Robert H. Nelson is at it again, pitching the transfer, sale, or lease of much of our federal lands. Today’s installment comes from the Denver Post, 3/11/2011, where Nelson writes as “Guest Commentary” a little diatribe titled Free America’s West. I remember Nelson’s earlier attempts to sell the idea of selling or leasing much of the federal estate. I wrote about it in my little quasi-blog Eco-Watch in 1995, as Public Lands, Private Rights, Public Responsibilities. Let’s look at a bit of both my argument and Nelson’s. You can decide which is in the best interest of the American people.

Here is a snip from my “Public Lands, Private Rights, Public Responsibilities”, which was in part a response to Nelson’s Book Public Lands, Private Rights:

Even though much of the history of the West (or at least the mythology of the West) has been written in terms of individual rights and responsibilities, there has always been lurking in the shadows of conscience the public side of life and the responsibilities that accrue to living in communities, in regions, in nations, and on Earth. To highlight some of these issues consider the following: (1) responsibilities to maintain clean air and water systems; and (2) responsibilities to provide habitat for communities of species that keep landscapes functioning as forests, as marshlands, as prairies, etc. to form the environment that nurtures the variety of life that provides both sustenance and quality for our own existence?

What are we to do, if anything, to try to maintain the functions of the biosphere that cleanse both air and water throughout the world? Many of those functions are performed by our forests, rangelands, marshlands, and estuaries. Also, what value do we find in the presence of other species with whom we share the Earth? We commonly recognize and mourn the loss of each species that vanishes from the planet (at least those few that we hear about–or even know about) but we seem to forget that these ‘other’ species do not recognize our so-called property rights and often fall victim to human endeavors. …

Arguments that [Robert ] Nelson and others bring to the table are only germane when placed in context. Absent context how could we get to the heart of this or any other issue? What is at issue, it seems, is: Who are we as a people? What is our heritage? What heritage are we to leave to those who follow in our footsteps? Some of our collective desire to leave a proud heritage is wrapped up in the noble goals embodied in federal land and resource law. What are we to do, for example, about habitat needs for species that have grown up and flourished in Western wildlands? What about the access to relatively undeveloped public lands (also strictly undeveloped lands in primitive areas and wilderness areas) for recreation and spiritual renewal that so many take for granted? Would this access be retained in proposals for changing management? If so, where and at what cost to the user? What about the ‘attraction value’ that accrues to lands adjacent or in close proximity to federal set-asides from development? Are Sun Valley, ID, Jackson Hole, WY, Whitefish, MT, Telluride, Aspen, Vail, CO, Taos, NM, Moab, UT valuable in their own right as isolated communities filled with rather rich inhabitants? Or are the values somehow generated from the intertwining of private and public lands and the unspoken trust that the public lands are to remain intact? …

Yes, public land management is expensive. Federal government administration is expensive, as noted by all recent administrations as well as the Congress. So is a new home, a new car, or even most vacations we Americans take. But that is not to argue that we should abandon government improvement efforts. Government should be improved, and if the Government Performance Act of 1993 ever takes hold some of the costs of federal administration will better balance with the beneficial outcomes from that administration. And in part that balance will develop, assuming that it develops at all, due to partnerships between federal, state, county, and municipal government administrations working in concert with other organizations hand-in-glove for better government in general rather than locked in head-to-head competition one with another. As we begin to discuss these matters maybe we can find better roles for government generally and specifically in the hierarchy from local to federal government. But to ask right now, out-of-context, if federal government administration is too expensive is to ask a question anchored in air.

And here is a snip from Nelson’s “Free America’s West”:

The U.S. can no longer afford to keep tens of millions of acres of “public” land out of service. Some of these lands have great commercial value; others are environmental treasures. We need policies capable of distinguishing between the two. …

Probably no more than 20 percent of the tens of millions of acres of public lands are nationally important, requiring federal oversight and protection. This includes 45 million acres of Forest Service and BLM lands in the national wilderness system and other environmentally special areas such as BLM’s Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.

An additional 60 percent, perhaps, are ordinary lands, used principally for recreational purposes, such as hiking, hunting, fishing and off-road-vehicle use. Most of the remaining public lands are useful primarily for commercial purposes, such as the timber-rich forests in the Pacific Northwest.

A rational public lands policy more suited to current and future needs would put the nationally important lands into a newly reorganized federal environmental protection system. Ordinary recreational lands would be managed at the state and local level, perhaps by transferring them to local counties. What better steward of a local recreation area than the people who live in the area?

The commercially most valuable lands, meanwhile, would be transferred to new ownership or put under long-term federal leases. Lands that have real commercial value could produce a double benefit: revenue from leases and land sales, and additional revenue from the jobs, minerals, oil, gas, lumber and other commodities the freed-up lands would produce.

