forest voice fall 2006

8/9/2019 Forest Voice Fall 2006

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Native Forest CouncilPO Box 2190Eugene, OR 97402

Forest Voice

Nonprofit Org.

U.S. Postage PAID

Eugene, OR

Permit No 310

Defending Nature, Saving Life since 1988 www.forestcouncil.org

Fall 2006Volume 18Number 4

The Native Forest Councils

Its Time to Choose

?


2/16

Forest Voice Fall 006

Its Time to ChooseDear Friends & Neighbors,

We need another revolution like we had against King Georgeo England back in the 1770s. A revolution or reedom, liberty& justice and a democratic orm o Government. We had it ora while but its been torn asunder by the corporate cesspoolo political corruption, bribery and extortion and their two-party control, where little that is honest or challenges theindustry dominated status quo is allowed.

We have our work cut out or us. Were aced with a barrageo calls or us to get along, to cooperate with our adversaries,to lower our expectations and to let the Democrats govern tothe center (so they may possibly get re-elected in 2008). Wehave to reject this industry and institutional perspective orlosers and ight back. We have to tell the truth and demandwhats ethical, moral and right. Nothing less. Who needs

Democrats and their many beltway environmental rontgroups i they are going to just be kinder, gentler versionso the deadly corporate parasites that are destroying nature,sanctity o Lie, liberty and justice in America? For me its justanother orm o treason and betrayal.

Its up to us. We can either accept the advice and directivesrom the DC-greens or we can hold the Democrats eet to theire. Each and every one o us can pledge to write, phone andvisit our elected oicials, at the city, county, state and ederallevel. Better yet, contact the DC green groups and let themknow we do not and will not accept any more dishonest band-aid, non-solutions, and that youll reuse to support themuntil they develop the backbone to stand up or whats right.We do not accept that industry has a right to make money

even when it causes pain and suering. We do not and willnot accept anything less than real solutions to the many realproblems that are doing real harm to nature and humanity.Tell them that crimes against nature are by extensioncrimes against humanity since we depend on nature orour lives. Tell them that we cannot and will not tolerate thecontinued raudulent economics and accounting wherebymost o the real costs o industrys activities are externalizedonto the backs o the American people, uncounted andignored even when it costs us our jobs, health and well being,even our lives & liberty.

Remember that if we dont get involved, if we dont dopolitics politics will continue doing us.

Nature can get along ine without humanity, but humanitycannot survive without nature.

But to look at our behavior its hard not to conclude that eitherwe, or the powers that be, worship one thing and one thingonly: money. Not lie or creation. They compulsively wantmoney, ever more money, even i in the process they happento extinguish lie on earth. With their continually increasingpollution outputs combined with liquidating or trashing evermore o the countrys and worlds orests, our planet could endup looking like Mars, completely devoid o lie.

Rip it up, tear it out, let our children do without isthe implicit environmental policy or the White House &Congress (dominated and controlled by industry money,bribery and extortion) and they have continually lied aboutit. With this election, however, they got a bit o a slap in theace. Throwing out Rep Pombo, one o their most ignorant

and belligerent thugs, is something we can all celebrate.Having a change in leadership and lobbyists should be a goodthing. However, Im araid the Democrats will be too nice,timid, cowardly or complicit in leaving in place many, i notmost, o the destructive, unconstitutional and un-Americanpolicies that will wreak havoc or decades unless repealed &dismantled.

I can still remember the 103rd Congress when the Democrats

had a veto-proo majority and the Presidency, yet it was theworst environmental Congress ever. Terriied and intimidatedby the extreme rights savage little attack dogs, they continuallygave in to industrys interests. That Congress was onlyoutdone when the even more treacherous 108th and 109thcame along, and all too many Democrats went along or theride, not challenging Republican policies.

Our goal should be one o zero harm. No more pollutionoutputs, no more deorestation, nothing that reducesAmericans reedom, justice, lie, liberty and pursuit ohappiness. We have to re-regulate outlaw corporations, revokecorporate personhood and stop allowing them to deinemoney as ree speech. Corporate money needs to becompletely removed rom American politics!

Some insiders will say all that is but a pipe dream, too utopian,idealistic and unrealistic. I say that big dreams and a visionof a better place are what inspire people and give us all theunstoppable power to sooner or later make it so. Getting usto abandon the moral high ground and argue over the termsand conditions o our abuse and ultimate demise are whatcause 60 percent o Americans to not bother voting.

We have the moral high ground here, AND we have the power.However, when 60 percent o Americans dont vote, when 50percent o Sierra Club members dont vote, we abdicate thatpower. I say its time we stand together and take that powerback!

-Tim Hermach

Forest Voice 1988-2006ISSN 1069-2002Native Forest CouncilPO Box 2190Eugene, OR 97402541.688.2600Fax [email protected]

Forest Voiceis sent ree tomembers o the Native

Forest Council. The costo U.S. membership is$35 annually. Bulk orderso theForest Voiceareavailable or $50 per 100.A complimentary copy isavailable on request.

All rights to publication oarticles appearing inForestVoiceare reserved.

