Climate change increases stress, need for restoration on grazed public lands

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The following article was written by David Stauth.  The entire scientific study is available here.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Eight researchers in a new report have suggested that climate change is causing additional stress to many western rangelands, and as a result land managers should consider a significant reduction, or in some places elimination of livestock and other large animals from public lands.

A growing degradation of grazing lands could be mitigated if large areas of Bureau of Land Management and USDA Forest Service lands became free of use by livestock and “feral ungulates” such as wild horses and burros, and high populations of deer and elk were reduced, the group of scientists said.

This would help arrest the decline and speed the recovery of affected ecosystems, they said, and provide a basis for comparative study of grazing impacts under a changing climate. The direct economic and social impacts might also be offset by a higher return on other ecosystem services and land uses, they said, although the report focused on ecology, not economics.

Their findings were reported today in Environmental Management, a professional journal published by Springer.

“People have discussed the impacts of climate change for some time with such topics as forest health or increased fire,” said Robert Beschta, a professor emeritus in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, and lead author on this study. “However, the climate effects on rangelands and other grazing lands have received much less interest,” he said. “Combined with the impacts of grazing livestock and other animals, this raises serious concerns about soil erosion, loss of vegetation, changes in hydrology and disrupted plant and animal communities. Entire rangeland ecosystems in the American West are getting lost in the shuffle.”

Livestock use affects a far greater proportion of BLM and Forest Service lands than do roads, timber harvest and wildfires combined, the researchers said in their study. But effort to mitigate the pervasive effects of livestock has been comparatively minor, they said, even as climatic impacts intensify.

Although the primary emphasis of this analysis is on ecological considerations, the scientists acknowledged that the changes being discussed would cause some negative social, economic and community disruption.

“If livestock grazing on public lands were discontinued or curtailed significantly, some operations would see reduced incomes and ranch values, some rural communities would experience negative economic impacts, and the social fabric of those communities could be altered,” the researchers wrote in their report, citing a 2002 study.

Among the observations of this report:

• In the western U.S., climate change is expected to intensify even if greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced.

• Among the threats facing ecosystems as a result of climate change are invasive species, elevated wildfire occurrence, and declining snowpack.

• Federal land managers have begun to adapt to climate-related impacts, but not the combined effects of climate and hooved mammals, or ungulates.

• Climate impacts are compounded from heavy use by livestock and other grazing ungulates, which cause soil erosion, compaction, and dust generation; stream degradation; higher water temperatures and pollution; loss of habitat for fish, birds and amphibians; and desertification.

• Encroachment of woody shrubs at the expense of native grasses and other plants can occur in grazed areas, affecting pollinators, birds, small mammals and other native wildlife.

• Livestock grazing and trampling degrades soil fertility, stability and hydrology, and makes it vulnerable to wind erosion. This in turn adds sediments, nutrients and pathogens to western streams.

• Water developments and diversion for livestock can reduce streamflows and increase water temperatures, degrading habitat for fish and aquatic invertebrates.

• Grazing and trampling reduces the capacity of soils to sequester carbon, and through various processes contributes to greenhouse warming.

• Domestic livestock now use more than 70 percent of the lands managed by the BLM and Forest Service, and their grazing may be the major factor negatively affecting wildlife in 11 western states. In the West, about 175 taxa of freshwater fish are considered imperiled due to habitat-related causes.

• Removing or significantly reducing grazing is likely to be far more effective, in cost and success, than piecemeal approaches to address some of these concerns in isolation.

The advent of climate change has significantly added to historic and contemporary problems that result from cattle and sheep ranching, the report said, which first prompted federal regulations in the 1890s.

Wild horses and burros are also a significant problem, this report suggested, and high numbers of deer and elk occur in portions of the West, partially due to the loss or decline of large predators such as cougars and wolves. Restoring those predators might also be part of a comprehensive recovery plan, the researchers said.

The problems are sufficiently severe, this group of researchers concluded, that they believe the burden of proof should be shifted. Those using public lands for livestock production should have to justify the continuation of ungulate grazing, they said.

Collaborators on this study included researchers from the University of Wyoming, Geos Institute, Prescott College, and other agencies.

