Archive for the ‘National Parks and Forests’ Category

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Rifles, Shotguns, and Semi-Automatic Weapons Allowed in State Parks Beginning February 2010

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Lovely. What will it take to stop this nonsense, someone shooting a kid that looked like a baby bear? The only reason for guns in state parks is to shoot animals. I thought a park was for the express purpose of people being one with nature not taking nature’s life. There is plenty of that outside of our parks.

We can thank our senators and state reps for this “despite strong opposition expressed by national park rangers and former Park Service directors who want American families and wildlife to remain safe in our national parks” according to the National Parks Conservation Association. The NPCA also said, “Under the law, individuals will be able to attend ranger programs while openly carrying loaded rifles or shotguns at Yellowstone National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, Flight 93 National Memorial, and Gettysburg National Military Park.”

If you were part of the opposition to this law you might want to contact your state rep and senators. This bill was stuck in the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009. Not that we are short on things to fix in this country but sticking unrelated items in bills to appease the opposite side of the political pole is and always has been a bad way to do business. It’s how all the nefarious laws come to life in the U.S. This particular bill reeks of the NRA!

Drop Senators Levin, Stabenow, and Representative Dingell (MI) a line asking them how this happened? Let them know that taking a vote against the safety of park visitors, rangers, and wildlife has consequences.

For senators:http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state&Sort=ASC

For Reps:
:https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Guns/Firearms, Industry, Legislators, Morality, NRA, National Parks and Forests | No Comments »

HAPPY EARTH DAY!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Good Morning America’s Sam Champion broadcast from one of our national parks in Virginia this morning because he said: “What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to view what it is we’re trying to protect.” He’s absolutely right.

So this is one heck of a video I found on You Tube that does just that. Its owner frotix says that it is the first part of his national parks of America video and hopes we like it. I like the Native American music. It’s appropriate. Watch the first half:

I couldn’t resist adding another video by owner mhnatt who states that it was his first attempt at making a movie. I think he deserves a big hand. He crossed 10,000 miles in 3 months and 3 countries in his trip out west. It’s poignant and a very good mix of all the different terrain we’re trying to protect by curbing global warming and the impact it will have on these places and critters. Notice there is a clip of a wolf.

Watch the trailer:

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Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Earth, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Marine Life, Morality, National Parks and Forests, Native Americans, Nature, Plants, Protesting Pollution, Science, Trees, Weather/Climate, Wetlands, Wildflowers, Wildlife, You Tube | No Comments »

One-Year Anniversary of Shooting Death of Limpy, Yellowstone’s Famous Wolf

Monday, April 6th, 2009

 

Almost one year to the day, the anniversary of Limpy’s shooting coincides with Secy. of Interior Salazar’s decision to take Yellowstone’s wolves off of the endangered list leaving them vulnerable to hunting once again.

 

Many environmental groups are taking this action to court. And yet others are petitioning President Obama to look more closely at the science behind the introduction of wolves in our parks once again, the benefit they provide, and the fact that they haven’t been allowed to reach their full potential in numbers that was decided upon when they were first introduced.

 

The main problem with allowing states the right to decide on hunting species relative to those that make their homes in our national parks is just that. Yellowstone is a NATIONAL park spanning several states. Why should any one state decide to hunt wolves while others do not? State parks are one thing, but national parks come under federal rule.

 

So to help with the plight of the wolves so many are trying to protect watch the following video of Limpy’s shooting, and pass it along to friends to spread the word and e-mail president Obama that we want to keep our wolves alive thank you.

 

Hopefully, watching the famous crippled wolf get gunned down will show the ugly side of what we call good sportsmanship. It looks like the only sportsmanship involved with the wolf kill is the push by the huge hunting lobby tied to the NRA. The same people that continue the movement to bring guns to our peaceful national parks.