It is time to end outdated federal land policies that are draining our country’s wealth, tying up valuable resources in red tape and bureaucracy, and harming the environment.

Where will all the hot air around this issue go this time around?

As reported by the New York Times, climate scientist Michael Mann bemoans the “rise of the Internet as a vehicle for the spread of scientific misinformation.”  In the spirit of Sharon’s “period of reflection” regarding this blog, I offer the following article about his book, not to inflame, but as an opportunity to commend Sharon for her attempts to provide a forum for posters to present scientific facts along with  a wide array of sometimes not so scientific opinions while attempting to keep a clear distinction between the two. Sometimes the debate fostered by NCFP seems poised to devolve into a” shouting match” but usually folks here can agree to disagree. Occasionally I see comments that skirt the margins of Sharon’s no-name-calling rule but I have yet to see a comment (other than spam) that I would refuse to approve.  Maybe they get zapped first by Sharon, or maybe the sort of people who participate here are just inclined to be civil (unlike, apparently, some talk show hosts.)  It certainly takes a special breed to while away one’s spare time debating the finer points of planning the future of our national forests!

A Dispatch From the Barricades

As I noted in a recent article, the debate over climate science has come to resemble other angry battles in the nation’s culture wars. Much as one might dislike the idea of the earth’s future being decided in a shouting match, that seems to be the reality of the situation we are in.

Columbia University Press

That’s how Michael E. Mann puts it in a new book called “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.” Dr. Mann, a scientist at Pennsylvania State University, gives readers an inside look at a string of battles going back to 1999 in which he has played a central role. Many of these center on the famous “hockey stick,” a reconstruction by Dr. Mann and colleagues of the past thousand years of temperatures on the planet, relying on indicators like tree rings.

The graph of reconstructed temperatures is called a hockey stick because the right-hand side shows temperatures veering sharply upward in the last century. The paper and its graph, along with subsequent studies by Dr. Mann and several other scientists, suggest that this recent warming is anomalous, at least over the past millennium. Through no choice of Dr. Mann’s, the graph became a symbol of modern climate science when it was featured prominently in a 2001 report by a United Nations panel.

His book, published by Columbia University Press, is essentially about the drama that ensued after the paper was set upon by climate-change contrarians determined to undermine Dr. Mann’s conclusions. The tale features hearings in Congress, fevered denunciations of climate science as a “hoax,” stolen or leaked e-mails and one investigation after another after another. It also features mainstream scientists and leading scientific journals roused to defend Dr. Mann and the scientific method.

The book is secondarily about something else: the rise of the Internet as a vehicle for the spread of scientific misinformation. As it happens, the years when Dr. Mann was fighting these battles were also the years that public discourse of all kinds moved off the traditional news pages and into cyberspace. That offers enormous possibilities for the advancement of human knowledge, of course, but no informed reader will come away from Dr. Mann’s book feeling very happy about the way it has played out so far.

Associated PressMichael E. Mann

Important as the topic may be, I suspect this book will be more useful for insiders already familiar with the players and key events and less so for general readers. Anyone wanting a straightforward, elegantly written overview of the science might prefer Kerry Emanuel’s “What We Know About Climate Change,” which has the merit of being both complete and short. A reader seeking to understand climate politics in Washington might be better advised to pick up Eric Pooley’s “The Climate War.” (Dr. Mann, it turns out, was not the first to use martial language.)

Dr. Mann is focused instead on telling the tale of the hockey stick as he lived it. That is fair enough, but some of the discussion gets pretty arcane, as when he spends many pages on the details of the statistical arguments between him and his critics. It was probably necessary that he do so, but it will be tough going for a reader without much statistical background. Dr. Mann said he hoped that general readers would tackle the book and simply skip the parts they find too technical.

The Mann case exemplifies what to me is one of the central mysteries of climate contrarianism. Dr. Mann’s findings are but a small element in a vast body of scientific research suggesting that human society is running a serious risk with the planet. But many of the contrarians have been obsessed with the hockey stick for a decade, gnawing it over and over as a dog would a bone. They seem to think if they can disprove one small element of climate science, the whole edifice will collapse.

Unfortunately for our future, the findings of modern climate science are a great deal more robust than that. They do not depend on the validity of the hockey stick, as Dr. Mann himself makes clear. Even if they did, climate science would appear to be in pretty good shape: subsequent papers by other researchers with no stake in the original have confirmed his results. Investigations of Dr. Mann and other scientists have led pretty much nowhere, with the latest of them, by an attorney general in Virginia who is a climate contrarian, effectively shut down by that state’s Supreme Court last week.

Still, the climate wars go on, and perhaps they will for as long as the fossil-fuel industry sees political delay as being in its interests.

“The decades of delay in reducing carbon emissions have already incurred a very real cost to humanity and our environment,” Dr. Mann writes. “Each year that emissions reductions are delayed, it becomes increasingly difficult to stabilize CO2 concentrations below safe levels.”

