Last year, wildland fire produced an amount of greenhouse global warming gases equal to those produced by human endeavors, in my state, Oregon. 770,000 acres of wildland fire. Cut those burned acres in half by nasty firefighter effort, and you will have reduced green house gases from one state by 25%.

I hope that the timber industry listens to another PhD and strictly follows his/her advice and never logs again. Fire fighting pays better than logging or mill work, and is seasonal. You can draw rocking chair until the next fire season. It is a great life.

By not logging, the land becomes an economic liability, and will be sold for development (using Canadian lumber from an ecosystem that is different and can be logged) or sold to the NGOs who will in turn sell it to the USFS who does listen to PhD theory, and has about devolved their charge into a bottomless pit into which money is supposed to be thrown to assuage the EcoGoddess and her minions in Congress. Like some religious order of the past, the USFS has taken a vow to produce poverty wherever they can, and has become proficient in that task.

But, we all love information like this, because dueling PhDs is a spectator sport in America, especially in the EcoWars. I can produce one who says lightening fire could never have produced the fire frequency the ethnnbiologists find in their studies, and that aboriginal man was the fire starter and land manager, and his demise to introduced Asian and European diseases from 15th and 16th century contacts can be shown in forests throughout the West by changes in timber stands and densities.

I especially am interested in hearing from fire experts from California, where millions of dollars a day are being spent on fire fighting, mostly in areas where logging is disallowed by rule, regulation, and PhD direction. And I love to hear from PhDs who have invented their own time line of forest fire frequency before fire fighting efforts were put forth with vigor. Don't you ever wonder why anyone would fight a forest fire in the first place, or why are they fighting forest fires today?

I would like to believe the premise that logging is the worst thing that can happen, and conflagration is a better idea. I think that there are parts of urban America that are just no longer productive, produce negative social gains, and are in need of renewal and carbon sequestering. There is case to be made that fighting fire has allowed those falling down, unmaintained neighborhoods to not have a chance for renewal and vigorous growth. So why do we continue to fight fire in areas of urban decay? Why, if we left the fate of those areas to nature, the stand removal fire would come sooner than later, and only the strongest and best buildings might survive, to become the base around which urban renewal might happen. Look at what a cultural icon and wonderful example of a working city San Francisco has become, and for all intents and purposes, it has been renewed a couple of time by earthquake and fire.

If you let one fire burn, or twenty, why not all? If not all might be left to burn, we need a reason why, and if some are allowed to burn, who is the Fire God who gets to make the calls?

In his comments above, Bear Bait - who is actually Jon Thomas of Oregon - does an excellent job of making Dr. Hanson's case about the logging industry misleading on climate change and wildfires.

After all, Jon Thomas is one of the big logging industry cheerleaders, whose comments appear on a variety of pro-logging industry sites (including a site that has called for the chief of the Forest Service to be killed by lethal injection and for people to burn down the homes of Sierra Club members).

For example, you'll notice that Dr. Hanson's article is full of cited research, something that is obviously missing from Jon Thomas' comments.

"Bear Bait" would have us believe that fires in Oregon last year produced an equal amount of greenhouse gases as all the other human activities (such as burning fossil fuels) in the state. He provides no evidence to back up such a claim, which is quite typical.

You'll notice that Dr. Hanson writes, "Current emissions from forest fires are only a tiny fraction of those from fossil fuel consumption, and carbon sequestration from forest growth far outweighs carbon emissions from fire."

In some other writings I've seen from Dr. Hanson he provides further evidence: "Whatever carbon emissions occur from combustion during wildland fire and subsequent decay of fire-killed trees is more than balanced by forest growth across the landscape over time. The California Air Resources Board's data reveals that current emissions from forest fires in California are less than 1% of those from fossil fuel consumption in the state, and that carbon sequestration from forest growth far outweighs carbon emissions from fire (http://www.arb.ca.gov)."

You'll see that "Bear Bait" conveniently ignores the fact that some of the most vigorous and productive forest growth occurs after fire, including in high severity fire areas in which most or all of the trees were killed (Shatford and others 2007, Journal of Forestry, May 2007).

As Dr. Hanson so aptly put it, "It's important for people to know the facts about fire, ecosystems and climate."

