California Dreamin’: All the leaves are brown

“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 [...]

Governor Schwarzenegger, AB 32, and Global Warming: Code Redd

“When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power.“- Alston Chase, author of “Playing God in Yellowstone.”

‘Redd’ is another ort in the acronym soup of climate-speak from the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); it stands for “Reducing [...]

Forests and Climate Change, Not Clearcut

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 [...]

The Top 13 Environmental Stories of the Aughts

Here is my olio list of profound and profane environmental news of the past decade–the aughts.

Hurricane Katrina From the toxic sludge left behind on the land to removal of the vegetative buffers by encroaching civilization, hurricane Katrina exposed so many of our environmental shortcomings, all in one storm.

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Nobel Peace PrizeI voted for [...]

WWF Sweden says stopping deforestation helps to slow climate change

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 [...]

Six Reasons Why Fancy TP is No Big Deal

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 [...]

Extending THP Time

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 [...]

Green, Inc.

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 [...]

Hypocrisy Merit Badge

A month ago I wrote here about Stephen Colbert and his Alpha Dog of the Week award to the Boy Scouts of America for Chain Saw Scouting. He finished the award with, “… [the Boy Scouts] will have to start a fire using the apparent friction between what they say and what they do.”

I commented [...]

Chain Saw Scouting Story – Colbert Earns Mythical Preservation Merit Badge

I think Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report is brilliant, but even brilliant people can get things wrong.

The Colbert ReportMon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Alpha Dog of the Week – Boy Scouts of America

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News
Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

Here’s the story The Colbert Report refers to that ran in the [...]