Our World and Everything in It

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 peril—her husband, oh and let’s never forget Cheney.

There is a wilderness bill before congress that will protect more than a million acres of new wilderness areas in 8 states. It’s a good counterbalance to the acres of national forests that went up for auction over the past 8 years. Michigan is one of the states that would gain protected wilderness area through this bill.

A current Wilderness Society newsletter stated, “the bill [] would prevent new oil and gas leasing along the Wyoming Range and make permanent the National Landscape Conservation System, made up of 26 million acres of unspoiled public lands in the West.”

The only drawback to the bill is the authorization of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which groups like the Wilderness Society strongly oppose. They will work to get this one provision removed. The bill may pass by the end of the year. If not it will be presented again during the new administration.

This wilderness bill is actually a composite of 150 public land bills, and according to the same article would “designate wilderness in Michigan for the first time in 21 years. The Beaver Basin Wilderness at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore would protect a popular hiking, boating, and camping spot on Lake Superior.”

Aside from this, I recall reading WXYZ’s news ticker a couple of weeks ago that stated Sleeping Bear Dunes Park would be adding 35 miles of hiking trails and expanding the wilderness area of the park by 45%.

Encourage our state reps to pass this wilderness bill, as it will protect many areas of many states from roads, structures, and off-road vehicles forever. It’s the least we can do after the Bush Administration’s onslaught against our national parks, public lands, and wildlife, and get back on track for protecting some of our beautiful national heritage.

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 other development.” 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

“The Bush Administration announced it intends to withdraw its plan to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies,” according to an e-mail from NRDC. The wolves will once again be under federal protection.

It seems the Bush Administration erroneously declared the wolf populations fully recovered, nor could it be proven that the wolves were threatening deer and elk populations. Yet when the feds handed off control of wolves to the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 110 wolves were dead in no time.

The NRDC also stated: “That means Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will NOT be allowed to begin the extermination of hundreds of wolves this fall as part of a massive public hunt — the first in more than three decades. Instead, those wolves will continue to roam the Rockies — wild and free — as nature and the law intended!”

A big nose thumb to Butch Otter, Gov. of Idaho for wanting to be the first one to shoot a wolf. Congratulations to the thousands of people who worked to stop this illegal hunting. The NRDC, Earthjustice, and eleven other conservation groups took it to the courts and won.

This by no means is a sign to let our guard down. If things don’t change drastically in the future there will be another angle to sport hunt these animals down the road, especially if the state’s ever get that power in their hands again.

Sadly, this victory will not bring back Limpy, the crippled wolf icon of Yellowstone that was shot dead the moment it limped out of the park.

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 gun to 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 the present administration and the NRA stoke our fears to add more places to allow more 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

Good news! A federal judge “has restored endangered species protections for wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies,” according to Defenders of Wildlife.

This kinda throws a wrench in the proposed sport hunting of wolves by the likes of Butch Otter, Governor of Idaho, who vows to fight the decision. Ron Gillette, Idaho’s Anti-Wolf Coalition leader predicts a war.

Anti-Wolf Coalition sounds silly somehow, doesn’t it, like the “wolves-are-at-our-doors” campaign commercial? It’s just another generation that wants to eradicate wolves as a form of sport hunting.

For now the wolves are protected and Defenders says it plans to:

Make the case in court to restore full protections for these endangered wolves;

 

Pay for guard dogs, range riders, turbo fladry fencing and other non-lethal wolf management strategies to keep livestock and wolves safe; and

Combat distortions and misperceptions about wolves to build tolerance and understanding for the vital role that wolves play in healthy ecosystems.

It’s too bad this new protection came too late to save “Limpy,” the park’s icon.

The Bush administration urged Congress today to lift the 27 year ban on offshore oil drilling. No one is surprised. It probably won’t pass, especially during an election year. I can’t believe McCain endorsed the idea knowing full well the price of gas will not go down for years from any drilling that takes place now. Crist a McCain pick for VP, also changed his tune toward oil. Somebody got greased or rather oiled. One article stated we wouldn’t be touching any of that offshore oil for at least 3 years. So using gas prices as an excuse is a pretty lame. That and the fact that oil companies are sitting on 68 million acres of FEDERAL lands that they’ve already leased and haven’t drilled.