Publisher/EditorTim Hermach

Managing EditorDavid Porter

Research EditorJosh Schlossberg

Proofreading and EditsJim Flynn

Special ThanksBrett ColeJim FlynnFunk/Levis & Associates:

Chris Berner, David FunkMarriner OrumSarah WiltzMatt WuerkerCharlotte TalberthMarcia HanscomJeanie MyklandDeborah Ortuno

No ThanksAll those who eel its OK

to cut deals that leave uswith less native orests,soil, air and clean water.

Submission GuidelinesWe welcome unsolicitedsubmissions that addressissues relevant to publiclands protection andsupport the Native ForestCouncils mission. I youwould like us to return yourwork, please include a SASEor send an email to [email protected].

Inspired? Incensed? Impressed?Please write:Native Forest Council

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This publication containscopyrighted material theuse o which has not alwaysbeen speciically authorizedby the copyright owner. Weare making such materialavailable in our eorts toadvance understanding oenvironmental, political,human rights, economic,democracy, scientiic, andsocial justice issues, etc.We believe this constitutesa air use o any suchcopyrighted material as

provided or in section 107o the U.S. Copyright Law.In accordance with Title17 U.S.C. Section 107, thematerial in this publicationis distributed without proitto those who have expresseda prior interest in receivingthe included inormationor research and educationalpurposes. For more inorma-tion go to www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.

Unless someone like you cares awhole awul lot, nothings going to

get better. Its NOT- Dr. Seuss, The Lorax


3/16


Bush Signs AETA Bill

On Nov 27, President Bush Signed the Animal EnterpriseTerrorism Act(AETA) into law. The bill was passed by the Sen-ate in September, and passed the House days beore beingsent to the President. In the house, just 6 members werepresent when the bill was voted on, with Dennis Kucinichbeing the only dissenting vote.

AETA amends the 1992Animal Enterprise Protection Actwhichprotects animal enterprises rom illegal acts comitted by ani-mal activists.

The act essentially makes any action that disrupts the com-mercial activities o an animal enterprise a terrorist act.

Civil-rights groups say the bills vague language could brandactivists as terrorists or activities that are unlawul yet non-violent, such as blockades, property destruction, trespassing,and the reeing o captive animals.

[For more inormation on similarlegislation at the state level, see KarenPicketts article on ALEC on page 13]

EPA Redefines English Language to AllowPolluting

The Bush administrations EPA recently declared thatpesticides can be sprayed into and over waters without irstobtaining special permits.

The EPA decision gave the pest control companies whatthey wanted. It also closely parsed the English languageor what the all-important word pollutant means. EPAoicials concluded that a pesticide, when its deliberatelyapplied, isnt a pollutant under the terms o the 1972Clean Water Act.

Pesticides May Have Drastic EffectsLouis Guillette, associate dean or research at the Universityo Florida, has stated that research provides enough evidencethat pesticides put children, wildlie and the ecosystem atrisk.

He ound abnormalities in sex organs, dramatic dierencesin egg-hatching rates and hormone levels. Penis size o theanimals rom the polluted lake was smaller than animalsrom the less-polluted lake.

National Parks Service Considers AllowingPrivate Companies To Bioprospect InNational Parks

The National Parks Service is considering a proposal to allowprivate companies to own the genetic resources o plantsand animals in our parks.

The National Park Service is quietly taking public commentthrough Dec. 15 on a proposal to allow private companiesto bioprospect in our national parks -- to commerciallymine the genetic resources o plants, animals, and microor-ganisms.

White House Sued Over Global Warming

Environmentalists have sued the Bush administration orailing to produce a report on global warmings impact onthe countrys environment, economy and public health.

The plaintis claim the government must complete such areport every our years under the Global Change ResearchAct o 1990, and that the last report was due in November

2004.

The lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate ChangeScience Program to issue the national assessment, whichshould contain the most recent scientiic data on globalwarming and projections or its uture impacts.

Global Fish Stocks Disappearing

A global study published earlier this month by scientistsrom a dozen academic institutions in ve countries predictsthat all o the worlds shing stocks will collapse beore mid-century i overshing and other human intrusions continueat their current destructive pace.

The report, which appeared in the journal Science, says 29

percent o shed species including bluen tuna, Atlanticcod, Alaskan king crab and Pacic salmon have alreadycollapsed.

New Jersey Withholds Toxics Info

Public Employees or Environmental Responsibility (PEER)reports that the New Jersey Department o EnvironmentalProtection has intentionally withheld a list o more than6,000 toxic sites.

Native ForestCouncil

The Native Forest Council isa nonproit, tax-deductibleorganization ounded bybusiness and proessionalpeople alarmed by thewanton destruction o ournational orests. We believe a

sound economy and a soundenvironment must not beincompatible and that currentpublic land managementpractices are probablycatastrophic to both.

The mission o the NativeForest Council is to protectand preserve every acre opublicly owned land in theUnited States.

