It’s cone collection season… Shout out to all the folks, contract, coop agreement, and force account, collecting cones this year!
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All- I will be on a posting break for the next two weeks. On this break, I’ll still have time to post the work of others, and to comment. So if you have an interesting story or question or hypothesis about something that you would like to share, this would be a great time to do it. Please send your thoughts to me (sharon) at forestpolicypub.com.
There are many of you out there from whom I’d like to hear more outside of the comment format. My thought is that if you can write a thoughtful comment, you could also write a post. It would open the knowledge, experience, topics and stories far beyond those of the current contributors.
Also, next week, I’ll be volunteering at the SAF Convention in Loveland, Colorado. If you’d like to chat, also send an email to the above address.
Again, please consider writing a piece for The Smokey Wire! Not just in the next two weeks of course.
I know that given what folks have heard about Google Gemini, you are curious about its take on The Smokey Wire. I posted it below. Of course, Google knows that I am me, so maybe it tailored its response to be nice. Maybe others would like to try? Here’s a link.
Feel free to ask it questions on our kinds of topics and post in the comments. Here’s what it told me.
The Smokey Wire is a community-sourced online platform focused on news and views related to Forest Service and public lands policy in the United States [1].expand_more
Here are some key points about The Smokey Wire:
Mission: To facilitate open dialogue and information sharing among various stakeholders involved in public lands management, including practitioners, the public, and academic and scientific communities [3].
Content: The platform features articles, discussions, and resources on diverse topics related to wildfire management, forest health, wildlife conservation, and recreation on public lands [2, 4, 5].expand_more
Source of information: While not directly affiliated with the Forest Service, it serves as a platform for sharing perspectives and promoting collaboration on issues related to public lands management [3].expand_more
Overall, The Smokey Wire serves as a valuable resource for staying informed and engaged in discussions about the management and use of public lands in the United States.
I don’t know if people have read about Matt Taibbi’s experience with Gemini but I can only hope that The Smokey Wire stays under their “let’s make stuff up that’s negative” radar screen. Oops. I wonder if it’s absorbing this post into its maw of information?
One of our Anonymous folks asked about a program called “Community Navigators” that showed up on the FS LinkedIn site. I asked the WO Media Office and they said the announcement is coming out soon with more information. Hopefully someone will let me know and I can post about it, as I don’t read the FS LinkedIn feed.
Management Note: What I think are AI Comments Thwarted; if They’re Yours, Let Me Know
We have had some comments from various entities which strike me as possible AI comments, to what end I have no idea. They seem impersonal, add no particular value and have an air of knowing about things that are, in reality, contested. So, I make a judgment call and delete them. If I am mistaken about your comment, please contact me directly via email (see donate widget). Then I will use Real Human Intelligence to change my personal algorithm.
TSW (at least this contributor) Has Lost Access to E&E News for Now
Sadly, we’ve had a breakdown on E&E News, my favorite outlet. The generous ENGO who was forwarding stuff had their subscription raised to $1700 a year, which they can’t afford. I am exploring alternative means of access (volunteering with the FS or other entities who have subscriptions?). Meanwhile if you do get it and see something interesting, please forward the link, so at least we know that there is an interesting story out there even if we can’t access it.
Public Service Announcement on Accessing Paywalled News
Since that happened, I’ve learned some things about accessing paywalled news that you might find helpful
Local libraries often have digital access to newspapers. Some including the NY Times. Worth a check if you run into a paywall. I now have cards at three county library systems, all of which have different ways of accessing different news outlets digitally. And the most recent was just by walking in to a library (in a county I don’t live) and asking for a card.
You can use archive.is where many news stories that are paywalled are saved.
Volunteer Wanted to Dig Into Project on Chequamegon-Nicolet
I received an email (as a media person) from the Environmental Law and Policy Center about violations of the timber sale contract on the Sunfish Timber Sale in the Fourmile Project Area on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin. It’s a Good Neighbor Authority (misspelled God Neighbor Sales in the powerpoint) sale and it looks like thinning from the powerpoint. They are concerned about contractors working over-snow as in the contract, and claim that some cut trees violate the “proposed” old growth definition by diameter, and maybe the intent of the MOG executive order?
Here’s a link to the powerpoint. Anyone who lives in the area and wants to investigate further, please let me know.
A special thanks to all of those who make TSW possible, via funding and other contributions! We wouldn’t be here without you.
