Make Their Case
We received the following note from Yahoo at Yahoo, a nom-de-plume no doubt.
You refuse to understand or even see all sides of any given issue. Y at Y
Got me! Partly. I don’t refuse to, but I definitely don’t understand the Sierra Club’s position. Why don’t you explain it us. Make their case.
Because I think I nailed them. Their goal is to incinerate America’s priceless heritage forests and any and all private property within 30 miles of Federal land. By “incinerate” I mean burn it hot and hard, altering whatever ecosystem is there to ashes and weeds. They do so to gain control over those properties. They seek to destroy, render useless, and then seize control of the burned lands. By “control” I mean dehumanize, leave to rot, sprout tick brush, and burn again.
Why else would the Sierra Club (and their ilk) sue every single Healthy Forest Restoration Act project since that Act was widely discussed, debated, passed, and funded by the U.S. Congress, signed by the President, and implemented by the USFS as ordered?
Do they despise and seek to undermine democracy in general?
Is it because “the loggers are cutting ancient forests”? Hardly. Have you read the HFRA? It expressly forbids any fuels management in old-growth stands. And yet, the old-growth stands are the ones that need the treatment the most! They are the stands with the most resource values most at risk from catastrophic fire. That’s what the top foresters and forest scientists say, and I agree. But the HFRA is very limited to second-growth near private property and communities.
Instead of restoration forestry, as implied in the title, the HFRA is a fuels management program in dense, high-risk forests at edges of the USFS boundaries. The idea is to prevent private property (ranches, farms, tree farms, rural residences, rural communities, and sometimes urban areas) from being incinerated by fires that arise on Federal lands.
Why is the Sierra Club against that? Make their case.
They were bugged because the diameter limits weren’t small enough. The point to any forest treatment is what’s left, not what’s removed.
For maximum safety, the USFS could strip their land to bare dirt a mile wide inside their boundary. But a better idea would be to leave a park-like forest with widely-spaced tree crowns and grassy understories that are periodically control-burned to prevent fuels build-up. You know, the heritage condition, referencing the healthy, sustainable forests of pre-Contact eras.
The HFRA doesn’t go that far, even in second-growth, but it’s a start. Or would be, if the ilks didn’t sue to enjoin every HFRA project.
I have no idea why they do that. I see only evil motives and tragic outcomes in their machinations. Make their case.
BC — let them make their own case. I do not wish to speculate. Whatever they do say, if anything, I am sure we can refute utterly.
What they really need is some pain. They think they have a right to sue, sue, sue and shut down beneficial projects that protect forests and communities. Okay, then maybe they need some lawsuits back at them.
Better yet, they might need some boycotts of the businesses that bankroll them.
They want to burn me out? Makes me want to bankrupt their supporters and drive them all to the Poor House. And it is my right to do so, just as they think it is their right to subvert the democratic process, destroy forests, and wage war on rural America.
THOSE kind of people seem to forget that “Healthy Forests” was a broadly bi-partisan bill overwhelmingly signed into law after an amendment insisted upon by the Democrats. The ignorant eco’s all think that it was Bush himself who crafted the entire law.
I’m hoping that Y at Y will step up to the plate and explain why the Sierra Club is right to stop every project which cuts down a tree, whether that tree belongs there, or not. We’ll probably hear the “party line” that always compares rape with sound forest management. We’ll probably be be called “tree murderers”, despite the tens of millions of trees that they hope will die and burn at high intensity.
I’m having trouble getting ANY eco’s to engage me in a scientific debate on preservationism vs. management. I believe that many of them are having guilt pangs and a loss of self righteousness. Only the most ignorant of preservationists are still demanding that “letting nature takes its course” is the true path to turning dry pine forests into rainforests.