Board of DirectorsAllan BranscombCalvin HecoctaTim Hermach

Advisory BoardEd Begley, Jr.Je DeBonisLarry DeckmanErika FinstadDavid FunkRev. James Parks MortonLewis SeilerFraser ShillingKaryn StricklerEd Dorsch

PresidentTimothy Hermach

StaffJosh Schlossberg

InternLidiya Beisembayeva

VolunteersMichelle DAmicoSamantha ChirilloJohn BorowskiDavid PorterMick DodgeWilliam Blair

ForesterRoy Keene

Seattle OfficeSeattle, WA206.783.0728

[email protected] DivelbissSuzanne PardeeJosh KnappTim Young

Ananthaswami RajagopalMarc Church

Regional Representatives

Margaret Hays YoungBrooklyn, NY718.789.0038718.789.8157 ax

Wayne NortonGainesville, FL352.373.8733

Jason TamblynDuluth, GA678.969.7013

Kris MoormanAames, IA515.232.1316

News and Views

One o the easiest and best ways to get the wordout about the threat to our remaining nativeorests and the need to permanently protectevery Americans birthright our public orests,rivers and streams is writing a letter tothe editor o your local newspaper. The letterssection is the irst thing most people read whenthey open the morning news, and it is one othe main ways our elected oicials ind out whatissues are important to their constituents. Besto all, its ree.

Native Forest Council sta, volunteers and several o ournationwide associates send out regular letters to the editorto local and state papers, yet most out o state papers wont

run our letters. Which is why Native Forest Council isintroducing our Letter Tree, where NFC members acrossthe nation submit monthly letters to the editor.

The irst step toward passing Native Forest Councils ForeverWild Act: Honest and Full Cost Accounting and Zero Cuton Public Lands, is to wake the sleeping masses. We musteducate the American public o the lie sustaining services pure water, clean air and a livable climate providedor us by our orests ree o charge, and the need or theirgenuine and lasting protection. Within a year, our goal is tohave at least one NFC member in every state submitting amonthly letter to the editor o their local paper.

Those interested in becoming active and participating inNFCs Letter Tree will receive a monthly topic, talking

points and a model or each letter. Members are alsoencouraged to crat their own letters with urgent anduncompromising messages o the need or orest protectionand the inevitability o Zero Cut on public lands.

NFC supporters wishing to get involved with the LetterTree program should call our Eugene oice at 541-688-2600, email [email protected], or drop a line to NativeForest Council, PO Box 2190, Eugene, OR 97402.

As an example, the ollowing is a letter to the editor writtenby the Native Forest Councils Josh Schlossberg. It waspublished in the Eugene Register-Guard, the Eugene Weeklyand the Ashland Daily Tidings.

Half of the manmade carbon emissions released into theatmosphere come from deforestation, according to Dr. Nigel Sizerof the World Resources Institute.

Any serious attempt to limit the severity of the climate crisisinvolves not only restricting CO2 emissions (essential!), but alsoprotecting and preserving the forests that store and absorb carbon effectively cleaning up our mess free of charge.

In the United States, our first major step towards combatingclimate change should be placing our 643 million acres of publiclands OFF LIMITS to the destructive and dishonest corporateextraction industries, corrupt government agencies, and bought-and-sold politicians colluding to ravage our living life-supportsystem: our forests.

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4/16

by Michael DonnellyRoadless, roadless...moonlightdancing on a fresh clearcut

- Apology to Paul Simon

The email lists were abuzz V-E Day with articles andpost-mortems on the Bush Administrations newoensive in their War on the Earth. The dumpingo the toothless Clinton Roadless Area Conser-vation Rule and installing o a New RoadlessRule barely went noticed by the general populace.Far more newspapers editorials appeared (mostagainst the BushCo move) than news stories aboutit and virtually no real analysis as its pretty hardto explain how one rule that didnt protect any-thing is now replaced with another that will alsodo nothing to stop industrys rapacious raids onour last public-owned wildlands. Ill give it a try.

Big Labor quickly weighed in quickly o course; insupport o Bush. And, the Big Greens? Already thesend us your money to deend the Clinton Road-

less Rule campaign is in ull swing. The NationalResources Deense Council (NRDC), the League oConservation Voters, the Heritage Forests Cam-

paign, Trout Unlimited and the rest o the Demo-crat Greenwash cabal now call the new measureThe Treeless Rule in their pleas. (Poll-tested la-beling, or sure.)

Historic

Back in 2000, the Big Greens unveiled their PewCharitable Trusts-unded Heritage Forests Cam-paign (HFC). In a New York Times piece that year,proessional enviro HFC Director Ken Rait an-nounced that Pew unding will ultimately in-

clude more than $4 million in spending.

In a telling portent, Rait gloated about the proudmoment a ew monthslater when the out-goingClinton nally put hisRoadless Rule in place.In a piece he wrote at thetime, Rait crows, Thescope and scale o whatwe have done is trulyhistoric. Yet, in the veryrst ten words he bringsup the act that it (theroadless policy) is threat-ened, the most honest

words he musters.

Gee. Ya think? Clintonunveils the plan literallyat the last moment (sae-ly ater even its weakprovisions would haveapplied to his adminis-tration the one thatgave us the Salvage Rid-er) on January 12, 2001;just eight days beoreBush was inaugurated!

And, yes, that threathas subsequently workedquite well as undraiser,

as Rait et al. are still on the oundation dole, keep-ing their jobs longer than the stated reason orthe jobs itsel lasted. (Does this losing team everchange the line-up?) The slick HFC website stillclaims: This reasonable and well-balanced ruleprotects the last remaining wild and intact 58.5million acres o National Forests and Grasslands

rom road construction and most logging, drill-ing, and mining.