 


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Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Morality, NRA, National Parks and Forests, Science, Sport Hunting, Wolves, Yellowstone Park | No Comments »

Great Lakes Included in New Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

 

The Senate Bill S 22 I blogged about last night has advantages for Michigan. The 200 million acres slated for protection under the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009includes 9 states of which Michigan is one of them.

An article on (ENS) Environmental News Service website highlights some of the details of this package of 160 public land bills that also includes four ocean bills. The ocean bills are important to Michigan and the Great Lakes. They are:

The Ocean and Coastal Exploration and NOAA Act will authorize the National Ocean Exploration Program, National Undersea Research Program, and the Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping Program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to increase scientific knowledge for the management, use and preservation of oceanic, coastal and Great Lake resources.

The Coastal and Ocean Observation System Act will authorize the establishment of an integrated system of coastal and ocean observations for the nation’s coasts, oceans and Great Lakes.

The Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act will authorize a coordinated federal research program on ocean acidification.

The Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act will authorize funding for a program to protect important coastal and estuarine areas that have significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historical, aesthetic, or watershed protection values, and that are threatened by conversion to other uses.

Read more about this bill that took quite a lot of effort and an even longer time to get passed due to opposition by one Senator:

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2009/2009-01-12-03.asp

 

 

 

Posted in Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Conservation, Environmental Legislation, Environmental News Service, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Legislators, Michigan/Great Lakes, National Parks and Forests, Public Lands | No Comments »

Two Hundred Million More Acres May Be Added to Wilderness Protection Act

Monday, January 12th, 2009

 

In an unusual Sunday vote called by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Bill 22 moved forward with a vote of 66-12 that would add 200 million more acres of U.S. land under the Wilderness Protection Act. The Associated Press reported that this bill is “the largest expansion of wilderness protection in 25 years. Prior to this, the bill met with opposition from Republicans. The Sunday vote was an effort to bypass their stalling that some say will “derail” the pledged cooperation between Republicans and Democrats in the near future.

 

In any event, the bill is making its way through to senate approval and according to the same AP article includes California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, Oregon’s Mount Hood, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and parts of the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia for protection under the act.

 

This is pretty binding stuff once it’s decided. It would take another act of Congress to take the same land away from the Wilderness Protection Act. I wondered what the Wilderness Protection Act actually does. In my mind if a place is already a national park, why does it need further protections? According to Wikipedia, which is a good enough source for explaining things, the basics of the Wilderness Protection Act are:

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    • The lands protected as wilderness are areas of our public lands.
    • Wilderness designation is a protective overlay Congress applies to selected portions of national forests, parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.
    • Within wilderness areas, we strive to restrain human influences so that ecosystems [the Wilderness Act, however, makes no specific mention of ecosystems] can change over time in their own way, free, as much as possible, from human manipulation. In these areas, as the Wilderness Act puts it, “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man”—untrammeled meaning the forces of nature operate unrestrained and unaltered.
    • Wilderness areas serve multiple uses. But the law limits uses to those consistent with the Wilderness Act mandate that each wilderness area be administered to preserve the “wilderness character of the area.” For example, these areas protect watersheds and clean-water supplies vital to downstream municipalities and agriculture, as well as habitats supporting diverse wildlife, including endangered species, while logging and oil and gas drilling are prohibited.
    • Along with many other uses and values for the American people, wilderness areas are popular for diverse kinds of outdoor recreation—but without motorized or mechanical vehicles or equipment. Wilderness is the haven of quiet beyond the end of the road, the wild sanctuary we meet on its own terms by leaving the machinery of twenty-first-century life behind. The wild popularity of wilderness recreation shows how hungry Americans are for just such sanctuaries.
    • The Wilderness Act was reinterpreted by the Administration in 1986 to ban bicycles from Wilderness areas, which led to the current vocal opposition from mountain bikers to the opening of new Wilderness areas.

 

Interesting, because I did see some protesting the fact that this will be 200 million more acres no one can use, unless we decide to see the place the good old fashion way—by hiking. But the whole idea is to protect the wilderness from man so we either walk through it leaving the least amount of impact, or we don’t see it at all. 

