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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (7403)	9/22/2006 4:01:14 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 36917

Judge restores Clinton's 'Roadless Rule' By TERENCE CHEA ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER A helicopter ferries a log to the landing Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006, on the Mike's Gulch timber sale in the South Kalmiopsis Roadless Area of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest outside Selma, Ore. A federal judge reinstated a ban Wednesday on road construction in nearly 50 million acres of pristine wilderness, overturning a Bush administration rule that could have cleared the way for more commercial activity in national forests. (AP Photo by Jeff Barnard) SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge on Wednesday reinstated the "Roadless Rule," a Clinton-era ban on road construction in nearly a third of national forests. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled that the Bush administration failed to conduct necessary environmental studies before making changes that allowed states to decide how to manage individual national forests. The 2001 rule prohibits logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres in 38 states and Puerto Rico, but the Bush administration replaced it in May 2005 with a process that required governors to petition the federal government to protect national forests in their states. Laporte sided with 20 environmental groups and four states - California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington - that sued the U.S. Forest Service over the changes. "This is fantastic news for millions of Americans who have consistently told the Forest Service that they wanted these last wild areas of public land protected," said Kristen Boyles, an attorney for Earthjustice, which represented the environmental groups. The Bush administration was reviewing the ruling to decide on an appeal, said Dave Tenny, deputy undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service. Representatives of the timber industry denounced the decision, saying it would leave roadless areas vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires because firefighters could not access blazes in remote forests. Chris West, vice president of the Portland-based American Forest Industry Council, said states should be allowed to decide how best to manage and protect their forests. West said, "This lawsuit and this decision is all about politics." Despite the judge's ruling, logging would likely continue in two regions of Oregon - Mike's Gulch and Blackberry on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest - where timber sales were approved after the rule was changed, said Mike Carrier, natural resources adviser to Gov. Ted Kulongoski. Colorado Gov. Bill Owens criticized the ruling, saying a task force that takes citizens' input is the right way to manage the state's wilderness. "It would be very unfortunate if we were to revert back to a rule established hastily without public input during the waning days of the Clinton administration," Owens said. "We simply should not have a federal magistrate in San Francisco unilaterally dictating natural resource policy for the entire country." Laporte's ruling does not affect about 9.3 million acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, which is covered by a separate rule on road construction and other development. --- Associated Press Writer Jeff Barnard contributed to this report from Grants Pass, Ore.

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (7403)	10/6/2006 5:17:07 PM
From: siempre33	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

glad to see you read The Economist, a very credible mag... The Economist, after being a skeptic for many years, has finally come around on the subject of Global Warming... this quote from The Economist would seem to sum the whole thing up best... "..nobody knows for sure what is happening to the climate." ~BUT~ economist.com The heat is on, an excellent article which puts the issue into the right perspective.... Here is the heading of the article: Sep 7th 2006 From The Economist print edition Global warming, it now seems, is for real. Emma Duncan (interviewed here) examines the nature of the problem, and possible solutions This survey will argue that although the science remains uncertain, the chances of serious consequences are high enough to make it worth spending the (not exorbitant) sums needed to try to mitigate climate change. It will suggest that, even though America, the world's biggest CO2 emitter, turned its back on the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the chances are that it will eventually take steps to control its emissions. And if America does, there is a reasonable prospect that the other big producers of CO2 will do the same. But first, to the science, and some of the recent findings that have sharpened people's worries.