The Seven-Year Ditch

And, just what was the scope and scale o this greatvictory? The alsely titled piece Clinton PreservesPristine Roadless National Forests rom 2001 hadthis revealing series o observations:

[George] Frampton, (Clintons Assistant Secre-tary o Interior or Fish and Wildlie and Parks andormer president o the Wilderness Society, 1986-1993), dismissed charges that the roadless policyis too extreme, noting that it does contain pro-visions or thinning trees to reduce wildre risks,and or restoring orest health.

Frampton downplayed the rules eects on timberharvesting activities in the Tongass National For-est, noting that certain timber sales already in thepipeline in that orest will be grandathered inunder the new roadless policy. The grandatheringclause, Frampton said, will ensure that there willbe a steady supply o timber rom roadless areas inthat orest or the next seven years.

Timber sales slated or roadless areas in other na-tional orests will also be grandathered in underthe new policy, but only i they have been nal-ized with a record o decision, Frampton said.

Well, they didnt even have to reach the end othe seven-year pipeline beore the paper tigerwas jettisoned. In the end, it preserved nothingbut Al Gore and his successors pale-green eco-cre-dentials and the jobs o a gaggle o Democrat Gre-enwashers as intended.

4 Forest Voice Fall 006

Roadless Rule ReduxJudge Hands Big Greens a Fund-raising Victory

its pretty hard to explain how

one rule that didnt protectanything is now replacedwith another that will also

do nothing to stop industrysrapacious raids on our lastpublic-owned wildlands

by Michael Donnelly

On September 20, Federal Judge Elizabeth La Porteruled that the Bush Forest Service ailed to con-sider ecological impacts when the administrationreplaced the Clinton Roadless Area ConservationRule with a state-by-state petition process. Thejudges ruling came in a lawsuit led by the stateso New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Maine,Montana and Caliornia and some 20 conserva-tion groups. The ruling eectively reinstates theRoadless Rule. For now.

Despite all the dozens o emails crowing about thegreat victory, that immediately emanated romthe oundation-dependent proessional groups, allthe Forest Service must do to reinstate their ownstate-by-state petition process is consider the en-vironmental impacts and then they can continuewhat they were doing. In act, it may even comequicker than that as another pro-developmentlawsuit led by Wyoming that was once deemedmoot by the new petition process is instantly backin play. And, o course, La Portes ruling is beingappealed. The lawyers at Earth Justice (sic) et al.

are giddily dreaming endless billable hours.

And, o course, we must look at just what the great

victory entails. Suppose it holds andthe 11th-hour Clinton Rule stands.Does it really protect roadless areas?No, and it never did. And, sta-driven,DC-catering, Democrat sycophant,email listing, undraising canvassingproessional conservationism is notgrassroots organizing.

I debated whether to take anothershot at the lame Clinton RoadlessRule given that so many underpaidactual grassroots activists who dothe real heavy liting have somehowbought into the Great Roadless Vic-tory. And,I dont want to add to theirsense o disempowerment. But itshigh time we quit the charade timeto quit laying sod while claiming thatweve planted and grown a lawn. TheRoadless Rule was instituted by Clin-ton the very last day he was in oce. I it reallydid anything and i it really mattered, well, thenwhy was it done as Bubba went out the door?

O course, it was to set up just this dynamic Gre-enwash or Democrats, lots o undraising pos-sibilities a la ANWR is threatened (again) and

a ull employment act or eco-lawyers. So, here ismy original analysis o the Roadless Rule and theinevitable eorts o the Bush administration tobrush it aside and carry on with the same sort oroad building and ancient orest liquidation that

the Clinton administration conducted or, oh,seven years, eleven months and 30+ days.

From Roadless to Clueless...The Great Stillborn Eco-Victory

most logging of pristineforests has occurred in thesethreatened areas during the

short lifetime of the RoadlessRule


5/16


6/16


by Dene MooreCanadian Press

MONTREAL The environmental work o Cana-das boreal orests in puriying air and water andthe tourism dollars they generate are worth at least$93 billion a year, says an economist.

That value should be taken into account whenmaking decisions about logging, mining and otherindustrial activity that aects orests, Mark Aniel-ski urged delegates at the National Forest Congressin Lac Leamy, Quebec.

Itll change the way decisions are made, said An-ielski, an Edmonton-based economic consultantwho specializes in sustainability.

Canada is home to one-quarter o the worldsorests.

Boreal orests regulate the climate by capturing

and storing an estimated 67 billion tonnes o car-bon in Canada alone a job worth $1.8 billion,based on the price o carbon emissions rom theglobal insurance industry.

The water ltration and erosion control unctiono boreal peatlands is worth $77 billion, and or-ests also generate billions in tourist spending.

That work is worth at least $160 per hectare,but its not recognized in national incomeaccounts or the countrys gross domestic product,Anielski said.

As an economist, I know that what we measurewe pay attention to, he said. The point o all thisis these other assets we dont value, and thereorewe dont pay attention to them in general. At thevery least, accounting is about taking inventoryand knowing what youve got.