This new study may also be of interest:

Charcoal and carbon storage in forest soils of the Rocky Mountain West by Thomas H. DeLuca and Gregory H. Aplet, from Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2008, 6, doi: 10.1890/070070

ABSTRACT: Charcoal represents a super-passive form of carbon (C) that is generated during fire events and is one of the few legacies of fire recorded in the soil profile; however, the importance of this material as a form of C storage has received only limited scientific attention. Here, we review the formation of charcoal in temperate and boreal forest ecosystems, discuss some of its desirable properties, and estimate the potential contribution charcoal to long-term C sequestration in forest ecosystems. Charcoal deposition over the course of several millennia probably accounts for a substantial proportion of the total soil C pool in fire-maintained forest ecosystems. Forest management processes that interfere with natural fire processes eliminate the formation of this passive form of C. We recommend that charcoal be considered in C storage budgets and modeling of forest ecosystems, especially in light of climate change and increasing occurrence of wildfire.

Well, look what I discovered. An excellent article, right on target, by young Chad, now all fully mature, now Dr. Hanson, and still fighting the good fight from UC Davis no less. Outstanding!

Perhaps Dr. Hanson would comment upon this NASA study which goes beyond his generalizations: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0311firecarbon.html

Then there is this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071101085029.htm

>>>>>>>>>
US Fires Release Large Amounts Of Carbon Dioxide
ScienceDaily (Nov. 1, 2007) — Large-scale fires in a western or southeastern state can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a few weeks as the state's entire motor vehicle traffic does in a year, according to newly published research by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The authors of a recent article*, Christine Wiedinmyer of NCAR and Jason Neff of the University of Colorado, used satellite observations of fires and a new computer model, developed by Wiedinmyer, that estimates carbon dioxide emissions based on the mass of vegetation burned. They caution that their estimates have a margin of error of about 50 percent, both because of inexact data about the extent of fires and varying estimates of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by different types of blazes.
Overall, the study estimates that fires in the contiguous United States and Alaska release about 290 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is the equivalent of 4 to 6 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning. But fires contribute a higher proportion of the potent greenhouse gas in several western and southeastern states, especially Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Washington, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Arizona. Particularly large fires can release enormous pulses of carbon dioxide rapidly into the atmosphere.

"A striking implication of very large wildfires is that a severe fire season lasting only one or two months can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from the entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state," the authors write...

The impacts of fires on climate change are complex and difficult to predict. Long after a fire sweeps through an area, new vegetation over the course of several decades to a century may absorb as much carbon dioxide as was released during the blaze. But fires are likely to become more frequent and widespread as temperatures warm around much of the globe, which means that more carbon dioxide may be released into the atmosphere. The fires could complicate government efforts to rely on forests to help absorb carbon dioxide.

"The fires that are burning today in the United States are part of the legacy of the past century of fire suppression," says Neff, an assistant professor of environmental studies. "Our attempts to control fire have had the unintended benefit of sequestering more carbon in our forests and reducing the impact of human combustion of fossil fuels. But as these forests now begin to burn, that stored twentieth century carbon is moving back into the atmosphere, where it may compound our current problems with CO2."
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Craig,

I don't believe anyone is claiming that wildland fires don't release some amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's seems pretty clear to everyone.

However, I believe you either being intentionally misleading about the Wiedinmyer/Neff study or you simply don't understand the way fire and re-growth works in forests.

Either way, in the study you cite above even the researchers "caution that their estimates have a margin of error of about 50 percent, both because of inexact data about the extent of fires and varying estimates of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by different types of blazes." A 50% margin of error seems pretty significant to me.

Also, except for stating "The impacts of fires on climate change are complex and difficult to predict. Long after a fire sweeps through an area, new vegetation over the course of several decades to a century may absorb as much carbon dioxide as was released during the blaze" the Wiedinmyer/Neff study doesn't appear to have any accounting for the huge amounts of carbon dioxide that are sequesters on account of the rapid growth that follows wildland fires, including high-severity fires.

Seems to me that you can't just go around saying wildfires released x amount of carbon into the air without actually taking into account the tremendous CO2 that is sequestered in the days, years and decades following such a fire. However, clearly CO2 released into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels (in cars or factories, for example) isn't off-set in a similar manner....something which people like you and Jon Thomas (aka Bear Bait) chose to ignore.

Also, let's not forget that, as is pointed out in the original article above, "The timber industry fails to mention, however, that logging is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (Schlesinger, “Biogeochemistry: an analysis of global change”, Academic Press, 1997)."

Finally, as Dr. Hanson has pointed in other articles, "The fact of the matter is that there is far less fire in our forests now than there was historically. The total area of forest annually affected by fire currently is only about one-tenth of what it was prior to 1850, due to fire suppression (Stephens and others 2007, Forest Ecology and Management, Vol. 251). Over the past few decades, fires have increased somewhat, but still remain well below their natural levels in western forests."

