Our World and Everything in It

The Bush Administration is at it again. They are still trying to push the carry/use of concealed weapons and loaded firearms in our national forests and state parks. Don’t we have enough gun issues? Everyone other than POACHERS has been happy with the ban for 78 years now. Reagan opened the can of worms that now threatens to open wider to allow people to shoot firearms in our parks and forests. “Firearms were first banned in national parks in the 1930s in a bid to curb poaching. The current rules, implemented under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, allow visitors to national parks and refuges to possess firearms so long as they are ‘rendered temporarily inoperable or are packed, cased or stored in a manner that will prevent their ready use.’” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-01-10.asp.  This is a ludicrous law that invites illegal use of firearms, because why bother carrying a gun at all?  How would you like to be the first to get shot, or your dog? I have a feeling this ties in with the eradication of wolves somehow, because Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior is involved.

Allowing guns and firearms into parks is dangerous and just encourages poaching again. I’ve already read reports of the attacks by poachers on the black bear populations in the U.S.  Much like poachers in Africa, that are desperate, poachers in this country are killing off our black bears for sale of their gall bladders on the black market in Asia. We know better. We’re supposed to be a big moral nation. Somehow that morality disconnects from all things nature, where we take no responsibility for our actions that affect the environment or creatures in it. We treat animals horrendously. Ditto for air, water, and earth then believe God will take care of things.

God is not a puppeteer. To believe so is the relinquish a very important principle, that of free will.  He gave us charge of the earth’s domain and we pollute it, and then claim huge, quick changes are natural or rather supernatural. But we’re over the limit with pollution the effects of which are showing up everywhere. We can clearly see that this administration is pushing us to the point of harm relative to air, water, land, health and safety. Everything seems to be particle per unit to the limit anymore. We push the envelope for how much damage we can do without really getting massively sick. Capping and trading and shifting pollution around, like people I ran into that advocated letting BP dumping excess ammonia into Lake Michigan because the EPA signed off on it, and it created a few jobs.  Now we know that the EPA in our country is in trouble, and Indiana is gaining more jobs by becoming more environmental versus allowing companies like BP to stretch pollution to the limits . 

We’ve had far too much faith in the decisions of our government in lieu of following the faith of our spirit where we have a conscience about all we do and how it affects our brother, not just in this nation, but on other continents. Instead, we just sit back and let the current administration push the environmental envelope toward disaster for the love of money, an earthly commodity with finite use. And now there this push to add loaded firearms to the list of disservices perpetrated against our forests/parks, and animals/habitats? Just what we need.

To allow more guns in public areas to a population that isn’t getting the idea of brotherly love, let alone extending that love to all living things by sustaining a clean, healthy environment for all , is out right dangerous and only invites more evil not good.

 

While I was on the NASA website I couldn’t help but click on ” Forests Damaged by Hurricane Katrina Become Major Carbon Source.” That article stated that, “a research team has estimated that Hurricane Katrina killed or severely damaged 320 million large trees in Gulf Coast forests, which weakened the role the forests play in storing carbon from the atmosphere. The damage has led to these forests releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” The satellite pics in the article show the devastation from Katrina. It was quite a wipe out.

The NASA article also stated that “[t]he carbon cycle is intimately linked to just about everything we do, from energy use to food and timber production and consumption. [] As more and more carbon is released to the atmosphere by human activities, the climate warms, triggering an intensification of the global water cycle that produces more powerful storms, leading to destruction of more trees, which then act to amplify climate warming.”

So one event, like a massive hurricane, results in deforestation and decay that cause more CO2 to be released, and more overall warming for more massive hurricanes. Destructive cycle seemed to be formed rather easily. Not good for us.

Read more and check out the web short “In Katrina’s Wake” @ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html.