Powder Struggle: Snowmobilers, Back-country Skiers Battle in Court

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In my dealings with individual national forests, it seems to me like many of the skier/snowmobiler conflicts are handled locally, which makes a certain amount of sense. And could more forest-wide planning really be the solution (to anything, really, but…)? Because at the end of the day, we will have lots of taxpayer-funded hours generating documents that might come to the same conclusions about the specific areas of conflict.

Reading the paper, it seems like we are in tough budget times. Is this really the highest and best use of taxpayer dollars?

Plus these would have to be funded by scarce recreation funds that could be going to campgrounds, trails, or even managing motorized use on the ground where the conflicts occur (If I’m wrong about this, please enlighten me)?.

What I like about the quotes in this article is that the director of Winter Wildlands Alliance, Mr. Menlove, is direct and honest about using the courts as a tactic to change policy. See the quote “we think that the quiet is a resource that should be managed” below.

Here’s the link and here are some excerpts:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Early-season snow just dusts the peaks above Idaho’s capital, but a courtroom battle down in the valley could have a big impact on who gets to ride where on the accumulating white powder.

A backcountry skier advocacy group, the Idaho-based Winter Wildlands Alliance, will ask a federal judge Wednesday to force the U.S. Forest Service to create plans for snowmobiles limiting their travel on public land — a decision that would apply to national forests all over the country.

National forests since 2005 have been required to craft travel management plans restricting wheeled cross-country travel to designated routes. But snowmobiles were exempted, as the agency allowed individual national forests the freedom to decide if such winter travel plans were necessary.

Some forests created them, including the Clearwater National Forest in north central Idaho. Others, such as neighboring Nez Perce National Forest, begged off.

Absent any consistency, alliance director Mark Menlove speaks of tense outings in places like the Boise National Forest, where hordes of powerful motorized sleds unrestrained by a winter travel plan sometimes roar past panting groups of backcountry skiers, disturbing their icy, human-driven idyll.

“One snowmobile can track up an area in an hour that a dozen skiers could use for two weeks,” said Menlove. “It is a competition for a limited resource. Beyond untracked powder, we also think that quiet is a forest resource that should be managed.”

I also thought this was interesting…

That rule, they argue, was clearly meant to target wheeled vehicles that many natural resource managers said were tearing up public land. Snowmobiles are simply different, the lawyers said.

“An over-snow vehicle … results in different and less severe impacts on natural resource values than wheeled motor vehicles traveling over the ground,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Julie Thrower, asking Bush to reject Menlove’s group’s claims.

From his Boise office, Menlove counters his group — dubbed an advocate for “human-powered snow sport enthusiasts” — filed its federal lawsuit only as a last resort, after the Forest Service rejected its out-of-court bid to have the snowmobile exemption lifted.

So they seem pretty upfront that they want to add snowmobiles to the travel management rule, and so they are using a legal path. Not so much “the FS is breaking the law” although there must be those kinds of claims in the complaint.

“One snowmobile can track up an area in an hour that a dozen skiers could use for two weeks,” said Alliance Director Mark Menlove. “It is a competition for a limited resource. Beyond untracked powder, we also think that quiet is a forest resource that should be managed.”

Note: back to our previous thread, sounds like these folks in Idaho, who know little about say, the White Mountain, will, through litigation, possibly be setting national policy. Having your comments weighed with others is not necessarily the most impactful way to promote your (non-local) point of view. Yes, public comments were taken nationally on the national travel management rule.

Witness: Interior Sec Salazar threatened Colorado reporter

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Perhaps more prophetic than they thought, the folks at The Onion newspaper ran this photo and story “Secretary of Interior Decks Smart-Ass Buffalo” on October 13, 2012. http://www.theonion.com/articles/secretary-of-interior-decks-smartass-buffalo,29914/

Well, most two-term presidents look to make changes in their cabinet.  Looks like Interior Secretary Ken Salazar just made President Obama’s decision a whole lot easier.

According to Bryon Tau at Politico:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatened to punch a reporter on a recent trip to Colorado, according to witnesses.

Dave Philipps, a reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette, tried to ask Salazar about his appointments to the Bureau of Land Management and the wild horse population in the state. Specifically, Philipps had questions about the government’s relationship with a wild horse buyer who allegedly sold more than 1,700 horses to Mexican slaughterhouses.