He said a market valuation wouldnt rule outlogging or oil development.

Were not saying that timber har-

vesting should stop. What weresaying is that we need to payattention when we go into theorest, that we dont damage thesystem so that we ace a potentiallyvery high cost down the road.

Anielski will recommend industry,government, aboriginal and inter-national delegates at the three-daycongress support a natural capitalaccounting system that will guideland use planning, resource man-agement and economic develop-ment in the uture.

Barry Weito, chairman o the Cana-

dian Forestry Association and the congress, saidcompanies, governments and aboriginal groupsare all looking or a more integrated approach toland use.

Industrial land users want a sustainable and in-tegrated land management plan and have beenmoving or some time to take into account theintrinsic value o the land in development deci-

sions, he said.

(We) have been moving to make sure that we arepreserving and protecting and managing the othervalues that are out there beyond what just mightbe timber or oil and gas, Weito said.

An ocial accounting system would help dene

that value, he said.

There are some inventories that need to be doneand updated.

by Andrew C. Revkin

A new study has cast doubts on an important ele-ment o a proposed treaty to ght global warming:the planting o new orests in an eort to sop upcarbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas. The research

concludes that old, wild orests are ar better thanplantations o young trees at ridding the air o car-bon dioxide, which is released when coal, oil andother ossil uels are burned.

The United States and other countries with largeland masses want to use orest plantations to meetthe goals o the proposed treaty. The studys au-thors say that any treaty also needs to protect old

orests and that, so ar there is no sign that suchprotections are being considered. Without suchprotections, the scientists conclude, some coun-tries could be tempted to cut down old orestsnow and then plant new trees on the deorestedland later, getting credit or reducing carbon diox-ide when they have actually made matters worse.

The analysis, published in the journal Science(September 22, 2000) was done by Dr. Ernst-De-tle Schulze, the director o the Max Planck Insti-tute or Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, andtwo other scientists at the institute. Several cli-mate and orestry experts amiliar with the worksaid the study provided an important new argu-ment or protecting old-growth woods. They say

the study provides a reminder that the main goalshould be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions atthe source, smokestacks and tailpipes.

In old orests, huge amounts o carbon taken romthe air are locked away not only in the tree trunksand branches, but also deep in the soil, where thecarbon can stay or many centuries, said Kevin R.Gurney, a research scientist at Colorado State Uni-versity. When such a orest is cut, he said, almostall o that stored carbon is eventually returned tothe air in the orm o carbon dioxide. It took ahuge amount o time to get that carbon seques-tered in those soils, he said, so i you release it,even i you plant again, itll take equally long toget it back. Negotiators are to meet in Novemberto settle on methods or staving o a predictedwarming that could disrupt ecosystems, harm agri-culture and cause sea levels to rise, eroding coasts.The negotiations are taking place under the KyotoProtocol, an agreement that was signed by morethan 100 countries in 1997 but has not yet beenratied. It sets goals or cutting greenhouse gas

emissions starting in 2008 but includes ew detailson how to achieve them.

The United States, Canada, Russia and other coun-tries have been pressing to achieve as much as haltheir greenhouse gas reductions not at the sourcebut by using sinks like orests to remove carbondioxide. In the last round o talks, which took

place in Lyon, France, some countries were still

seeking treaty lan-guage that couldallow some newplanting to occuron land that wasrecently cleared oold orest and getcredit or green-house-gas reduc-tions, said Mr. Gur-ney, who attendedthe talks as anobserver. David B.Sandalow, an assistant secretary o state who wasthe chie American delegate in Lyon, said that thetreaty drats so ar could theoretically allow such apractice but that the United States was seeking toprevent this. Were committed to protecting oldgrowth and nding ways to address this issue, Mr.Sandalow said. The German study, together withother similar research, has produced a picture omature orests that diers sharply rom long-heldnotions in orestry, Dr. Schulze said. He said ag-

ing orests were long perceived to be in a state odecay that releases as much carbon dioxide as itcaptures.

But it turns out that the soils in undisturbed tropi-cal rain orests, Siberian woods and some Germannational parks contain enormous amounts o car-bon derived rom allen leaves, twigs and buriedroots that can bind to soil particles and remain or1,000 years or more. When such orests are cut,the trees roots decay and soil is disrupted, releas-ing the carbon dioxide. Centuries would have topass until newly planted trees built up such a res-ervoir underground. New orests are ne as longas they are planted on land that was previouslyvacant, Dr. Schulze said, adding, but there has to

be a ocus on preserving the old growth.

Planting New Forests Cant Match Saving OldOnes in Cutting Greenhouse Gases

The research concludes that old,wild forests are far better thanplantations of young trees at

ridding the air of carbon dioxide

The point of all this is theseother assets we dont value, andtherefore we dont pay attention

to them in general

Economic advance is notthe same thing as human

progress.- John Clapham, A Concise

Economic History ofBritain, 1957

Canadas Forests Worth Uncounted Billions?

Centuries would have to passuntil newly planted trees built up

such a reservoir underground

[Editors Note: Although it is not possible to put a specifc monetary value on our priceless and irreplaceable native orests and the lie sustaining ben-efts they provide, we must address the act that the US Forest Service and BLM currently place NO VALUE WHATSOEVER on our orests in their inven-tory accounting.]