I just wrote about Colorado’s forests being decimated by beetles whose populations are out of control due to global warming. They are killing lodge pole pines with other evergreen trees at risk also, while the Bush administration pushes to end the Roadless Rule that will decimate one of the largest forested areas in the country, which is in Idaho to the mining, oil, and lumber industry.  The big picture for the wolf kill, buffalo kill, and mustang roundups is getting clearer isn’t it? Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho are some of the states with huge forests at risk without this rule, and the same states that are home to the slaughter of these animals. If these animals remained protected, their habitat couldn’t be touched. They must be removed for the next phase of this unethical, and unscrupulous plan to take place! So now we should see clearly we’ve been lied to again about the reasons for the slaughter.

The intelligence and ethics level of this administration has hit an all time low by destroying the very trees that help remove CO2 from the air and protect us from baking at a time when many of our trees have been destroyed already by fires and floods over the past two years, and on the heels of the Colorado lodge pole blight. We need more trees, not less. Do we see Europe attacking their landscapes as we do? http://www.15years.gov.si/backround-information/biodiversity/.

We cannot afford to let this happen in the interest of big money because once our forests are gone, they are gone forever. And don’t think that once oil, lumber, and mining interests move in they will simply stop with a new president in office. This is the march of the wealthy destroying our country in their last ditch effort to get a stronghold before this administration is through. The sad thing is we haven’t even begun to practice conservation. We haven’t unleashed the alternative energy innovation we already have. This is the same type of unintelligent, quick-triggered decision-making that ignored any and all alternatives that got us into a war, which is costing us dearly. We must unite to keep this type of movement from advancing until we see this administration exit. 

The Heritage Forest Campaign explains:

Spanning 58.5 million acres in 38 states, America’s national forest roadless areas contain some of our nation’s last pristine forests. From the expansive wilds of the American Southwest and Northern Rockies to the colorful deciduous woods of New England and the Appalachians, these last tracts of unspoiled backcountry provide habitat for wildlife, headwaters to rivers, and unparalleled recreational opportunities for millions of Americans.

The state of Idaho contains over 9.3 million acres of National Forest roadless areas - the most of any state outside of Alaska.  Idaho’s roadless backcountry makes up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found.

In 2001, the U.S. Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects Idaho’s and all of the country’s national forest roadless areas from most logging and new roads being built for mining, coal, gas, logging and other development. The rule was the result of almost three years of deliberation that included 600 public hearings and more than 1.5 million written comments submitted with the overwhelming majority supporting the complete protection of all remaining roadless areas.

The American public has continued to support this policy, and has repeatedly opposed proposals to reverse or weaken it.

Please join forces for OUR heritage, OUR land, OUR wildlife, and OUR vision for the future not the powerful big money interests that seek to take every last pristine piece of God’s country we have left.

Sign a petition to Chief Gail Kimble to save our forests. There is an April 7th deadline so please sign on for a unified voice: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/idaho_roadless/i3u8iui227b7jnew?
 

This week the senate will vote whether to allow guns in national parks. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that by itself ruins the idea of a “park” to me. So I’m strolling through the park enjoying the peace and tranquility but hear gunshots instead. Was it a misfire; did someone get shot; is someone poaching? So much for the organic feel I get from the word “park” knowing that in the deepest areas of the woods a real nut gets to carry a gun, shoot someone that happens by, and bury them all in one neat tidy place. OK, a little dramatic, but it still doesn’t seem right. 

Gun legislation points to the NRA and sure enough they are pushing this Coburn amendment. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican wants to allow state law rather than federal law to govern the carrying and transportation of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges, according to (ENS) Environmental News Service today. Already I see 50 different gun laws. Even people that want to carry a gun to a park will be confused. I realize Republicans favor states authority and less federal rule, but too many different rules are a reason this is not feasible. And why carry a gun at all? I don’t get it? This looks suspiciously like illegal hunting where you’re only guilty if you’re caught. And the only thing raising a ruckus relative to illegal hunting right now is wolf hunting. This amendment will obviously encourage opportunistic poaching. Curious.