Ginger Kathrens, executive director of the Cloud Foundation, witnessed the exchange between Salazar and a reporter. Her organization put out a release cataloging the exchange and blasting Salazar for his treatment of the press. The group captured video of some of the exchange, but stopped recording before the threat itself.

According to Kathrens, Salazar took two questions from Philipps before disagreeing with his line of questioning.

“Don’t you ever … You know what, you do that again… I’ll punch you out,” Salazar reportedly told Philipps before ending the interview and walking off.

The alleged incident took place when Salazar was in Colorado on Election Day, on behalf of the Obama campaign.

California Collaboratin’

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Smith and DeStephano, mentioned in the article

Thanks to Terry Seyden for this story about apparently successful collaboration in California. I excerpted parts that deal with our interest in local jobs and who is doing the work. Here is the link and below are the excerpts. Italics are mine.

After hours of meetings, listening, and grant-writing, now the group is doing just that.

On a recent fall afternoon, Robert Smith drives a faded green masticator that chews up small trees and brush. He’s clearing fire fuel in a part of the Stanislaus National Forest that abuts several subdivisions.

Smith owns and operates Smith Grinding, but when the recession hit, he couldn’t find work. He almost lost his home.

“This area, at one time, had like 23 mills in it, so it was a booming industry,” says Smith. “It slowly has died out all through the ’80s and ’90s. And even what was going on in here came to a screeching halt, what, probably 3 years ago. On a personal level, going out and looking for work, there was none.”

As a part of the consensus group, the forest service is now hiring local contractors like Smith to do much-needed clean-up in the forests. And the consensus group also helped to form a contractors coop, so the group can bid on projects as one unit.

Smith says it’s given him work — and he likes the idea of helping the Amador and Calaveras county communities get those jobs.

“We have a lot of people come in and take this work form us, when we have it right here and should be making money ourselves.”

Bring Back Jobs

Putting people back to work isn’t as simple as just creating jobs. So the consensus group also includes community organizations that teach job readiness; and it works with probation officers to help former prisoners make the transition back to work.

That’s how Anthony Destefano got a job with the crew.

“I’m an electrician by trade, but with the building and the economy dropping, I got laid off, and it was impossible it seemed like to get a job,” Destefano says.

Destefano says he was unemployed for two and half years, and he got himself into trouble with drugs and landed in jail. When he got out on probation, his supervisor referred him to this work crew .

“I’ve just been moving forward, doing positive things. This job has helped me to achieve some goals,” he says.

The section Smith and Destefano just finished clearing looks like the forest floor got a buzz cut underneath the tall oaks, pines and firs they’ve left standing.

The section Smith and Destefano just finished clearing looks like the forest floor got a buzz cut underneath the tall oaks, pines and firs they’ve left standing.

Environmentalist is No Longer the ‘Devil Incarnate’

The crew isn’t just brute labor hacking down trees and brush. Part of the training involves scientists teaching them how to recognize species, what to take out and what to leave, says Katherine Evatt, an environmentalist with the Foothill Conservancy.

“We’re is reducing the risk of catastrophic fire in our communities, which is also a big threat to critical habitat for spotted owls and other wildlife,” says Evatt.

“And it’s going to allow us to start to reintroduce fire as a tool in the Sierra,” she says, adding that because fire has been suppressed for over 100 years, some parts of the forest are too dense to safely use fire as a natural tool.

“Local Questions Decided On Local Grounds”: Not in This Century?

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This is a guest post from Bob Zybach (photo above). It carries forward from Matthew’s and my discussion about local people, and is the national government of the US treating its’ own local folks views differently than, say, international conservation organizations recommend. This previous discussion can be found here.

The question is whether each taxpayer should equally get to decide what happens on national forests, or to what extent local people, and local and state governments should have “more” of a voice.

Here is Bob’s piece.

When Pinchot and Roosevelt first put the Forest Service together under the auspices of the USDA, Pinchot authored the Congressionally-approved 1905 “Use Book,” intended to provide for management of the federal forest reserves. The very first sentences in this manual were:

“TO THE PUBLIC. The timber, water, pasture, mineral, and other resources of the forest reserves are for the use of the people. They may be obtained under reasonable conditions, without delay. Legitimate improvements and business enterprises will be encouraged.

Forest reserves are open to all persons for all lawful purposes.”