7/16

by Dylan EvansIs it possible that global civilization might col-lapse within our lietime or that o our children?Until recently, such an idea was the preserve olunatics and cults. In the past ew years, however,an increasing number o intelligent and crediblepeople have been warning that global collapseis a genuine possibility, and many o these aresober scientists, including Lord May, David Kingand Jared Diamond people not usually given to

exaggeration or drama.

The new doomsayers all point to the same collec-tion o threats: climate change, resource depletionand population imbalances being the most impor-tant. What makes them especially araid is thatmany o these dangers are interrelated, with onetending to exacerbate the others. It is necessaryto tackle them all at once i we are to have anychance o avoiding global collapse, they warn.

Many societies rom the Maya in Mexico tothe Polynesians o Easter Island have collapsedin the past, oten because o the very same dan-gers that threaten us. As Diamond explains in hisrecent book, Collapse, the Maya depleted one otheir principal resources trees and this trig-gered a series o problems such as soil erosion,decrease o useable armland and drought. Thegrowing population that drove this overexploita-tion was thus aced with a diminishing amounto ood, which led to increasing migration andbloody civil war. The collapse o the civilizationon Easter Island ollowed a similar pattern, with

deorestation leading to other ecological problemsand warare.

Unlike these dead societies, our civilization isglobal. On the positive side, globalization meansthat when one part o the world gets into trouble,it can appeal to the rest o the world or help. Nei-ther the Maya nor the inhabitants o Easter Islandhad this luxury, because they were in eect iso-lated civilizations. On the negative side, globaliza-tion means that when one part o the world gets

into trouble, the trouble can quickly be exported.I modern civilization collapses, it will do so ev-erywhere. Everyone now stands or alls together.

Global collapse would probably still ollow thesame basic pattern as a local collapse but on agreater scale. With the Maya, the trouble beganin one region but enguled the whole civiliza-tion. Today, as climate change makes some areasless hospitable than others, increasing numbers opeople will move to the more habitable areas. Theincreasing population will make them less habit-able and lead to urther migration in a dominoeect. Huge movements o people and capital willput the international nancial system under strainand may cause it to give way.

In his book The Future of Money, the Belgian econ-omist Bernard Lietaer argues that the global mon-etary system is already very unstable. Financialcrises have certainly grown in scale and requencyover the past decade. The southeast Asian crisis o1997 dwared the Mexican crisis o 1994 and wasollowed by the Russian crash o 1998 and the Bra-zilian crisis o 1999. This is another example othe way globalization can exacerbate rather thanminimize the risk o total collapse.

This would not be the end o the world. The col-lapse o modern civilization would entail thedeaths o billions o people but not the end othe human race. A ew Mayans survived by aban-doning their cities and retreating into the jungle,

where they continue to live to this day. In the sameway, some would survive the end o the industrialage by reverting to a pre-industrial liestyle.

The enormity o such a scenario makes it hard toimagine. It is human nature to assume that theworld will carry on much as it has been. But itis worth remembering that in the years precedingthe collapse o their civilization, the Mayans toowere convinced that their world would last or-ever.

Dylan Evans is a senior lecturer at the University of theWest of England www.dylan.org.uk


by Rachel KleinmanThe Age

Native orest logging in parts o Australia releasesas much greenhouse pollution as putting 2.3 mil-lion new cars on the road each year, an environ-ment group says.

The Wilderness Society recently renewed calls or

the Bracks government to restrict logging to plan-tations ater the British Stern Reviewidentied de-orestation as a major cause o climate change.

Australian National University ellow Dr. JamesWatson, a Wilderness Society lobbyist, said Gov-ernment gures showed that 8,995 hectares oVictorian orest and woodland were logged in thepast nancial year. That amounted to 9.5 milliontonnes o carbon dioxide emissions, the equiva-lent o 2.3 million new cars, Dr. Watson said.

But Environment Minister John Thwaites spokes-man said there were vastly diering scienticopinions about the impact o logging.

The Australian government plans to release areport next year that evaluates logging in catch-ments [watersheds] against economic, social andenvironmental criteria, the spokesman said.

Dr. Watson said recent government initiatives totackle climate change were welcome but were not

enough. They cannot be seen to be seriously ad-dressing dangerous climate change without alsostopping logging in old-growth orests and watercatchments, he said.

Clearing trees releases back into the atmospherecarbon that has been stored, oten or many cen-turies. Dr. Watson said it took up to 150 years ornew trees to absorb the carbon released throughlogging o old trees.

In February 2002, the Australian governmentsOur Forests Our Future policy committed to a31 percent reduction in logging across the statesnative orests. There is no date yet or a new Labor

policy on logging.

Former chie economist o the World Bank, SirNicholas Stern, in a report commissioned by theBritish government, said emissions rom deor-estation were responsible or about 18 percent oglobal greenhouse emissions more than that othe global transport sector.

Action to preserve the remaining areas o natural

orest is needed urgently, Sir Nicholas said.

His report said that 8,000 years ago 50 percent oglobal land surace was covered by orest, com-pared with 30 percent now.

Because we dont thinkabout uture generations,they will never orget us.