What’s more peculiar about this amendment is that there is no reason offered as to why carrying a gun in a national park is necessary or relevant to anything since hunting is either controlled or prohibited in the parks. The ENS article went on to say:

On February 1, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police wrote a joint letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject the Coburn amendment. ‘Senator Coburn’s amendment could dramatically degrade the experience of park visitors and put their safety at risk if units of the National Park System were compelled to follow state gun laws,’ warned the rangers and retirees.

The ENS article also said that the Coburn amendment actually “forbids the Interior Secretary from enforcing ‘any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System…,’ and that On December 14, 2007, a group of 39 Republican senators along with eight Democrats wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging repeal of these regulations because they are ‘confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.’” These senators think it’s unnecessary to have laws that prohibit carrying loaded firearms where people hike, bike, and camp? One standardized federal law is confusing as compared to 50 different state laws? And the federal laws are burdensome to whom, the NRA? Hmm.
 
That just about says it all doesn’t it? We have a curious amendment that allows the states to do what they want in national parks like carry loaded guns while the federal government is told to butt out. The people who spend most of their lives in national parks, the rangers, write a letter advising against Coburn’s amendment, that it is not a good thing for the parks. But in the meantime the NRA gets 47 senators to urge the federal government to get rid of its regulations relative to possessing a firearm anyway. Wonder how much this cost the NRA? If this amendment passes it will cost the parks their reputation for tranquility and peace, and a place of REFUGE for wildlife that’s for sure, not to mention campers. It’s probably going to cost something else down the line in the way of natural resources too.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-12-091.asp.
 
 

Just got an e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife. It appears Bush/Cheney spent their holidays plotting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to just go ahead and start slaughtering hundreds of wolves by helicopters and planes in what should be their sanctuaries, our national parks, particularly Yellowstone.

Wolves haven’t been taken off the federally protected, threatened and endangered list. Threatened by Bush/Cheney that is. Human beings are still the most heartless hunters and some of the decisions out of this administration show lack of empathy for any living thing. What is the difference between a canned hunt, Internet hunting, and the aerial chase and kill that is proposed for wolves especially in Idaho and Wyoming? The animals are trapped. They cannot possibly outrun the planes, helicopters and technology.

We citizens wrote letters, voiced opinion, and literally raised hell over the dog fighting indictment against Michael Vick and we’re going to allow this to happen? Wolves mate for life, raise their young with care, and are not the enemy of man. When are we going to stop listening to the propaganda of this administration?

Wolves are an important part of the entire ecosystem of this country that is systematically being destroyed by a handful of people in power and that power is out of control. Thousands of people have protested the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska for years. It never stops and is spreading? It’s evident no one in this administration has any regard for the opinion of its people. We are such a poor example to the rest of the world as far as the environment and wildlife, that to ask Japan to quit heartlessly killing dolphins and whales will fall on deaf ears. And our neighbors to the North will keep clubbing innocent baby seals to death as long as we keep setting stellar examples like this.

Between canned hunts, internet hunting, aerial hunting and every other kind of extremely non-sporting and bloodthirsty hunts that have come up since you know who is in office, why do we put up with it? Our world and everything in it, and our reputation as a nation of moral, decent citizens is in jeopardy over whom we’ve elected. While Christians everywhere were given a message to embrace environmentalism over the holidays, a very amoral group in Washington plotted to eradicate an entire species of animal in at least two states without ever taking them off the protected and endangered list.

According to Defenders, “Just last week, Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), George Miller (D-CA), Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and Norm Dicks (D-WA) warned in a letter to Secretary Kempthorne that de-listing wolves in the Northern Rockies now is a mistake.”

Evidently, this administration doesn’t listen to the elected officials that represent us either. I say if they would do this to an innocent animal, they would do as much to us without batting an eye. So much for trust hey? And Bush made the most admired list in a recent gallop poll? If that’s the truth than America’s average IQ of 98 just dropped a notch.