And it becomes more explicit thereafter:

“We know that the welfare of every community is dependent upon a cheap and plentiful supply of timber; that a forest cover is the most effective means of maintaining a regular stream flow for irrigation and other useful purposes; and that the permanence of the livestock industry [Note: this is before automobiles and McDonalds] depends upon the conservative use of the range.” (p. 7)

“The administration of forest reserves is not for the benefit of the Government, but of the people.” (p. 12)

And in a letter from the Secretary of Agriculture to Pinchot, in conjunction with the Act authorizing the transfer of the forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture:

“‘You will see to it that the water, wood, and forage of the reserves are conserved and wisely used for the benefit of the home builder first of all, upon whom depends the best permanent use of lands and resources alike . . . In the management of each reserve local questions will be decided upon local grounds . . . and where conflicting interests must be reconciled the question will always be decided from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run.” (p. 11)

The part that keeps getting left out by modern-day “conservationists” is that it is “the greatest number” of LOCAL people that Pinchot is talking about: i.e., “the local demand is always considered first.”

This is what people are talking about,when they speak of indigenous people; local homebuilders and their businesses — only now it is other people in other countries in competition with our own that seems to draw this kind of attention — not US taxpayer “local” people. Somehow, their needs and interests don’t seem to count for much anymore when it comes to the use and management of their local lands.

We are the only country in history to encourage our forests to burn up in wildfires and then let the remnants rot in place until the next wildfire — and to spend billions of dollars making sure this happens! We must obviously be very wealthy to even allow such a condition to evolve.

What a stupid waste, is my opinion. I’m in favor of real conservation instead, and of local resource management — as described by Pinchot and promised by Congress.

Contributed Photos of Thinnings in Ponderosa Pine

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We have had some discussions of thinnings and how material can be left, and may dry out, and thereby make fires hotter potentially closer to the ground than they would otherwise be, in thinned stands. One of our readers (thank you!) sent us these photos. You can click on these to get higher resolution.

Eight Steps to Vet Scientific Information for Policy Fitness

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Peer review- necessary but not sufficient.

For some mysterious reason, my previous post here on the GAO report on the Forest Service has received a great many hits on the blog over the past few weeks. I am interpreting that to mean that at least some readers are interested in the science/policy interface, but who knows? Anyway, this has led to writing a series of posts on my observations on the scientific enterprise. Those who are not interested feel free to flip past.

So here is something I wrote recently, thanks to Bob Zybach and the folks at ESIPRI, when asked what I think a good process would look like for vetting research studies to be used in policy.

Eight Steps to Vet Scientific Information for Policy Fitness

Peer review as currently practiced is probably fine for deciding among proposals or which articles should be published in journals. However, I think that when public funding is at stake for major investments, and people’s lives and property are on the line, we should up our game in terms of review to a more professional level. I was recently asked my thoughts on how to do that, and here they are. It takes all eight steps, outlined below.

1. Is the research structured to answer the policy question? Often the policy question is nuanced.. say, “what should we do to protect homes from wildland fires and protect public and firefighter safety?” This is often where research goes off the rails. Say, historic vegetation ecologists study the past and claim that there was plenty of fire in the past.. but that information is actually not particularly relevant to the policy question. To get funding to do the study (and make the claim that it’s relevant), all they need to do is to pass a panel of scientists who basically use the “it sounds plausible to a person unfamiliar with the policy issues” criterion.

It seems obvious, but for scientific information to be policy relevant, policy folks have to be involved in framing the question. Most, if not all, research production systems that I am aware of do not have this step.

2. Did they choose the right disciplines and/or methods to answer the policy question? Clearly a variety of disciplines could have some useful contribution, as well as an inherent conflict of interest, if you rely on them to tell you if they are relevant or not.

3. Statistical review by a statistician. If you use statistics, this needs to be reviewed, not by a peer, but by a statistician. You can’t depend on journals to do this. The Forest Service used to have station statisticians (and still does?) to review proposals so people worked out their differences in thinking and experimental design before the project was too far down the road.

4. The Quality Assurance /Quality Controls (QA/QC) procedures for the equipment used and data need to be documented (and also reviewed by others). For someone who is unfamiliar with QA/QC applications, you might start with the recent paper attached (lockhart_2009_forest-policy-and-economics), it has a number of citations, and also the implications of the Data Quality Act. What is odd is that the NAPAP program led the way for QA/QC, but it’s not clear how that has been carried forward to today. It might be interesting to take the top-cited papers in forest ecology or management or whatever policy-relevant field you choose and review their QA/QC procedures.