- Henrik Tikkanen

Logging Releases Greenhouse Gases

A Risk of Total CollapseWe would be foolish to take for granted the permanence of our fragile global civilization

it is worth remembering that inthe years preceding the collapse oftheir civilization, the Mayans too

were convinced that their worldwould last forever

They cannot be seen to beseriously addressing dangerousclimate change without also

stopping logging in old-growthforests


8/16

8 Forest Voice Fall 006Photo: Brett Cole Wild Northwest Photography www.wildnorthwest.org


9/16

Its Time to Choose!Contact your elected representatives and demand that theysupport Zero-Cut and Forever Wild Legislation!

Forest Voice Fall 006 9


10/16


by Josh SchlossbergNative Forest Council

Every once in a while an individual comes alongwhose hard work, dedication and passion remindus that any one o us has the power to change theworld. Author, lmmaker, adventurer and activistChad Kister is one o these people. Kisters work

on the issues o climate change, deorestation andthe Arctic National Wildlie Reuge has inspiredthousands o Americans and compelled several oour most pig-headed lawmakers to sit up and takenotice.

Born in Ohio in 1970, Kister credits his environ-mentalist grandmother or introducing him to thebeauty and wonder o the natural world. Then ateenage Eagle Scout, Kister traveled to the south-west and witnessed or the rst time the savagedestruction o our national orests. Hes been adevoted advocate or the planets last wild placesever since.

Kister won the National High School Journalisto the Year Award and received a ull scholarshipto Ohio University, where he studied journalismand environmental studies. He was also active inthe peace, animal rights, and anti-biotechnologymovements on campus.

Using the money he earned as a paperboy in highschool, Kister unded his rst trip to Alaska. Sincea single airplane ood drop wouldve cost as muchas the entire trip itsel, Chad chose to live o theland instead, and spent a year and a hal preparingor the journey, learning about edible wild plants,catching and preparing sh, and other survivalskills.

In the summer o 1991, Kister started out on a700-mile hiking and rating expedition across thecoastal plain and the Arctic National Wildlie Re-uge, the subject o his bookArctic Quest. Equippedwith a 90-pound backpack and an infatable rat tocross the many rivers and lakes he would encoun-ter, his journey began at Prudhoe Bay, the hub ooil development on Alaskas North Slope.

As Kister planned to live solely o native sh onhis journey, he brought little ood along withhim. To his horror, Kister soon discovered that the

combination o oil pollution and gravel dredginghad all but eliminated sh populations. For threeweeks Kister subsisted on nothing but berries,roots and greens, until he reached the CanningRiver the border o the Arctic National WildlieReuge. In the pure, clean waters o the Canning,Kister began catching sh and was able to endo starvation and continue his travels across the

Coastal Plain.

The Arctic National Wildlie Reuge is the heart oan ecosystem that covers 100 million acres, the sizeo Caliornia. Since oil companies have already de-veloped 95% o Alaskas North Slope, Kister insistsit is not only reasonable, but very necessary thatthe remaining lands be permanently protected.

Both wildlie and native peoples depend on thecoastal plain or their survival. The Gwichin peo-ple, the subject o Kisters lm Caribou People, havebeen living o the land or the past 30,000 years with 7,000 Gwichin people in 17 villages relianton the vast herds o caribou. In act, the caribouare so essential to the Gwichins way o lie, theyreuse to set oot on their birthing grounds, whichthey call the place where lie begins. The utureexistence o the caribou, as well as the people andwildlie that depend on them or a ood source, isdirectly threatened by rampant oil development.

Kister is also a erce advocate or our nations or-ests. In 2004 Kister visited Alaskas Tongass Na-tional Forest which, despite the onslaught o in-

tensive logging over the last several decades, stillcontains the largest tracts o pristine orests letin the United States. While in the Tongass, Kisterkayaked up the rivers and creeks, encounteringgray whales, seals and the clearest water he hadever seen. Even tiny streams, Kister noted, werepacked with tens o thousands o leaping salmon,all dependent upon the native orests. Yet to thisday, logging continues at a breakneck pace.

It makes no economic sense to strip these orestsrom the ace o the Earth, says Kister, when boththe shing and tourism industries each net tentimes the income or the state o Alaska than thetimber industry. What people want to see are or-ests, not clearcut destruction.

Kister ercely disagrees with environmentalistswho are willing to sell out vast portions o ournational orests in order to protect a ew selectedparcels. He rmly believes in Zero Cut on pub-lic lands, and eels that using taxpayers moneyto subsidize the destruction o our own orests is

absolutely insane. Kister also has a harsh wordor two or the massive disregard o lie shown bythe timber industry, as well as or the kickback-ac-cepting politicians who acilitate the liquidationo our nations orests, the oundation o lie onthis planet.

The last thing we should do, says Kister, is to re-

duce the value o the peoples orests by publiclands logging.

Another issue at the oreront o Kisters activismis the climate crisis, the subject o his book ArcticMelting. Through his trips to the Arctic, Kister is arst-hand witness to the eects o climate change,personally recording a 20 degree increase in maxi-mum summer temperatures over 14 years.