Craig, perhaps you'd like to comment about this?

Thanks for rooting up the Science thing so I would not have to, Craig.
One thing not mentioned about fires is the nature of the atmospheric release. It's filthy. If the smoke we get was from "industrial profit" then the enviros and most of society would be howling in outrage. Yet megafires are met with either silence by ecos, or song and dance about how "Natural" the smoke is.
There's never any discussion about how maybe, possibly it might be better for the environment to harvest and process excess biomass in such a way that a truly "good" induced fire could be set on forest grounds while shipping the rest to a plant where it could be burned at optimum moisture and temperature for maximum energy capture.
Oh, but that would be beneficial to humans. Ick.

Matt: ...and the horse you rode in on.

1850 is a meaningless date in environmental fire. If that date was to be there to record the influx of Europeans in Oregon, and in the California gold fields, then the huge fires of the last half of the 19th century as a result of white man might be a factor in western forests. But they were not anywhere as extensive or pervasive as aboriginal fire, which was set to accomplish land use goals. Their interest was survival, and that meant plants and animals to sustain them in abundance, accomplished by set fire. But those people were more than 90% removed by disease long before the white hordes reached the area. The regrowth in the forests came about because lightening does not set enough fires to accomplish the vast acreage burned annually by aboriginals. Consequently, the found environment was just the vestigial remains of what once was. It was those forests that once were that seem to be the holy chalice of environmental crusades.

Well, I don't believe that you can get there from here by conflagration. Collateral damage to private interests by conflagration are what drives the process, and that is what gets expensive. Unless, of course, you did the math on what importing the majority of our building material while burning an equal amount each year costs our economy. Then you would find out what expensive really is. But the US is rich, and can afford to make fuel out of food, fire out of forests. And the people who drive that process bitch about people who drive cars and the trucks that deliver their daily bread and milk. Go figure. All I have ever suggested is that logging excess fiber employs many people in family wage jobs, is the nexus of economic health in many rural areas dominated by Federal land holdings. Of course, my concern is people, and environmentalists hate people. You can quickly figure that out by what they write on this site. So you can call me an apologist for logging, which I have never been, and all sorts of other names. But you can't say I am not in support of hard working people producing the raw material that creates the money for the service industry, government, and the hangers on of the 4th estate. And, my opinion of how things should work has just been adjudicated and handed down by the en banc 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and thus I have been vindicated, and you Matt, have been excoriated. So na-na-na-na-NAH!!! The Organic Act trumps dueling PhDs, and the USFS can go to work at last without having to swat horse flies and their brother litigators all day, every day. Put that in your bong and smoke it.

Matthew, having differences of opinion is what makes reading NW worthwhile. That being said, I don't get the personalization of your argument to attack Bear Bait.

You asked about Oregon, I believe the Science Daily article answers your question and vindicates Bear Bait. Regarding the uncertainty you point out from the study, that is what I was hoping you would notice. Dr. Hanson states his opinions as fact when they are anything but. There are a host of variables to consider before his claims have any relevance to reality. The 50% margin of error is honest from the study. Dr. Hanson makes no such reflection on his claims, and you applaud those claims rather than question them given the large margin for error. By the way, averaging the carbon output from western fires over the total land mass of the US has no real relevance. That's playing games with numbers.

Fabulously well spoken, Craig.

Craig,

Bear Bait, er, Jon Thomas, originally stated that last year wildfires in Oregon produced the same amount of greenhouse gases as all human activity. Where is that figure even remotely supported in the Science article that you posted...a figure that is supposed to "vindicate" Jon Thomas?

And by the way Craig, where did I really "attack Bear Bait?" Seems like he just told me to F off and F a horse, which I'm really not that in to. I simply have pointed out that his real name is Jon Thomas. I agree that differences of opinion are important and valuable; however, I also think that people hiding behind fake names telling people to go F a horse gets us nowhere.

Moving on to Dave's notion that we should cut down more of our forests in order to prevent them from burning down and contributing to greenhouse gases. Remember, as has been pointed out a few times, while wildland fires clearly contribute some amount of greenhouse gases, huge amounts of carbon dioxid are sequesters in the days and years following these fires on account of the rapid growth that follows wildland fires. Clearly, an accurate accounting would have to include this fact, which is often missing from such a suggestion.

Also, the logging industry is fond of saying that we need to cut down forests and make the forests into building products in order to lock up the carbon in building products. However, in order to seriously and honestly consider such a proposal one would clearly need to have a full and accurate accounting of the tremendous amount of carbon that is released by the entire process (from start to finish) required to get those building products...a process that relies heavily on fossil fuels.