First point, we did not really get 20K in donations, as the current widget says.. it turns out that scammers steal credit card info and try to figure out if they are real by attempting to donate online. Aren’t people creative? Needless to say, I have to go back in and check hundreds of quasi-donations for reality. Last guess, prior to the influx of fake donations, was that we didn’t make our goal of $1000 last year. I didn’t want to bug people at the end of the year when they are doing their pre-tax donations, but when you get around to it, please consider a donation. Note that we are not a 501c3 so donations aren’t tax deductible.
In addition to paying various WordPress charges, and our amazing folks at Cloud Nine Web Support, I subscribe to various news outlets (WaPo, NY Times, LA Times) and Substacks, and even recently paid Twitter to get fewer obnoxious ads. These are all going up, and I’m expecting 2024 to require at least $1500 to keep us going.
We also have two potential volunteer opportunities.
(1) Analyzing PALS extract of CEs. It seems to me it would be fun for different people to look at these data and see what they make of it. What I’ve got is totals by Region and category for two five-year periods, simply asking the question “is the FS using more CE’s over time? If so, which Regions are using which ones?” I looked at the data and thought “this would an opportunity for open analysis and peer review” and asked a couple of university folks. They old me that they couldn’t do it (or have it be a grad student project) without funding. And I could write a pre-proposal to write a proposal. If that $20K were real… Anyway, anyone, students, retirees, those currently working, who are interested, please let me know and we can collaborate on this analysis.
(2) Virtual fencing post (that’s a post about fencing, not a fence post). Turns out that the Santa Fe is working with virtual fencing as a pilot with partners and offered to answer questions. This would be a fun post to write for someone interested in learning about this. Maybe a field trip and photos or video?
And if you want to volunteer to write posts on other topics, or have other ideas, please email me (sharon) at forestpolicypub.com.
Many thanks again to Kelly Martin for making herself available for a presentation on the Wildfire Commission Report last Friday! And thanks to all who attended and participated.
We had an interesting discussion afterwards, in which members of the group disagreed on some things (e.g. around the use of beneficial wildfire) and agreed on others (developing affordable housing for firefighters). One of my favorite moments was toward the end of the video, when Kelly talks about her passions for this work, and why she continues working on these issues in retirement. I’m sure she articulated how many of us feel and can’t express nearly as well.
I’m hoping the video will work for those who couldn’t attend. It’s posted here. Please comment below if it doesn’t work for you.
On today’s show, I welcome Kelly Martin to discuss the new Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s report to Congress, everything happening with the workforce, legislation, and beneficial fire.
The Presidential Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission was established in 2022. Kelly was one of 500 applicants who applied to voluntarily serve on this 50-member Commission. She was selected to fill the primary seat representing Wildland Firefighters.
Kelly’s 35-year federal career as a wildland firefighter provided invaluable technical and subject matter expertise to the Commission, ultimately obtaining unanimous consensus on comprehensive workforce reforms (see recommendations 84-103 in the Commission report).
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Comment Moderation- New Tab
I don’t get to read everyone’s comments, but I have noted a couple of requests for moderation. So I made another tab above labelled “Moderation Requests and Discussion” so I can find them. Please put all such comments there or a link to the moderation comments you’ve already made. I do want to respond but I want to be more or less consistent, and I want to be able to find them all. Thank you!
Mike, Jim and Jon were discussing a topic yesterday that I want to dig into a bit, because I think it has a broader context, one about intention.
Mike questioned two of Jim’s cites. One was about the Sea Change funding and one was about the Rocky Mountain Institute and its funding from the Chinese. My view is that generally, people don’t accept money to do things they disagree with (unless you’re an employee). So is money really an important thing to track?
Let’s take three energy examples. Often a person can read that say Senator Manchin is “in the pockets of fossil fuel companies.” But I ask, is it chicken or egg? If a person supports a policy, then organizations that support the policy will like to fund that person.
Just looking around randomly, EDF Action Fund (Environmental Defense) spent $171K for Senator Murkowski’s 2022 win. Do we think that that contribution changed her mind about anything?
Then there’s wind and solar.. the Open Secrets website says.. “Of partisan contributions, 76 percent went to Democrats, who want to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy sources.”
Again, this sounds like industries (and ideological folks) support people who want to foster their industries or ideologies. I suppose if a Congressperson or Senator is lukewarm, a large contribution might make them feel more warm and fuzzy toward a given industry or point of view. Maybe it happens.
Let’s go back to Sea Change and Rocky Mountain Institute, they both have donations from sources we may say are questionable. But we will never know if they have changed their point of view based on this part of their funding. Then there’s this (obviously the far-left designation means the source report is biased, but are the observations they made true?)
