sheehan, Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League. She contends, “Even after several [...]
Fear motivates.
Fear was the reason I got into forestry. When I was in college (I grew up in the 1960s and graduated high school in 1969), Martin Litton’s iconinc picture of a boy looking out over a large clearcut of redwoods caused a number of us to take action.
The Photos Were a Snapshot in [...]