In order to get building products you need to do a little something like this:

1) Send logging crews up into the forests in big diesel trucks, using big diesel equipment, firing up 2-stroke chain saws, cutting down trees, driving back into town in their big diesel trucks, doing the same thing the next day, the next day, etc.

2) Then you need to send big diesel logging trucks up into the forest, using big diesel equipment to load the logs, driving the logs to mills located, in some cases, hundreds of miles to the very centralized mills in our region.

3) Next, you need to run those big fossil fuel burning mills, get all the mill employees to drive their vehicles to the mill, make the trees into some wood products.

4) Then, you need to ship those wood products via truck or train to markets around the country.

5) Next, building contractors drive their big diesel trucks to Lowe's, Home Depot, etc, to pick up the wood products and drive those wood products out to the job site, head home for the day and do the same thing the next day. Of course, the building contractors also have to drive their big diesel trucks to pick up all the other toxic products that are needed to make a modern home, etc.

This fossil fuel burning cycle could go on and on and should really include the energy needed to make the big diesel trucks, chain saws, milling equipment, hampers, nails, roofing shingles, cooper wire, windows, etc.

Given this reality I really have a hard time believing that cutting down forests for building products in order to sequester carbon pencils out by any rational, full cost accounting measure.

Besides, let's not forget that, as is pointed out in the original article above, "The timber industry fails to mention, however, that logging is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (Schlesinger, “Biogeochemistry: an analysis of global change”, Academic Press, 1997)." Does anyone care to refute this?

Finally, the photo that accompanies this article provides yet another very telling example of how the logging industry misleads about forest fires. As you may have noticed, the timber industry and their supporters are fond of saying that X amount of acres are "Destroyed" by wildfires each year. What they simply do is take the total acres burned - established by the Forest Service by way of a very coarse "burn perimeter" – and try and convince the public that all those acres are "destroyed." The lobbyist for the Montana Wood Products Association even goes a step further by claiming that "Montana lost nearly a million acres to wildfire last year."

Well, thankfully I've "found" some of the "lost" and "destroyed" acreage. The photo above is entirely within the burn perimeter of the Wyman 2 fire, which "burned 21,000 acres" in the Rock Creek area of the Lolo and Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF last summer, based on the Forest Service's official "burn perimeter." The photo above was taken a few weeks ago and while the entire photo vantage point (which looks up the north side of the Stoney Creek drainage) is within the "burn perimeter" you can clearly see that most of the "destroyed" and "lost" acreage is actually unburned or burned at a very low to moderate intensity.

Matthew, upabove you wrote, ""Bear Bait" would have us believe that fires in Oregon last year produced an equal amount of greenhouse gases as all the other human activities (such as burning fossil fuels) in the state."

Science Daily states: "...fires contribute a higher proportion of the potent greenhouse gas in several western and southeastern states, especially Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Washington, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Arizona. Particularly large fires can release enormous pulses of carbon dioxide rapidly into the atmosphere.

"A striking implication of very large wildfires is that a severe fire season lasting only one or two months can release as much carbon as the annual emissions from the entire transportation or energy sector of an individual state," the authors write..."

Where is the disconnect that you suggest? The Oregon fires were severe.

By the way, you were told to go F a horse only after you made the discussion personal. Unless his identity is truly pertinent and you have the facts to back up your claim, which BB denies, it seems his suggestion was deserving. Don't play the victim after you poke a tiger with a stick.

Craig, You're playing games with numbers again, while all the time completely ignoring everything that I and Dr. Hanson have posted that doesn't fit your view of the situation.

As I've stated a few times now, I fail to see any evidence whatsoever that forest fires in Oregon contributed the same amount of greenhouse gases last year that all human activity contributed. Your claim that Jon Thomas was "vindicated" by the Science article is interesting because there is no such claim in that article. They talk about forest fires generally contributing "4 to 6 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel burning" and then state that "a higher proportion of greenhouse gases" may come from fires in states such as Oregon, but that hardly "vindicates" Jon's same amount figure...especially when you consider a margin of error of 50%.

And like I also keep on saying, you and others are ignoring the fact that in the days and years after those fires a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide is sequestered on account of the rapid growth that follows wildland fires. To say nothing of the "Charcoal and carbon storage in forest soils of the Rocky Mountain West" research, which you have also chosen to ignore.

You also chose to ignore the very real issue of a coarse "burn perimeter" not really being representative of what actually burns. You ignore the fact that logging is one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (Schlesinger, “Biogeochemistry: an analysis of global change”, Academic Press, 1997)."