Besides we don’t have enough refineries, and building new is not looking to a future free of fossil fuel. Considering we’ve got whole TV channels dedicated to showing people all the new green innovation out there, how long will it be before we catch on that we’re being lied to about a lot of it? We can get off the fossil-fuel-a-coaster but we need new management.  Think of the environment this election year and put an end to the oilarchy before Mother Nature puts an end to us.

I’m sure people that have lost everything to fires, tornadoes, and floods believe the weather is getting worse and we need to do something about it. President Bush admitted in 2002 that our use of oil and coal do have an impact on the environment. But he still pushes to lift a ban on offshore drilling during a year when the middle of our country is under water, and so many tornadoes have already hit the midsection, while fires rage in N. California.  The common sense here is to have some reverence for Mother Nature before we all end up to our necks in either water, wind, or fire, and without food and fresh water, but we just keep stalling.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/18/bush.offshore/?iref=mpstoryview

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alQzmBT3sqbs&refer=home

I was looking for cures to get rid of all types of weeds in my lawn that have become prevalent in just the last couple of years like Creeping Charlie, Henbit,Violets, Wild Strawberries, etc. I’m not a fan of spraying if I don’t have to and figure I need to know why I’m getting so many of these weeds or I’ll just be dealing with it all over again year after year. Well, it seems I need to fertilize my lawn more to keep Creeping Charlie at bay. So I’ll go the natural fertilizer route or whip up a Jerry Baker concoction. But I was still curious where all these weeds are coming from. I had a pretty nice lawn not long ago.

It seems America is being inundated with imported invasive species of plants and trees that will have a terrible impact on our own native plants and trees in the near future. I had no idea that the nice maple trees in my yard are probably the invasive type called Norway Maple. As a matter of fact, one website that offered a guide to the imported/invasive plants and trees said: “Many of the plants in this guide are popular, even beloved, landscape plants, but it is now clear that they pose a threat to our environment.” It’s because these plants significantly reduce the number of plant and animal species on any site they invade. The fact that they are in our yards is a sign that over the past 100 years or more they have indeed spread.  http://www.mdflora.org/publications/invasives.htm.

I couldn’t believe all the new and different weeds popping that I have that are on that list. And the list is for the mid Atlantic region! That says something about climate change. Now I’m not about to cut down my maples and I have a sneaky suspicion they’re Norways because I have too many maples willy-nilly in my yard. But one of them shades the front of my house from the summer sun, and two are on the bank by the dock.

As for getting rid of these weeds, I found all types of natural ways to combat them on the Internet. For instance, I know enough to weed whip before weeds go to seed,  but it seems there is a magic time you can mow some weeds and they won’t come back. So, depending on the type of weed you are trying to control, you may not need any chemicals at all. Whack them at the right time in their lifecycle and kill them dead for good.

For my Creeping Charlie problem I could apply a herbicide when it flowers, but it seems this weed is sensitive to borax according to the blogsite Hobby Lawn Care. The website gives the formula to make your own borax concoction. It said: “…dissolve 8 ounces of borax in 4 ounces of water. Then dilute the solution in 2.5 gallons of water.” This is supposed to be sprayed on 1000 sq. ft. of lawn, “no more, no less.” That scares me a little. Too much borax prevents desirable plants–like grass?

http://www.hobbylawncare.com/browse/lawn-pests

And if all else fails, I can just eat my lawn. That’s right. I found a website with a recipe for Wild Weed Salad and Dressing. I have everything I need except nasturtium. I used to grow nasturtiums, but that was long ago. I think nasturtiums are just watercress. The lawn violets I have aplenty. They add a peppery taste to a salad. Dandelion greens I’ve already eaten before, but I don’t know about the lamb’s quarter. It’s a little too hairy for me. Everything else on the list of ingredients seems fine, but I just can’t imagine the taste of the added mint, with basil, with garlic. I’m thinking peppery/garlicky taste, which would be really good with the honey and apple cider vinegar dressing.

Read the recipe: http://gorhamgarden.blogspot.com/2007/06/weed-of-day-no-2-henbit.html

ve.

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

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.