5. Traditional within-discipline peer review.

6. Careful review of the logic path from facts found to conclusions drawn. It is natural for universities or other institutions to hype the importance of research findings. Since people will also use the findings to promote their own policy agenda, and because a paper can be misused even if the scientist is careful (e.g. 4 Mile Fire), it is more important to be specific and careful about your interpretation and conclusions. It is also best that if the findings lead to conclusions that are outside those of the current general consensus, that the authors forthrightly discuss different hypotheses for why their findings are different. Don’t just let the press hype “new findings show” as if the previous studies were irrelevant. The authors know more than anyone else about it, so they should be willing to share what they think about the differences an upfront way. That’s how “science” is supposed to progress, by building on previous work.

7. An important part of professional review for studies involving models should be “what background work did you do?“ Did you use sensitivity analysis for your assumptions? Did you compare model projections to the real world? If not, why not? In fact, the relationship of empirical data to your work should be clearly described, since scientific information derives its legitimacy from its predictive value in the real world, not from being a group hug of scientists within a discipline.

8. Post publication requirements: access by the public to data and open online review. This should be absolutely required for use in important policy discussions.

Do you agree? Do you have additions or deletions or other comments? Why do you think the bar is currently so low in terms of review?”

New Research: California spotted owls and burned forests

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Photo of female and juvenile California spotted owl courtesy of University of California Cooperative Extension (http://ucanr.org/sites/spottedowl/).
http://ucanr.org/sites/spottedowl/

New research has just been published concerning the relationship of burned forests and California spotted owls.  “Dynamics of California Spotted Owl breeding-season site occupancy in burned forests“ – from researchers D. E. Lee, M.L. Bond and R.B. Siegel – was just published in the latest edition of The Condor, an international journal pertaining to the biology of wild bird species. 

Abstract.  Understanding how habitat disturbances such as forest fire affect local extinction and probability of colonization – the processes that determine site occupancy – is critical for developing forest management appropriate to conserving the California Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis), a subspecies of management concern.  We used 11 years of breeding-season survey data from 41 California Spotted Owl sites burned in six forest fires and 145 sites in unburned areas throughout the Sierra Nevada, California, to compare probabilities of local extinction and  colonization at burned and unburned sites while accounting for annual and site-specific variation in detectability.  We found no significant effects of fire on these probabilities, suggesting that fire, even fire that burns on average 32% of suitable habitat at high severity within a California Spotted Owl site, does not threaten the persistence of the subspecies on the landscape. We used simulations to examine how different allocations of survey effort over 3 years affect estimability and bias of parameters and power to detect differences in colonization and local extinction between groups of sites. Simulations suggest that to determine whether and how habitat disturbance affects California Spotted Owl occupancy within 3 years, managers should strive to annually survey greater than 200 affected and  greater than200 unaffected  historical owl sites throughout the Sierra Nevada 5 times per year. Given the low probability of detection in one year,  we recommend more than one year of surveys be used to determine site occupancy before management that could be detrimental to the Spotted Owl is undertaken in potentially occupied habitat.

Review of First Obama Term Forest Conservation Letter- Item By Item #1

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Photo from the Allegheny Defense Project, one of the signers of the 2008 letter.

Thanks to Matthew for sharing this letter that some environmental organizations sent to the President in his first term: RE: 100-Day Priorities for Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

It would be interesting to compare this with other letters sent by other environmental organizations last term, and with all of them this term, to be able to understand more about where the different organizations see issues and opportunities. Here’s the link to the letter.

First, they say they represent “grassroots citizen activists.” I think that’s true, but only a subset of grassroots citizen activists. People familiar with FS litigation will recognize many familiar names. Now Andy said in his comment here that “If I were the Forest Service, I’d pick up the phone and start talking with these groups. ” Of course, the FS is talking to them all the time, as is OGC and DOJ. I don’t know why those groups’ opinions should count more than other environmental groups (say, TRCP, TWS, TNC, Sierra Club). Other than the threat of litigation.. which I don’t think is a fair reason for some groups to have more power than others. That’s why I like FACA committees so much.. there’s less “behind the scenes dealing” and more upfront discussions.