Do the Simons invest in renewables because they believe in them, or do they invest in ENGO’s who want to get rid of competitors like oil and gas because of their underlying beliefs or to support the industries they’ve invested in? More chickens and eggs. And to complicate things, currently nat gas electric generation is quite compatible and without large-scale battery capability, necessary as a backup to wind and solar because it’s relatively easy to power up and down. You can see the natgas/wind/solar compatibility in these graphs from across the country the last four days. That’s one of the reasons Sierra Club supported nat gas. .. until they didn’t. Supposedly because some chapters didn’t like it; but other chapters don’t like wind..
My original point wasn’t that people who want to get rid of domestic production of fossil fuels are funded by what we might gently term “non-supportive nation-states.” My point was rather “if we can’t distinguish these proposed “keep it in the ground” policies from those of non-supportive nation-states, shouldn’t we ask why that is and have that open dialogue with those holding those views somewhere? Maybe it’s just my personal laziness-perusing 990s makes my eyes glaze over. And if we go into the funding question, we have to go within the complex minds of politicians as to whether they are “bought off” or just “supported by folks who agree with them.”
It seems to me that we are unlikely to delve into their psychology in any meaningful way. So I think we should stick to actions and writing, not intentions.
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Similarly, (not to pick on Mike, as I’ve used this term in the past, as have others), I’d like to do away with the terms misinformation, disinformation and malinformation for the purposes of The Smokey Wire.
I’m always leery of new words entering the lexicon.. if, as our old friend, the author of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), says, “there is nothing new under the sun” chances are we won’t really need new words. I think simply saying “I don’t think that’s true, based on..” will take care of it. The whole misinformation movement seems a bit cloudy. For example, I looked up the definition of it on Google. It said “false or inaccurate information, especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive.” So, whoa! We’ve gotten back into reading other peoples’ intentions again.
When people make up new words or abstractions, I am suspicious that there is an underlying purpose that doesn’t involve my input. Here’s what the American Psychological Association (second on my Google search) has to say and yes, I noticed it doesn’t match the Google definition:
Misinformation is false or inaccurate information—getting the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information which is deliberately intended to mislead—intentionally misstating the facts.
The spread of misinformation and disinformation has affected our ability to improve public health, address climate change, maintain a stable democracy, and more. By providing valuable insight into how and why we are likely to believe misinformation and disinformation, psychological science can inform how we protect ourselves against its ill effects.
And yet, people have been giving out misinformation and disinformation (however defined) since we learned to sign, and somehow Homo sapiens has managed to muddle through.
As to falsehood.. let’s face it – most of us, most of the time are not going to do the investigation to figure out where we come out based on our own review of 990s. Most of the topics we cover are complex, conditional in time and space, and oftentimes it’s difficult to discern what is true. In the words of Politifact, with regard to the Rocky Mountain Institute:
The institute is working with the Chinese government to reduce carbon emissions, but experts say that characterizing this as “ties” to the Communist Party lacks important context.
So there are facts, but they can be stated in such a way that they lack “important context.” Maybe we’ll never arrive at the ultimate truth? Or maybe there isn’t one truth. I’m sure Anonymous would have the relevant philosophical citations. On a more pragmatic level..
Say Amira says to Javier “that’s misinformation”. Amira is implying that either Javier is a doofus who’s been misinformed or that he has ill intentions to misnform others. Or maybe both. We should be able to challenge each others facts and perceptions without implying anything negative about each other.
So here are my suggested substitutions.
That’s disinformation.. = These sources, or my experience, say something different.
That’s been debunked. = These sources, or my experience, say something different.
It appears that we have some new subscribers and it has been awhile since we restated our norms and values. So Welcome!.. you’ll find we are a hospitable group.
The three doors of charitable speech. When commenting, please consider the three doors that charitable speech must pass through. It’s also in a widget in the right column of the website, in case you forget. “The gatekeeper at the door asks, “Is it true?” The second gatekeeper asks, “Is it helpful?” The third gatekeeper asks, “Is it kind?” (adapted from the writings of Krishnamurti by James Martin on p. 169 of his book “Between Heaven and Mirth.) “Many of us spend time on other social media such as Twitter, and TSW is intentionally a different space. We don’t always achieve that, we are human beings. Sometimes people just need to vent, and we are fairly tolerant of that. On the other hand, personal attacks are not OK. There are plenty of other internet spaces for that.
The rule of “some”. Again, TSW is about ideas and evidence, not tribalism. So if you make a comment about any group, you might be challenged. If you say “some” Republicans or “some” ENGO’s” it is both likely to be more true and less likely to be challenged. No one is perfect, and we are a forgiving lot, but like I said, you may be challenged.