Email Dirk Kempthorne Secy. of Interior formerly governor of Idaho that helped get grizzlies and wolves under jurisdiction of the individual states and in a position for slaughter. Looks like he’s been plotting for quite awhile—almost 2 terms as governor and only a year in this position and he’s on his way. Let him know what you think of his bloodthirsty, unsporting proposal: webteam@ios.doi.gov

I just got through reading some current worldwide environmental news and have to say, we don’t seem to have a clear-cut view of anything. What we profess, what we say, and what we actually do is all contrary.  First, I saw the Pope give his blessing and speak on behalf of peace and the environment over the Christmas season to over one billion Catholics. And the World Council of Churches that represents 560 million Christians worldwide is calling concerns over global warming a matter of faith. The WCC has had a program about climate change since 1992 and books about ecotheology (I’m interested).  Dr. Samuel Kobia the Secy. General of the WCC stipulates that Christians are well aware that dominion over all living things was given to us. He said that meant, “We were entrusted with the care of the rest of God’s creation.” The emphasis is on the word “CARE” here.

Care doesn’t come under savagely taking a machete to an orangutan trying to defend it’s young, or hooking a live dolphin in the side and sending it to be stripped of skin before it’s even dead, while the resulting meat is basically poison from ingesting too many pollutants, or shooting 6 elephants dead for stepping into a coffee field that is supposed to be their sanctuary. We should actively try to get this stopped, but our demands for things like lumber and coffee encourage it.  Oh and don’t forget about native animals and the latest Internet hunting websites that have yet to be banned in over 20 states.

There was the news about a zoo tiger that got loose and killed one man, and maimed two others before it was shot dead. The media wanted to know and put this question out to the public if it is wise to keep caged and wild animals? 145,000,000 people visit zoos every year without incident. If we didn’t have zoos the likelihood of seeing a live polar bear, tiger, elephant, orangutan, gorilla, condor, panda…etc., would more than likely be nil. I have to wonder about the media here. Do they operate with any type of perspective about things, or just pounce on a bit of fantastic news with so much fervor it gets skewed out of proportion and normalcy? People are maimed in cars every day and no one says: “Gee, should we really be driving?”

 

We’ve heard about individual states taking their own course of action for the environment with many implementing their own environmental laws especially since the Supreme Court decided that the EPA is supposed to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases according to the Clean Air Act but has not done so. So what do I read? The Bush administration: “Thursday announced that it will block efforts by California, Maryland, and 15 other states to cut emissions of global warming gases from cars and trucks.” Now that is an example of talking out of two sides of one’s mouth isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to be forging ahead with alternative energy anyway?

 

This administration got elected based on a big moral majority. Do we or do we not celebrate animals? I hope we  understand the world is in our care. We simply can’t keep spreading and demanding, taking up room where other things live. We end up killing the very same animals we ooh and ah over at the zoo. We love cartoon movies with animals, little talking pigs, Flipper, the Lion King. We are supposed to teach our children to be kinds to animals. But when animals act out in their normal manner we talk about dispensing with them right away, like the zoo issue. We sacrifice living breathing creatures in our own species chain over things we need for our big houses or our big lifestyle. And we elect our president/vice president based on morality when this latest threat to block states trying to do right by the environment proves the opposite. So where do we stand between what we believe, what we say, and what we actually do about our world and everything in it because I can’t tell?

 

By the way, a current gallop poll has President Bush as the number one pick among the most admired men and women of 2007. Is that not the icing on the cookie for contradictions as far as you’ve read them here?
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-24-01.asp.

      

  

 On Christmas Eve I think it’s important to remember where the Christ Child was born, AMONG THE ANIMALS in a manger. Every nativity scene is one with animals. A manger in those days was: “a feed trough found in a stable. In Bible times mangers were made from clay mixed with straw or from stones held together with mud; sometimes they were carved in natural outcroppings of rock,” http://www.padfield.com/1999/manger.html. There is an actual picture taken of a manger at Megiddo used in the stables of King Ahab on the linked website.