There is also the questionable $3 million earmark to Alaska for another road to nowhere through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge there. Maybe they should add that area to the Wilderness Act. No mechanical or motorized vehicles in protected areas, no need for a road. And didn’t Alaska’s governor denounce earmarks anyway?

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ja3vNS7u_ovPaeUpzrEKqDzs5TjAD95KSENO0

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Act

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Bureau of Land Management, California, Colorado, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environmental Legislation, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Legislators, National Parks and Forests, Nature, Nevada, Plants, Public Lands, Trees, Wildlife | No Comments »

Passionate Call for Parks in Peril by Laura Bush While President’s Latest Moves Damaging

Monday, December 8th, 2008

I caught a real hoot of an interview on Planet Green between Bob Woodruff and Laura Bush yesterday. She said one of her passions is our national parks. She’s hiked in many, mentioning Denali National Park in Alaska, the park Sarah Palin wants to run a natural gas line through.

Mrs. Bush talked about her geothermally heated ranch, with water collection system, and the fact that White House switched to LED holiday lights. She went on to say that oil is a limited natural resource that will run out, as all of our natural resources worldwide. She won’t admit anything about global warming however; opting to say that it doesn’t matter. We should be practicing conservation anyway.

About global warming, she said she reads the latest worldwide reports like everybody else. She evidently hasn’t read about her husband’s horrible environmental legacy that has had a devastating effect on the national parks she avows to love. There is something seriously wrong with this picture because it was also reported that the Park Service, Dept. of Energy, and Interior are trying to overhaul the parks for more sustainability, or greening them up so to speak. Doesn’t President Bush appoint these dept. heads? Bush is doing his best to further the opposite.

There are plenty of things up Bush’s sleeve before he leaves office. Environmentalists are calling it a Fire Sale for the Oil and Gas Industry. As CBS news website reported:

Late on Election Day, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced a Dec. 19 auction of more than 50,000 acres of oil and gas parcels alongside or within view of Arches National Park and two other redrock national parks in Utah: Dinosaur and Canyonlands. ‘We find it shocking and disturbing,’ said Cordell Roy, the chief Park Service administrator in Utah. ‘They added 51,000 acres of tracts near Arches, Dinosaur and Canyonlands without telling us about it. That’s 40 tracts within four miles of these parks.’
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/16/national/main4608048.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4608048

Then there is the administration’s push to weaken Clean Air Act protections for “Class 1 areas” of national parks nationwide. According to the Washington Post, “[It] has sparked fierce resistance from senior agency officials. All but two of the regional administrators objecting to the proposed rule are political appointees.” The article also said, “In written submissions, EPA regional administrators have argued that this switch would undermine critical air-quality protections for parks such as Virginia’s Shenandoah, which is frequently plagued by smog and poor visibility.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803813.html. Poor visibility from pollution smog over a national park. Sure, man doesn’t affect the environment. Keep believing that until we choke everyone out of existence.

I blogged about other attacks on our national parks by Bush/Cheney too like the repeal of the roadless rule. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/04/were-about-to-lose-one-of-the-largest-forests-in-america-to-big-money-interests/

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/03/pine-trees-in-danger-from-beetles-as-bush-looks-to-trample-our-biggest-forest/.

On top of this Bush just undid a 25 year old statute banning guns in National Parks. Yep, while hiking through one of them, minding your own business, a gunshot could ring out. Real nice place to take the kids and camp hey? The only reason for guns in national parks is for hunting or nuts. I thought critters in National Parks were protected? I thought humans in National Parks were protected from gunshots out of nowhere.