All I'm asking for is a full, honest and accurate accounting, something it appears you have a hard time understanding or coming to terms with. Yet, you don't seem to have a hard time ignoring all the cited information above that doesn't fit your world view.

And how I made a discussion "personal" by simply pointing out that some guy going by the fake name of Bear Bait is actually Jon Thomas of Oregon is pretty bizarre to me.

Matthew you claim: "I fail to see any evidence whatsoever that forest fires in Oregon contributed the same amount of greenhouse gases last year that all human activity contributed."

A simple Google search answers you. See: http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/05/20/half-of-all-oregon-ghg-emissions-come-from-forest-fires/

>>>>>>>>
Half of All Oregon GHG Emissions Come From Forest FiresHalf of all Oregon greenhouse gas emissions in 2007 came from forest fires. This information was revealed Thursday, May 15, at a Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) meeting in Portland.
<<<<<<<<<

Nice try Craig, but I asked for "evidence"...as in peer-reviewed, credible research.

The "evidence" you present is from Mike Dubrasich, the owner of the website that has called for the Chief of the Forest Service to be "put to death by lethal injection" and for people to burn down the homes of Sierra Club members.

See: Blogger levels heated threat against Sierra Club at:
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2008/02/27/news/local/news02.txt

And then there's this rather bizarre behavior from Mr. Dubrasich:
http://www.demarcatedlandscapes.com/2007/02/more-from-mike-dubrasich-mailbag.html

I'm sure you'll accuse me of "personal" attacks again, but Craig, it's just a simple Google search, right?

Matt,
Why don't you look at the DEQ PM charts for fire season last year, and ask yourself how you would respond to such icky numbers if they stemmed from manmade sources. You'd chain yourself to something, or some of your cronies would. You can't ethically have it both ways. Pollution is bad and should be minimized no matter the source.
I will concede that fire perimeters are a little deceptive, which is why I always ask for intensity/mortality acreages when analyzing the real impact of a fire.
And speaking of impact, the Brush Creek fiasco last year smoked the best stuff, the biggest oldest trees. Killed their roots even if they didn't crown out. Gonna be ugly after they jackstraw, and even uglier after it all burns again. And the next forest will just be that many years further away in time.
How do you justify burning or killing big, fine trees and leaving them all to rot? Is it the anticapitalist ideal, the realization that nobody will ever make a penny here for the next several generations, or perhaps forever? Do you hate modernity so much, even though you are probably epitomize postmodern electronic wonkery with your vast boodles of electronic journal articles and whatnot stashed in your climate-controlled hideout?
I don't understand you. Nor do I understand people like DOCTOR Hanson Pee Aitch Dee, all the fancy degrees and no desire to use them except to justify as "natural" what reasonable people would call malicious waste.
Well, I gotta get back out there in the great outdoors and convert some cellulose structures into sequestered higher and better use.

Matt: you advocate no logging and go on to dismiss it as a harmful activity because fossil fuels power the equipment to log. Instead, you offer conflagration as a reasonable substitute for logging because the forest grows back so fast and uses all this carbon to do so. Conveniently, you do not mention the green house gases and particles from wildland fire that enter the atmosphere in huge amounts all at once. And then, by all the same science you pick and chose, you destroy your own logic by pointing out that carbon sequestration slows in forests as they mature, and then stops at some point, whereby another stand removal fire is needed to use all that carbon emitted in the burn. So where do people show up in this circle? Where will your children live? There aren't enough caves, or rocks, under which you, they, and those to come after might keep out of the weather.

So I guess we continue to log other people's trees, to save ours. That is the kind of self centered Eco-thought that makes the West so admired in the third world. We save our trees, and buy theirs, so that the local war lord might have enough money to buy more guns and bullets to pummel his own people because he has the power and the inclination. On the other hand, those people don't die mountain climbing, parasailing, or in avalanches. They die of disease, starvation, and genocide by their leaders. What a lovely thought that your McMansion has blood lumber in it, but you saved the trees in TinCup Creek. hubba hubba.

I'm the messenger, dude, not the raper of our wilderness heritage. That would be the WFU land managers. That would be the NGO army of litigators to obfuscate, slow, and stop all meaningful land management activity. That would be the Weyerhaeusers, the Plum Creeks, The Timber Barons.