Anonymity is OK, welcome, in fact. We have different Anonymous people on TSW who all have different perspectives and have different informational and philosophical gifts to share with us. From Hillel to the Hill. I’m retired now, and the drama that led to my retirement was partially from my involvement here, so I will always be sympathetic to any of the Anonymous among us.
If you have a claim, support it; if you’ve read a book or a paper, tell us the claim and something of the rationale in it and/or use a quote. If it’s a paper, do your best to find a non-paywalled copy for us to peruse. Don’t just tell us that there are good ideas in a 300 page book and we should read it. Which reminds me.
Consider contributing more. We’re interested in book reviews, and contributions on other topics. Contact me in advance to see if its something that might fit. And then there’s money. We are obviously a shoestring organization- we need $1000 a year to keep going, and so far only have $220 for this year. The recommended donation/subscription is $30 per year. We don’t take advertising and so are truly independent.
Hopefully, these are not too difficult or constraining for you. We look forward to hearing your ideas, experiences, and information! Thank you for your presence and again, welcome!
Do any community members have values they would like to add?
Legislation is extremely important to our mutual interests, and we need one or more volunteers to cover it.
Even if you just want to follow one topic, or one bill, that would be a tremendous help. You probably know if you’ve ever felt drawn to understanding the federal legislative branch.
What we offer: personal coaching and contacts, editing.
What you need: enthusiasm and curiosity about the legislative branch, our issues, and some writing ability.
Experience on the Hill is a plus but not necessary. You don’t have to be located in DC.
No hard targets, no due dates, just support and appreciation.
Please contact me if you’d like to chat about possibilities.
I’m taking off for two weeks and Steve Wilent has graciously volunteered to administer TSW in my absence.
I ran across this about “crown shyness- see photo above.
The experts in this essay by a grid expert sound like the ID team from Hell. Working on a fuel treatment project, for example, sounds mild by comparison. And this is when the experts agree on the ultimate desirable outcome!
“Utilities Are Not Experts, But Rather a Collection of Experts
There is not a common single body of expertise commonly shared by the many experts that make up an electric utility. Rather than are many experts with differing areas of expertise with demands that can place them at conflict with those operating within other areas of expertise. Effectively managing an electric utility is highly dependent upon balancing the input of many competing “experts”. The goals and priorities of large areas such budgeting, rates, maintenance, operating, environmental, planning, construction, compliance, marketing, R&D, legal, strategic planning. as well as sub areas within these, will often be in conflict as to the actions a utility should take. Leaders have to weigh the inputs from these areas to provide direction and make decisions.
Competing Experts and Goals
Healthy competition is good and necessary. The goals of maintenance are worthwhile, but sometimes in order to best utilize our resources and address other concerns, utilities might need to temporarily depart from what the maintenance experts advocate. The experts in projects tell us how long it should take to complete a project. But in emergencies, other experts might insist that this project must be completed in a much shorter time frame to allow for an upcoming summer peak. Transmission planning and distribution planning experts within the utility might favor different solutions for correcting an area problem: do you beef up the area distribution or do you add more support from the transmission system? With conflicts of this sort, sometimes you find a compromise, but in others one set of experts must give in.
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Specialization and Silos
In additions to problems of breadth of expertise, problems around specialization also confound attempts at expert consensus. Understanding the full extent of emerging grid reliability problems requires an understanding of generation planning, transmission planning and systems operations. Intermittent, asynchronous wind and solar energy sources impact generation planning, transmission planning and system operators. These three areas have differing expertise and experts within these areas that are not always well informed of the concerns of the others. Generation planners are concerned with providing generation 24 hours a day 367 days a year far into the future. They assume transmission planners will take care of delivery problems. Generation modelling is focused on energy production and they look at megawatt-hours. Transmission Planners are worried about the transmission system during peak times of stress. They make efforts to understand the implications of potential generation, but intermittent sources make that challenging. Their focus is based on demand levels so they look at megawatts. System Operators worry about issues of generation and transmission but they operate day to day and in the near term. Their focus is on dealing with the system as it is, not determining what it might be or handle scenarios in the far future. Further within these areas, there are specialists who go deep and do not well understand the problems within their own broader area.”
As you may have noticed, originally I was looking at getting donations of $3K to improve the design of The Smokey Wire. Well, that’s been going on for some years, and meanwhile upkeep has eaten into some of the funds collected. However, having reached that goal, there is still some funding left for making design changes or fixes.
So.. what changes would you like to see? Please mention device, browser or if you are reading within the WordPress app when you run into problems or suboptimalities. I can figure out how many we agree on, and how many we could fund. Do you use the search function? How is that working?