Right after this interview was a segment on Joshua Tree National Park. It’s getting harder to find older trees, and all the trees seem to be in decline. In some parts they are sure to be extinct soon. It was explained Joshua trees need a high desert environment, which is cooler. They also need a couple of nights of freezing weather that no longer happens due to global warming. Fires that weren’t as much a threat before in Joshua Tree Park have ravaged thousands of acres due to drier grasses. All it takes is a lightening strike. There are many more parks in danger of losing the very symbol for which they are known. The wetlands of Everyglades Park are retreating, and the glaciers of Glacier National Park are well…you know. Will we rename the parks? Will the parks even resemble places to preserve any more?

Scientists claim our National Parks are laboratories where effects of climate change are quick to appear. This does not bode well then, and further attacks on our parks by Bush/Cheney is just inexcusably the meanest turn any president has taken against our national treasures. If the First Lady is genuinely concerned she should take her passionate call for parks that are in peril to the source of that perilher husband, oh and let’s never forget Cheney.

Posted in Bureau of Land Management, Clean Air Act, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, Energy Infrastructure, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, National Forest, National Parks and Forests, Natural Gas, Natural Gas Suppliers, Oil Industry, U.S. Dept. of Energy | No Comments »

Developing Our National Forests While Houses Stand Empty

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

I was watching a news program and that little ticker of news across the bottom said that an agreement was hatched between the largest private landowner in the country to use forest service roads for possible development in our forests. Plum Creek Timber Co. is the landowner. Plum Creek became an REIT in 1999.

An REIT is a Real Estate Investment Trust that allows investors to buy equity in large tracks of land. A REIT is also a pass through entity distributing 90%, although many distribute 100%, of their total net income to its equity holders. The equity holders are then taxed on that income, not the REIT. For a pretty good explanation about REIT’s read: http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/real-estate/reit.htm.

Plum Creek is first and foremost a lumber company, the heir to the timberland originally granted by the federal government to the Northern Pacific Railway in the 1860s according to Wikipedia. Plum Creek’s website states that they replant some 85 million seedlings per year, work closely with conservation groups to preserve wildlife habitat and protect clean water sources. A good thing environmentally since they own, or rather their shareholders own, close to 8 million acres of wooded forest land.

But Senators Jon Tester D-Montana, and Jeff Bingaman D-NM want an investigation into the new ruling that allows Plum Creek to use forest service drives because the closed door negotiations didn’t allow the public to weigh in. And I’m beginning to see why. Here’s the bad thing.

Some of the places developed by Plum Creek already are high-end lodge and golf facilities right in the middle of our national forests. Who does that cater to in these economic times? You and I aren’t going to stay and golf there. And what about developing subdivisions in these forests? An article in the International Herald Tribune stated, “Montana county officials say the proposal would make it easier for Plum Creek to sell timberland for houses or otherdevelopment.” This may be the result of all the public/forest land the Bush Administration has auctioned off over the past 8 years.

Development??? There are empty houses standing all over the country so what the heck are we doing? Huge landowners like Plum Creek are no longer just harvesting wood and replanting, they are developing the land for high-end resorts so their shareholders make more money. These are some of our most pristine wild forestlands. It’s about as bad as Governor Crist of Florida filling in and developing the everglades when people are moving out of Florida because they can’t afford the homeowner’s premiums anymore.

So for as much as Plum Creek attempts to do for the environment, they equally hurt it with unnecessary development. It’s becoming a little clearer why there was such an onslaught against wolves especially around our national parks. We just got a stay of relief for the wolves that were scheduled for massive annihilation in the Yellowstone area. Plum Creek has a resort called “The Yellowstone Club,” and others like Moonlight Basin. These are high-end resorts and housing right in the heart of the very lands where these animals roam. Recently, buffalo have been slaughtered as well as wild mustang horses too. Ever wonder why? The excuses that were given for this massive kill were never very clear, but it’s becoming a lot more clear now.

I read about Bush’s plan to allow lumbering throughout our more dense forest areas like Idaho and surmised that development would soon follow. It just so happens that Plum Creek has its hand in natural resource business opportunities also that are relative to mineral extraction, natural gas production, and communication and transportation rights of way. That says a lot more. Mineral extraction and natural gas production is a whole other form of real estate development for big energy and another big motive for the animal removal and the easy, quiet deal to allow the use of forest service roads to facilitate Plum Creek.