I just love the Sequoia Natl Forest report this day. The thunder storms of the weekend caused mud slides from the land burned last year, isolating four or five dozen firefighters up against an active 2008 fire. That is ecosystem renewal its best. Mass soil movement to clean the creeks, take out roads and bridges, kill the fish, and new fire to remove more vegetation that never was or will be logged. Environmental disaster following environmental disaster following environmental disaster. Whip out your lipstick, Matt, and gussy up that pig.

The other carbon question involves 300-700 year old trees killed in the recent fires, some in WFU fires. How do you really replace those trees in less than seven centuries, and how will you do it? They got that old in a low fuel environment that was the result of frequent anthropogenic fire, long before litigators showed up on the scene to parse the words of law, to challenge punctuation and intent. It will take centuries of green house gas emissions by those trees, those forests, to get to 700 years of age, which is far, far longer than the time in a forest's life of high volume carbon sequestration.

Blanket condemnation of logging is your right. But when your vote goes to the likes of a Senator Baucus, who slid $182,000,000 under the table to Weyerhaeuser in an earmark pork deal, your left wing environmental horse pucky got stuck all over you and your fellow travelers' feet. As you stomp around expounding against logging, just remember, your side just rewarded the very same people whose activities on the land you claim to despise, and your feet stink. So your words say one thing, and your actions say another. We are, of course, confused, and deserve answers from the Baucus apologists, the Democrat majority on the Conference Committee apologists, and the veto over ride apologists. Yet, you continue to berate the very people your leaders send hundreds and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, as an apparent reward for their sterling efforts at ecosystem management. If ridge top to ridge top logging is a bad deal, why did your political allies, your conservation issue top vote getters, send hundreds of millions of dollars to the Timber Barons? We are waiting for the answer, not more PhD reasons not to log based on a small slice of system interactions.

And I like peer review. I especially liked the cultural aspects of the political science Jesse Jackson opined last week. That, and of course, the third page bottom 4 column inch story on Tony Snow and his life and death in the Po'tland Oregonian's sunday edition. After two weeks of Front page and editorial page Tim Russert moanings and carrying ons, the very understated, buried, Tony Snow story was the True Colors Story of the Year in fair handed journalism and news reporting. Jesse peers are strangely silent, as were the Snow peers. I guess, when you are part and parcel of the peerage in America, knowing the Media is left of Marx is sort of like knowing that you are in grizzly country, and don't know where and when your personal encounter will happen, but you do know it is not going to be weighted in your favor. Can we carry Pepper Spray for journalists?

And, yes, I know what peer review is in science. But there is none in journalism, so don't whip that out as one of your talking points. Only the science types have the chops to discuss that, and many I have talked to say that is a stilted, managed process, and can be peer shopped not unlike judge shopping an administrative appeal.

There are politics, perhaps the most intense in society, bouncing around inside academia. That is the reason guns are banned on the university campus. To keep the faculty from shooting up the place. Students are mostly there to have a good time and learn enough to be employed. The life and death events are centered on faculty concerns and the department's internal politics. Students are mostly an after thought. That is why it takes a special kind of person to willingly go into graduate studies. A servile, scientific yes person will do well. An independent thinker would be best served having a parent who is a big donor to the University.

A fine, fine area of inquiry would be the Oregon State University "Donato Dust Up", where emeritus faculty strongly dissented on a grad student's published paper in the Journal Science, which concluded logging made more fuel for fires and delayed reforestation in that it killed emerging trees. Of course, practical experience would let you know that tree seed will fall every year, in vast amounts, and only those that find a seed bed in mineral soil will possibly contribute to the forest's recovery. The issue of fine, one hour fuels, from logging slash, increasing after salvage logging is to be expected, and is the new organic material on a mineral soil minus humus and fine organic material. From a forester's point of view, 2-0 planted trees will be spaced to use ALL the available site and sunlight, and provide a faster, better suited to survival, replacement forest. The 2-0 tree being big enough to have a jump start on both brush and tree seedlings, will keep some brush fields from occupying former forested land. Is your glass half full or half empty? And if doing nothing is the preferred alternative in all things in wildlands and forests, then really, what need is there for an expensive tax supported university forestry department? Doing nothing is a very proactive decision, but does not need university support after that decision is made. And, the big criticism in the whole of the Donato Dustup was that there could have been input from the timber industry, and that timber industry money to the university, and money from cutting timber funds some programs. The university faculty as a whole does not think that timber industry money should support the School of Forestry. So they ought to live without that money. Wean the whiners. The proof in their pudding, right there for any and all to see, is the logging that has happened beyond sustainability in the School of Forestry forests. There is a segment of the public who still are angry that OSU School of Forestry was given a large tract of land in long term management that was a model of university tree farming and wildlife protection. The School of Forestry immediately sold it to a sawmill which logged it, and the School of Forestry built a new building on campus. The neighboring land owners got a giant clearcut on their campus. Do as I say, not as I do. That should be in Latin above the entrance to Richardson Hall.