If there were a FACA committee, these groups would have to explain to other interests exactly what they mean and have their points of view discussed and debated. Lacking that, though, we can attempt to do it here.
Here’s one of the first sentences:

1) Often federal land and resource management agencies operate under conflicting policy mandates, with timber, mining, motorized recreation, and grazing allowed to exploit resources at both the environment’s and taxpayer’s expense.

Hmm. Who is on this list and who is not?
First, I think the US Treasury comes out ahead in oil and gas receipts (I could look up coal and other mining also.. but). Here’s something from a GAO report…

The Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Minerals Management Service (MMS) collected the equivalent of over $9 billion in oil and gas royalties in fiscal year 2007, more than $5 billion of which it deposited in the U.S. Treasury; it dispersed the remaining approximately $4 billion to other federal, state, and tribal accounts. These royalties–payments made to the federal government for the right to produce oil and gas from federal lands and waters–represent one of the country’s largest nontax sources of revenue. Here’s the link.

(italics mine)

Now I know that many people with forest backgrounds are not familiar with minerals. But this seems like a fairly sizeable chunk of change. Which is one reason I brought it up on the blog.

So is it accurate to say that this occurs “at the taxpayer’s expense?”. That’s not even counting the jobs and tax revenue that wouldn’t exist but for the development of those leases.

Now ski areas, which have been litigated based on their impacts to the environment, are not on the list. Maybe this is because they are “above cost”?

Here’s a press release about this:

This has contributed $4 billion every winter and created approximately 80,000 full-, part-time and seasonal jobs in hard-hit rural communities. Under the new legislation, the Forest Service anticipates roughly 600,000 more summertime visits that may create and sustain up to 600 more full-, part-time and seasonal jobs. The addition of summer recreation is expected to infuse almost $40 million of direct funding into local mountain communities.

It’s actually not clear if this is $4 billion back to the Treasury or not. Maybe someone on the blog knows.

Motorized recreation is on the list, non-motorized not. We have seen a great many impacts to the environment from non-motorized overuse (trash, trampling, waste, dogs chasing wildlife, etc.). Taxpayers in NYC are paying to fund this environmental damage by people. We could argue that more environmental damage is caused by motorized recreation, but much motorized recreation is people driving around the forest and not getting out but looking at the scenery.

If “motorized recreation” in this sense is OHVs and snowmobiles, can we draw a line and say that all other recreation is “non-exploitive”? Are 50 people trampling and littering by a stream less “exploitative” than an OHV that stays on the trail?

It’s actually hard for me to think of any use that doesn’t “exploit” the environment and cost the taxpayer something. Except for concessionaire campgrounds.. still “exploits” the environment but doesn’t cost the taypayer ;).

Gee, that was only one sentence, but it did lead us up some interesting twists and turns. That’s probably enough for the first post on this letter.

State of the Media, and Implications for Climate Change Coverage:Rescheduled

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UPDATE: THIS HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED, I WILL LET YOU KNOW WHAT DATE WHEN I KNOW

The Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is having a seminar that will be webcast, which is neat (IMHO) both in terms of saving parking and carbon, and it can reach folks across the country and world. Very cool. Previous sessions are also stored here. There is one called “What are blogs good for anyway” I’ve wanted to watch.

The speaker is Tom Yulsman.

Abstract: Today, anyone with WordPress and Youtube accounts can have the equivalent of their own newspaper and television station. This has drawn readers and eyeballs away from traditional media. While news organizations have finally embraced the online environment, “in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future,” according to the 2011 State of the News Media Report from the Pew Research Center. And in the past 10 years, one out of every three newsroom jobs has vanished, with specialists such as science and environmental reporters being among the first to go. At the same time, traditional news organizations — and newspapers in particular — provide the bulk of what is known as “accountability news.” This is the information that the bloggers, pundits, talk radio hosts, commentators and so-called “citizen journalists” depend on to produce their own content. In this talk, I’ll cover the details of these trends, and discuss the implications for covering complex issues such as climate change.

Now, some of you might remember my piece here on the Range Blog of High Country News about whether some topics are too complex for news stories. I wonder what Professor Yulsman’s perspective is from the media side.

Here’s the link to the webinar.