The two Senators are worried that allowing Plum Creek to use forest service roads for development will set a precedent for other developers to do likewise. It looks to me like that was the plan all along. Clear out many of the animals that are under protection, make deals on the sly, and the next thing we’re asking is, “When did we lose our forests to homes and country clubs we don’t need?”

We certainly know what happens when humans attempt to habitate areas that are home to wild animals. It becomes a struggle for the critters who ultimately are eliminated as pests.

It doesn’t appear there are many sacred untouched tracts of land in our country anymore that are protected from development and the almighty dollar.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/11/america/Forest-Road-Deal.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Creek_Timber

http://www.plumcreek.com/AboutPlumCreek/tabid/54/Default.aspx

Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Environmentalism, Forest Service, Industry, Legislators, Logging, Mining, National Parks and Forests, Public Lands, Urban Sprawl, Wildlife, Yellowstone Park | No Comments »

Loaded Guns in National Parks Still an Issue

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I was reading about the shooter who shot 3 teens and wounded another in a wooded area on the Wisconsin/Michigan border and all I could think about was the Bush administration/NRA push to allow loaded guns in national parks. Just what we need.

http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8774082.

We should be more concerned about this issue because with the help of the NRA, the 25-year ban on loaded guns in parks might dissolve before Bush leaves office.We’re not talking big rifles or shotguns but CONCEALED HANDGUNS too.

So guns become a reality in parks and you’re walking along Sleeping Bear Dunes or a portion of the North Country National Scenic Trail and some nut shoots you. You end up buried in the sand dunes or God-knows-where along that trail, at least until a bear or vultures find your carcass. Back at the camp all anyone knows is that you went for a little hike in the morning or before dinner and never came back. The nut with a gun hasn’t a witness in site, and hearing a gunshot has become commonplace in parks.

Of course this can happen with the present ban on loaded guns in parks too. Nefarious people don’t follow rules anyway. But at least the sound of a gun would resonate to someone that something is not right, whether an animal attack or human attack.

We already have a horrible homicide record as a free country. We’re getting a little too used to guns and killing, don’t you think? We accept guns too readily as our only means of protection.Protectionism has its place, but it appears to me that since 9/11, with the aid of the federal government, we’ve become much too fearful as a people. It encourages extremist actions like carrying concealed weapons everywhere.We’re willing to give up too many of our rights also because we’re afraid. And unfortunately, it seems that we’re unique in our fear. When England’s subway was bombed by terrorists, I remember many Brits riding the subway again as soon as possible with the retort that, “We can’t let them have the upper hand now can we?” Ditto for other countries. Then again, they’ve weathered more wars on home turf than us. Still I feel we have been targeted for fearmongering as a way of bullying us into thinking we need a loaded gunto get through everyday life, like an outing in a park.

The gun won’t help me if a nut takes aim from somewhere. I won’t know what hit me. I don’t think if I were jogging alone through a park that I could draw my weapon if suddenly ambushed from the side either. More than likely the assailant would get the gun away from me.

If the attack is from a mountain lion or bear, good luck getting a deadly shot on them, especially with a handgun. They’re on you before you can act. They’ll rip your arm off before the trigger is pulled or the gun even makes it out. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot in a Barney Phife move and assure my doom.

Seems like owning a dog would be as good if not safer to take along on a hike in the park, and boy are there plenty of those in the shelters looking to loyally defend an owner just for a home.

While thepresent administrationand the NRA stoke our fears to add more places to allowmore types of guns, studies show that possession of guns is only upping the homicide rate in America. We’re killing each other, not terrorists! Terrorism would have taken a bigger hit long ago by cutting off its funding from oil profits.