So Matt, put your lot with peer reviewed academic science, and be prepared to fall our your own sword. I just spent a whole day with academic science, at the University Experimental Farm, and learned that most of how I grow blueberries is wrong. Since the recently naturalized Chinese PhD who runs that deal sold out the Washington apple growers years ago to the Chinese government, he cannot visit the farm I manage. He is having to reinvent the wheel and is getting some of it wrong. But, my blueberries have to pay bills and his do not. My boss would be broke if I followed peer reviewed academic blueberry horticultural practices. He never goes to those dog and pony shows. I do go. He is on a cruise, having fun spending money wrong headed farming has brought him. Once again, the real world brought to you by farmers spending private money trumps academic peer reviewed scientists who get their money from any source under any pretense. You go, you listen, and you sort the grains of truth from the chaff of academic results. Take it hook, line and sinker, Matt, and you fail every time.

WOW...Matt, you and Dr. Hanson really stirred up the pot with this one! I like how so many times the people who refute the viewpoints of anyone with an conservation/environmental view point will decry the "enviros" for getting emotional in their explanations. All I hear in these guy's statements is emotion and an attempt to distract and attack. Obviously a nerve has been touched. Keep up the good work!
PS-Just because the courts passed a ruling, doesn't mean they are right! Maybe they are just legislating from the bench! You know, activist judges...

Let's hope someone is tracking the carbon output in that environmental state of California.

I really don't understand the comments above. Most of the anti conservation anti wildlife folks that I know here in the Rockies are well aware that the greenhouse effect is an absolute left wing hoax and that all the temerature trends are just part of a natural cycle. Yet here are similar folks such as Bearbait actuallly seeming to fall for the greenhouse scenario. Puzzling.

Craig lying again? Along with Dave Skinner and bearbait?

Say it isn't so.

Then there is brock that has no data, has no proof, just calls it a hoax. This despite mounds and mounds of data that prove global climate change increasing the global temperature at a rapid rate since the industrial age (and starting slightly before).

Thus, just proving that anti-GCC people have nothing but great lies, those that they repeat often enough that uninformed people begin to believe them.

The article above was spot on, even while trying to keep it simple, yet so many of the regulars here just have no capability to understand it.

Jay,
Garbage is garbage.
Let's go back to Dockter Hanson's assertion that only 15 percent of a tree's carbon becomes durable. First, the "source" and "peerage" of this brilliant "scientific" document is the Wilderness Society.
Second, the storage of carbon is only relevant if you are a
global-warming-now-climate-change-to-cover-all-contingencies acolyte.
Third, there is the matter of the nature of the release of the carbon. Would you rather it burn dirty, or would you rather it be burnt in a biomass plant under controlled conditions with a clear stack, while the energy is captured and therefore substitutes for other sources? Say, replacing COAL power?
Nor is Hanson a neutral scientific observer. The John Muir Project is of the Earth Island Institute. EII of course was founded by Dave Brower to make Sierra look moderate. And EII is Zero Cut to the core, meaning All Burn.
I could go on, but I get the picture, even if you might not.

Well Dave, you've ignored the points of sequestering brought up and how sequestering works in a brilliant spin move.

Sequestering due to rapid post-fire ground growth requires a fire, not logging. Each of you conveniently ignore that point, moving cautiously around it but never acknowledging it. You're the closest, I'll admit.

Interestingly enough, biologists continue to blame the Yellowstone fires of 20 years ago for the continuing decline of moose in Yellowstone. So where is the benefit in that?

Jay's rant does not compute....at least with physicists. See: http://www.dailytech.com/Myth+of+Consensus+Explodes+APS+Opens+Global+Warming+Debate/article12403.htm

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming. The APS is also sponsoring public debate on the validity of global warming science. The leadership of the society had previously called the evidence for global warming "incontrovertible."

In a posting to the APS forum, editor Jeffrey Marque explains,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."


The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

Larry Gould, Professor of Physics at the University of Hartford and Chairman of the New England Section of the APS, called Monckton's paper an "expose of the IPCC that details numerous exaggerations and "extensive errors"
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Wow, Craig, you really stepped on your own phallic symbol there, didn't you?

This was an <a >announcement by the FPS</a> not the APS, the original author was incredibly incorrect, and instead of doing your homework you jumped on it.