So the King of Kings was placed in the feed trough of the animals of a stable. This is a quite a statement about the beasts of the earth, that they were worthy of such an event. This Christmas take the time to reflect not only on mankind, but peace for the earth and all of the living things that are in jeopardy of extinction. The “beasts” as in animals of the earth are written about in the old and new testament over 200 times. Their importance is undeniable. We weren’t meant to live in a world without animals, especially those that have been here for centuries that are now in danger.

PEACE

 (The photos are from Defenders of Wildlife, defenders.org.)

Todays Detroit Free Press had a huge article about global warming wreaking havoc on thousands of animals. It said 3000 flying foxes dropped dead falling out of trees in Australia, butterflies that lived in high altitudes of our continent have vanished, and many more species will disappear in our lifetimes due to global warming. Knowing I’m part of the human population that has created this makes me ashamed. Yet we have state’s governors working themselves into a frenzy to obliterate every last wolf if they have their way.

There has been a campaign for quite some time to stop the aerial killing of wolves. It started and continues in Alaska. Many Alaskans want it stopped, and people all over the country have petitioned Alaska to stop it. Alaska has a new governor and it’s become even worse for wolves there. The issue has finally made it to Alaska’s ballot to stop aerial hunting once and for all.

Defenders of Wildlife disclosed that Alaskan officials earmarked $400,000 in public, or taxpayers dollars, to launch a campaign of lies trying to defend its aerial hunting policy. It’s the wilderness for God’s sake. Where are these animals supposed to live? They serve a purpose, a very important purpose.

The Discovery Channel aired a special from Yellowstone Park. A ranger took the TV cameras to watch wolves. The park is thriving due to their return. The ranger showed rows of different types of brush and trees that were being eaten down by animals the wolves feed on. He pointed out how the wolves helped balance the park in many ways. They are a good thing and welcome there.

As far as livestock, there was a special on the National Geographic channel not long ago that chronicled researcher, Shaun Ellis, who has literally given his life to the study of wolves. He has proven that wolves are family oriented, stick together, and have their own territory. Wolves that might attack rancher’s cattle were deterred by simply broadcasting the howl of another family of wolves. The new invading wolves stayed away for good not wanting to disrupt the territory claimed by the other wolves. I think human beings could benefit greatly from studying wolves. They “RESPECT” one another, yet we shoot them from planes and helicopters.

There is another serious viewpoint to the politics of these wolf hunts. This inhumane hunting practice undermines the efforts of others. Our own Senator Carl Levin created a bill to stop the clubbing of baby seals in Arctic Canada. Why would Canada listen to us about seals when like barbarians, we hunt wolves this way? It isn’t about the hunters or hunting. It’s about the politics of being a horrible example to the rest of the world, and where our credibility takes another bite. America does this all the time. We point out wrongdoing elsewhere and have garbage in our own back yard to clean up, including wars, and threats of wars.  Who will listen to a people who allow these things to happen? All we’ve done to exact change in this country in the past 7 years is to vote. When we do see demonstrations against politicians anymore, we are looking at other countries, not America.

This wolf witch hunt hit me and hopefully many others at a time when I am just fed up with killing. I’m already disheartened that so many animals we grew up with, that have been around for our lifetimes may just disappear. As humans we have done enough damage to the earth and everything in it. Yet we pursue more killing and once again it’s coming again from our leadership.  It’s a leadership that is so out of touch with citizens that it pays no attention to petitions and outcries from the public. Isn’t this thirst for blood getting a little stale? In retrospect, the wolf commercials from the last election certainly depicted the wrong villains.

And there are worse than Sarah Palin, Gov. of Alaska, Idaho’s Gov. Butch Otter has worked his gun toting constituency into a frenzy against wolves. That state launched a ballot initiative to remove ALL wolves. What type of intelligence is this? And it comes from a governor of a state? It’s a lynch mob who uses technology to try to wipe out an entire species of animal. They obviously haven’t bothered to learn about or care enough to explore all venues for control, if control is even needed. It looks like sport hunting to me. Wyoming wants to follow this mob. The Bush/Cheney administration is pushing to hunt them in our, “OUR” national parks too.