Congress began viewing alternative energy sources at the end of the 90’s and we should have kept in that direction as a way to stop our oil addiction and the money flowing to the Middle East that helped fund terrorism. I’m reading that it is funded more and more by heroin now. Lately big oil profits in the Persian Gulf have produced a model city like Dubai, a huge metropolis and the Arab wish for a huge financial center. Pretty soon major corporations will fund terrorism over there. We missed our chance to nip the terrorist problem in the bud long ago by getting away from oil. It brought power to a region that basically had nothing else going for it.Who is outsmarting whom? The Middle East preys on our addictions to oil and heroin. There is no gun to combat that.

Unfortunately, since 9/11 we’ve lost more rights due to our fears, and are basically headed back to the old west, where everyone walked around with a holster or hid a pistol in their boot.

More info on guns and homicides vs. protection: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/93/7e.pdf

Posted in Bush Administration, Federal Government, Guns/Firearms, Legislators, NRA, National Forest, National Parks and Forests, Politics, Public Lands | 1 Comment »

Drilling for More Oil in National Parks; Not Enough Refineries Anyway

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

If you’ve never heard of or viewed the panorama of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon area, do it. It is absolutely beautiful. I saw a travel channel segment on Zion National Park and want to visit there. It looks like a place of God. Our national parks are a real treasure, but the Bush administration doesn’t have much time left, and is trying for land grabs right out of OUR national parks to drill for oil.

If Bush has his way, oil drills will destroy eleven million acres of national park in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. I’m hearing about these attempted land grabs happening all over the place. What I want to know is what is the sense? We know we’re short of refineries in the U.S. It’s a well known fact every time the U.S. has an oil crisis, large or small, that right away we want to invade new areas and drill for more oil. But it’s of no use unless it’s refined, and we don’t have enough refineries.

And it’s not likely we’ll be seeing brand new refineries in the future because of global warming. And yes even the Bush/Cheney administration admitted quite a while ago in 2002 that humans do indeed cause global warming. The U.S. EPA submitted a 268-page report to the UN back then admitting to and agreeing with scientists that oil refining, fossil fuel power plants, and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.

It’s 2008. What aren’t they getting? I know what the Bush administration is getting–more neglectful of our rights when they simply try to take over public lands for nothing more than filling the pockets of the rich from oil production. Trashing these beautiful areas of our country will not sit well with a court system that has been standing for the environment in a number of cases so far.

According to an Earthjustice report, just recently another federal court judge ruled that: “After years of court battles, Kane County must halt its illegal efforts to create roadways through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other wilderness areas,” which is in another area of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. A U.S. District Judge “ordered the county to take down its signs inviting vehicles into areas closed to protect sensitive streams, wildlife habitat, archeological treasures, and wilderness values.”

This is good news but Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior, needs to hear from us again, even though he and the Bush administration know that attempts to drill in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon is going to meet with some mighty big resistance since this judge’s ruling.

http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/utahm00/xwnke5k44xx5mjj?

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/utah-county-must-stop-illegal-seizure-of-rights-of-way.html

Bush admits humans cause global warming: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html

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Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Bureau of Land Management, Bush Administration, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, EPA, Earthjustice, Environmental Spin, Environmentalism, Fossil Fuel, Global Warming, Global Warming Policy, National Forest, National Parks and Forests, Oil Industry, Oil Lobby, Public Lands, Public Lands, Secy. Kempthorne, The Denial Machine | No Comments »

Push to Legalize Loaded Firearms in Public Forests and Parks

Monday, May 5th, 2008

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.

Godis 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 allowingcompanies like BP to stretchpollution to thelimits .

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 thatlove toall living things bysustaining a clean, healthy environment for all, is out right dangerous and only invites more evil not good.

Posted in Bush Administration, Dept. of the Interior, Earth, Environmental News Service, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Forest Service, Guns/Firearms, Illegal Hunting, Illegal Use of Animals, Industry, Legislators, Michigan, Morality, NRA, National Forest, National Parks and Forests, Nature, Politics, Public Lands, Secy. Kempthorne, The Media | No Comments »

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