The FPS is a much smaller Forum. The <a >APS stance</a> on climate change remains unchanged, but that was a really good try!

Now stop making a fool of yourself.

Oh good, html links are no longer acceptable.

First Link: http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm
Second Link: http://www.aps.org/membership/units/index.cfm

Jay let me help you out with your links. See: http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm

>>>>>>>
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
<<<<<<<<<

You poor little thing, you found an article that is non-representative of the stance of the APS and you think it deflects from your earlier complete and total fubar? Sad and pathetic little man.

And the conclusion, despite all of the grand math and fancy diagrams in your article?

"Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015"

Can you read that little man? There aren't any big words there, did you even go down to the conclusion at all?

Don't bother trying again, you're wrong and you will always be wrong.

Jay, all the insults in the world do not make your case or make your argument. The editor, Jeffrey Marque, is part of APS through his leadership in FPS. He has opened the door to debate climate change as per the article penned by Monckton under the APS banner. Now for an organization that once said the science is settled and incontrovertible it seems a crack has appeared with Jeffrey Marque' explanation,"There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution." Of course that is not to say that mankind is not part of climate change, just not our contribution to CO2 being all that significant. There are many climate forcings both positive and negative by both nature and mankind. But of course you know that, and that realization just doesn't fit your politics, therefore, the smokescreen of insults. I knew I would provoke your hysterical reaction. You did not disappoint.

No Craig, the insults are all that are left for you. You were wrong. Absolutely 100% wrong. There are not 10,000 physicists that question MMGW, the APS still has a stance of pro-climate change as their official stance. The science still has debate, and it always will, especially in regards to how we go about fixing things.

Have you ever admitted you were wrong? No. You are totally unable. You made a HUGE mistake here, and I'm going to rub your whiny little nose in it for a long time unless you apologize to everyone that you lied to.

Jay, the APS can't have it both ways. Claim there is consensus, the science is umimpeachable, while entertaining debate on the central point of their climate change policy, and allowing skeptics like Monckton to publish an article under its banner. Since this first appeared the APS clarified that one of its editors, Jeffrey Marque, does not speak for the whole of the body. However, that does not erase that there is doubt within the body and the scientific community as reflected in his editorial comment that I quoted above. Jay, what you claim is MY lie goes to your diminisned powers of judgment. I merely quoted from a published article and added that there are physicists that disagree with you. That's a fact that insults can't change.

You created and supported the quote:
"The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change and is now proclaiming that many of its members disbelieve in human-induced global warming."

That is your lie. Own up to it, be a man, nut up.

Science is never fully done. Science admits mistakes, adjusts and keeps going, unlike you.

Jay, the lie is in your claims, not mine. I did not create the quote, only revealed it verbatim in the article where it originated and provided the link. You may have the final word here as we have moved away from the subject.

It's too bad we can't just have a difference of opinion and a civil exchange of views. Your first comment here was all about accusing a few of lies. I guess I just don't appreciate your rhetorical style.

You started lying when you covered for bear bait's lies, and you continued with pretty much everything you did.

Once lies enter the debate, they are no longer civil.

But once again, you fail to own up to your quote, you fail to address the massive mistakes you made and you try to make it my fault.

Good job! You should go be Widestance Larry's PR man.

Jay and Craig, Argueing online is just like the Special Olympics...not matter who wins your both still retarded. Come on...move on.

Fires are Good!
Fires are Bad!
With so many opposing viewpoints and no one agreeing, there is no right answer.

In perhaps simplistic terms, sex is good and rape is bad. It depends on who is doing what to whom, and for what reason and with whose permission or not.

The worst deal is to have unattended fire in the heat of high fire season, when anything can happen, and might. The best is to introduce fire under controlled conditions, with a management goal in mind, that preserves what should be preserved, and burns that which is a liability or threat to that which should be preserved.

Presently, the national goal on Federal lands is to incinerate it all, in some sort of simplistic idea that is just a fine idea. The snag in that river of thought is results of unattended, unfought, unmanaged fire have been a disaster in many cases. Whole ecosystems have been lost, forever. Micro climates changed, and refuge for endangered and threaten species has been lost on an unthinkable scale. There seems to be no stopping these people, this government. And it appears the Obama government will continue to incinerate the wildlands of America, as this unfought fire idea is coming from idealists and green robots who collect conscience money to assuage green guilt. Trusts and foundations have to divest themselves of a given amount of money on an annual basis to maintain their tax free status. So the river of money might be slowed by the current market conditions, and loss of equity, but the river will not be stopped, dammed.