It’s easy to see our states are no longer united. When federal legislation that was put in place by us and preceding presidents for protection of these animals is repealed by this determined, uncaring machine of a government, then the states will each have their way. This is just an example of how divided our states are already and will become even more so in the future if we keep dismantling the federal government like extreme right wing ideologists would like and have pretty much done.

I don’t like the face of this so-called moral, but militant, hostile America. I like the old vision of open plains, majestic mountains, clean water and air, animals in their natural habitat and citizens that actually act like moral beings. The message that we, “will know them by their deeds” has been neglected for far too long. The proposed deeds of this handful of governors without conscience and the Bush administration says much about their inability to have empathy, or concern for living in harmony with nature, a basic sin for this country from the beginning.

Representative George Miller of California has introduced the PROTECT AMERICA’S WILDLIFE bill, (PAW) Act HR 3663. Write, e-mail, or call your reps and tell them you want this bill supported. It will ban the use of airplanes and helicopters to kill wolves nationwide.

http://www.rallycongress.com/letter2congress/698/?gclid=CNmHspeIlJACFQdfgQodXEeO5w.

http://www.yellowstone-natl-park.com/wolf.htm

www.defenders.org/

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=52

 I just read my National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) newsletter and thought I’d pass on some of the latest news. There is a new plan—again—to sell off some of our national parks. It seems the U.S. is shy of money, (the war), and this is one of the ways this administration plans on making up some of the deficit. So why not sell off some of our national heritage, and to who? … the wealthy of course. Some prime habitat in Greater Yellowstone for bears, elk, and wolves, part of the Greater Cumberland Plateau, all in all 270,000 acres of national forests over 35 states may be up for grabs.
 
     If we sell off all this forest land, continue to have the forest fires that seem to increase every year, strip mine for coal, extract oil from tar sands which also strip mines large swaths of land, and continue the urban sprawl, what do we expect will happen? There is an awful lot going on behind the scenes that everyone assumes has cleared up. Well guess again. The war in Iraq overshadows much.The arctic drilling is not a dead issue either.
 
The Bush administration is eyeballing the Beaufort Sea, a year round polar bear habitat just offshore of Alaska’s Arctic national Wildlife Refuge and Western Arctic Reserve. Does reserve mean anything anymore? I thought we were supposed to be getting past the idea of oil?  Not going to happen until we get an oilman out of office. We have a president that says we need to get away from our dependence on oil and the drills are literally poised to ruin pieces of pristine land everywhere.

Take the tar sands oil development, which is supposed to be one of the most destructive mining techniques of all. The process involves strip-mining large swaths of land and Bush is prepared to offer tens of thousands of acres of it near Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and Glen Canyon wilderness. The terrain would be irreversibly altered forever.

To keep practice up for war games, the Navy plans on blasting thousands of square nautical miles with what is described as “ear-splitting” mid-frequency sound on sea mammals who are trying to survive in their ocean habitat that we are polluting with mercury and garbage from cruise ships to freighters. Coal mining threatens to strip the Rocky Mountain habitat of grizzly bears by taking 40 million tons of coal out of the Flathead River Valley by the Cline Mining Corporation. I’ve talked about the abuse of land from coal mining where mountaintops are literally removed. The plan will establish waste dumps and settling ponds right on top of the headwaters of the Flathead River in BC. It may be happening in Canada but the trouble is that it threatens wildlife downstream in Montana’s Glacier National Park and poisons the watershed region of the Flathead River.

And finally, the federal government threatens the revived wolf population again. I guess they think the wolves were only useful during the last election for scare tactics about terrorism and continuing the war that no one seems to want any longer. First we let wolves populate, and then brutally kill them off. To me it smells of canned hunts. There is no reason to attack wolves en masse this way. It was seen on TV that wolves are territorial. When a recording of another pack is aired via loudspeaker the experiment worked. Wolves that were predatory in that particular area stayed away. There are many humane ways to do business that this big moral society bypasses. If you really care about the wolves contact Governor “Butch” Otter of Idaho and tell him what you think of him. He wants to take the first shot at the wolves and to eliminate at least 75 percent of them. Ditto for the wolves in Yellowstone Park. Remember that big battle to allow them to come back. We did, and now those in power want to kill them off again. See what I mean about playing games with their lives. They were used for the last election, and now abused by the users.