It is no wonder that outdoor enthusiasts so treasure the Black Hills. Where else do western and eastern trees mingle, living in apparent harmony? Spruce, pine, birch, aspen and burr oak are some of the combinations. I shot these pictures while doing goshawk surveys. These are also available for free limited use.

This sure beats walking in manzanita or bear clover!

It is the wet areas that harbor the most biodiversity. Lush and green.

The higher elevations in the Spearfish RD have these spacious meadows. I ran across this old truck, abandoned long ago.

My best (photo) work is from National Parks. I have extensive amounts of pictures from Yosemite, Crater Lake, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks. I’m currently building this Facebook fan page but, there are enough photos there now to keep you distracted for a while. If you like them, please “Like” Larry Harrell Fotoware. Thanks, and enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Larry-Harrell-Fotoware/145797075533465

Please join us Tuesday, March 6th from 10 am to 11:30 am (MST) for a webinar on changes in wildlife populations and habitat following the mountain pine beetle outbreak. This interactive discussion is part of the Future Forests Webinar Series, which serves to facilitate conversations among scientists and managers about the range of future management challenges and opportunities following the beetle outbreak.
Regional Wildlife Biologist for the Northern Region (Beth Hahn) and several researchers with the Rocky Mountain Research Station (Vicki Saab, Barbara Bentz, Rachel Loehman, and Bob Keane) will present on topics ranging from implications of the MBP outbreak for avian populations and habitats to models predicting changes in wildlife habitat suitability under different climate and bark beetle conditions. They will explore questions such as:
• Which life history traits and strategies of wildlife species predict short-term (0-20 years) positive and negative responses to beetles and fire?
• What are the appropriate spatial and temporal scales for evaluating wildlife responses to beetle outbreaks and wildfire? and
• How are site-specific management histories incorporated into large-scale simulation models of ecosystem processes that affect habitat suitability for wildlife?
Come share your observations, questions, and thoughts!
When: Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 from 10:00 am – 11:30 am (MST)
Who: Forest Service resource professionals, managers, cooperators, and partners interested in post-outbreak forest recovery — please circulate this email to anyone who might be interested!

How: Register at http://www.fs.fed.us/rmrs/events/registrations/future-forests/. Up to 5 days ahead of the webinar, you will receive an email from Megan Matonis ([email protected]) with instructions and a link to attend.

SAF credit: Names of participants will be submitted to SAF for 1.5 category 1 CFEs (continuing education credits).

Without Martin around to poke fun at me, there has definitely been less humor on the blog. I did find this news story today.

An ice climber exposed himself to the elements Monday afternoon by climbing a frozen waterfall in nothing but his boots.

Around 2:30 p.m., a National Forest Service employee was driving through Spearfish Canyon when a naked man climbing up Bridal Veil Falls interrupted his view along the scenic byway. A second man, fully clothed, was on the ground photographing the escapade.

“As soon I came around the corner, I kind of realized there was something funny going on there,” said Chris Zoller, an assistant fire management officer. “I was pretty flabbergasted to say the least.”

Zoller kept driving, but reported the brazen scene to Bonnie Jones, a forest protection officer. She arrived just as the au natural climber, back on the ground, was stepping into his clothes.

“He told me it wasn’t as cold as you think it might be,” Jones said.

The two Black Hills area men in their 20s told Jones they wanted to make the free-soloing, or climbing without a rope, a bit more liberating.

“They wanted to have a freeing experience. They thought it might be humorous,” Jones said. “They were just goofing off basically.”

Jones gave the two men verbal warnings. Climbing in the buff may be covered under the state public indecency law that says someone has to be annoyed, offended or alarmed by the public display.

“We would prefer that people don’t climb naked,” Jones said. “It could be distracting if you’re driving. If you see a naked guy climbing, you might drive off the road.”

Naked or not, people are discouraged by the forest service from climbing Bridal Veil Falls because inexperienced climbers are regularly rescued by the fire department after getting stuck at the top, Jones said.

Read more: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/communities/spearfish/naked-ice-climber-scales-frozen-waterfall/article_2589fd76-5766-11e1-a138-0019bb2963f4.html#ixzz1mVDtCJ8l

In keeping with the Holiday season, the Forest Service announced it is uniting with the Ad Council to promote Universal Pictures’ new movie, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. At least that’s likely how Universal Pictures’ p.r. department spun the story to its board. The Forest Service says that Universal Pictures is promoting forests to kids. [BTW, I’ve got four teens in the house; they know about forests. They would just rather not have much of anything to do with them.]

My guess is that the Forest Service’s bold partnership will attract the interest of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who wants to cut-off funding for the Forest Service’s public education programs because they are too green.

It would not be the first time pro-logging interests tried to ban the Lorax.