I think we’re all feeling a little abused these days.

Eminent Domain is a well-known issue in Monroe County. Signs “No Eminent Domain” sprouted across lawns in Erie against the railroad. Michigan is one of nine states with ballot issues in the recent election that resulted in restricting eminent domain. We know the problem well. Eminent domain is a landowner’s worst nightmare next to Mother Nature. It strips a citizen of property rights in a blink much like a tornado that is seen and gone.

Frank Eathorne, a 3^rd generation rancher in Wyoming voted for Bush-Cheney and didn’t mind the big oil and gas boom that brought jobs and

royalties to the state. He figured it couldn’t be all that bad, until it hit home. Frank thought he owned 32,000 acres. Turns out he only owns the grass on top. The federal government owns most of what is beneath. Washington has no ethics where oil is concerned. Frank built a new home in a far corner of his property to get away from the noise of 40 oil wells, 80 miles of pipeline, and 3 railroad tracks.

Why should we care? Frank voted for the environmental grinches. The federal government is doing this everywhere though. In a year-end push, the Republican Congress is going to hit the floor in support of anything big energy. Our national parks and forests are up for grabs. “The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Forest Service have been selling long term leases of wild, pristine public lands to oil and gas companies determined to lock them up for development for decades,” Earthjustice Newsletter Dec. 2006. The federal government wants to poke around our public lands without review of consequences for the environment. Some examples:

 

• The BLM tried to lease the remaining 389,000 acres of previously protected land in Alaska. The entire Arctic coast in Alaska outside the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would belong to oil and gas developers.

• Clinton’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule was tossed. It protected 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from building roads, logging, and development. It was a powerful tool against developers. A federal court judge has only recently reinstated it.
• The Bush Administration has habitually tried to permit drilling in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming
• The BLM is trying to open 90% of New Mexico’s Chihuahua Desert to drilling. It is a biologically diverse desert ecosystem and an energy developer’s land grab.
• In 2005, the Forest Service opened up 52,075 acres to new drilling in forests.

Closer to home, the AuSable River’s South Branch area is being threatened by Savoy Energy. Michigan’s Dept. of Environmental Quality approved a permit to drill near the secluded spot. The state owned 5,300 acres of wilderness surrounds miles of the AuSable’s South Branch. It is the Mason Tract and one of the greatest trout fishing areas in the lower 48. George W. Mason, an auto industrialist donated the land to preserve the experience of the river and the wild. The state owns the top land. The federal government own the subsurface mineral rights. This area is in trouble. A road was started, destroying the old forest area of the south branch. Earthjustice has halted the progress for now.

How do the feds get around drilling in areas that are protected? It’s called slant drilling. If they can’t legitimately let big energy drill somewhere, they lease the surrounding land to set up slant drills. They drill at an angle into the ground beneath the protected land. Los Padres National Forest has 20 such drills around one end of its perimeter. Some of the drills are positioned near sensitive habitats. One is near Lake Piru already listed as impaired by the EPA. It’s not just about a couple of drills.  As Frank found, there are also deep wells and miles of pipeline. Expanded oil drilling in Los Padres will also emit 12,179 more pounds of air pollutants per day.

This is an awful lot of activity on behalf of fossil fuels by the federal government. Aren’t we  repositioning ourselves for new sources of renewable energy? It looks like we’re hearing the old “fork tongue” again.  We need to voice our concerns to congress and push for alternatives. We need incentives for companies that think green. We need to stop the demand for fossil fuels that gives the wrong people power.  Our land has been high-jacked. The song says “This land is your land, this land is my land.” And I want it back!

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
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