One o the most devastating eects o climatechange in Alaska is the melting o pack ice foatingin the ocean. Historically, the ice has been within15-20 miles rom the shore, doubling in size ev-ery winter. Phytoplankton, the main ood sourceor innumerable species o sh and birds, live onthe bottom o the ice. Polar bears use the ice or

hunting grounds, while walrus depend on the iceto rest ater diving to the bottom o the ocean toeed on clams.

Because o climate change, the pack ice is now upto 300 miles out in the ocean! The result is thedecimation o phytoplankton, which sends a rip-ple o death up the ood chain, contributing tothe demise o polar bears, which die o exhaustionwhen they are unable to make the long swim outto the ice. Studies predict the extinction o the po-lar bear to occur as soon as 2050.

The higher temperatures are also melting perma-rost, resulting in miles o shoreline soil crum-bling into the sea, oten with native villages along

with it. The situation had become so dire thattwo Chuckchee villages with populations o a ewhundred people had to be relocated, at a cost o$1 billion. The costs o moving some o these oth-er threatened communities with populationso several thousands will result in even moreastounding costs. While industry complains othe costs o lowering greenhouse emissions, they

Inspired by the Arctic: Chad Kister

What people want to see areforests, not clearcut destruction

Even tiny streams, Kister noted,were packed with tens of

thousands of leaping salmon,all dependent upon the native

forests

From Chad Kisters Arctic Quest slideshow presentation, recounting his trek across Alaskas coastal plain and the Arctic National Wildlie Reuge.


11/16


ignore the much greater costs that come romdoing nothing.

Even anatical planet-plunderer Alaska SenatorTed Stevens acknowledges the reality o climatechange. Unortunately, as Kister points out, Ste-vens doesnt realize that means we need to stopburning ossil uels and stop exploiting the ArcticNational Wildlie Reuge.

As one o the more outspoken advocates or theArctic Reuge, it was only a matter o time beoreKister came head to head with the senator. As luck

would have it, Kister was visiting Barter Island theday Stevens was fying in or a community meet-ing. Kister made sure to attend the event.

Beore the meeting, Kister approached Stevens,shook his hand, and inormed him that he hadjust fown in rom the Arctic Reuge, and thatStevens needed to make it a priority to protect it.Stevens exploded in a rage: Son, Ive been workingto open that area [since] beore you were born!

At one point during the meeting, the Senatorclaimed Congress had promised him drilling inthe Arctic Reuge. To this outright lie, Kister start-ed shaking his head. Immediately, Stevens lookedover, stopped the meeting and shouted: I youdont stop shaking your head, Im gonna have youremoved rom this meeting! Not wanting to riskthe conscation o the Caribou People video oot-age he had in his possession, Kister stopped shak-ing his head.

While the destructive logging and monstrous de-

velopment o our ew remaining wild areas con-tinue at an alarming pace, Kisters opinion is thatthe negative eects o climate change are an evengreater threat to the health the planet. He reersto studies stating that climate change is likely tocause the extinction o 30 percent o terrestrial an-imals, something not even the rapacious timberindustry is capable o doing.

Kister realizes the government is aware o thethreat o climate change, yet is disturbed by thelack o action to combat it. He cites a 2004 Penta-gon report which states climate change is a muchmore serious threat than terrorism, likening itto the tipping o a canoe, a process which startsgradually, but eventually turns into a violent up-heaval. The Pentagon makes specic reerences todroughts, hurricanes, amines, and wars all likelyto come about due to climate change. Yet they o-er no solutions.

When asked whether humanity has alreadytrashed the Earth beyond the point o no return,Kister refects that there will always be lie on thisplanet, but the key is to maintain some o thisincredible diversity the planet has evolved over3.5 billion years. Kister believes we are at a piv-otal time in history, where our actions (or lack oaction) will decide the ate o uture generationso humanity and lie on Earth. Climate changeis unquestionably the biggest issue o our time,says Kister, who predicts the phenomenon to be-come one o the central guiding principles o

government and industry.

Despite being a repository or all this alarming anddownright depressing inormation, Kister doesntintend to give up the struggle any time soon. Inact, or every critique, Kister has a solution.

While the United States makes up only 4 percento the worlds population, it produces 25 percento the greenhouse gases. Kister says we must de-mand the government take a leading role in theimmediate reduction in the emissions o green-house gases, the rst step being the signing o theKyoto protocol. Additionally, we need to be mak-ing use o existing technologies such as 80 mpgcars.

On a personal level, Kister suggests opting or masstransit or bicycle travel instead o using a vehicle.Additionally, the simple act o keeping vehicletires pumped up can save gasoline.

Kister is a strong advocate or switching over torenewable solar and wind energy, which do notrequire ossil uels or create greenhouse gases. Weneed only use a raction o south-acing rootops,Kister states, to eectively harness the power othe sun, while the states o North and South Da-kota alone have our times the wind resources orall o the United States energy needs, includingtransportation.

Kister also believes it absolutely necessary tostop cutting down our remaining carbon-storingorests.

A crucial part o the puzzle, according to Kister,is the creation o thousands o more dedicatedactivists throughout the world. While he admitsclimate change awareness to be spreading, Kisterdoesnt think people truly understand its signi-cance, and its vital that more energy (both hu-man and ossil uel) be devoted to coming up withand implementing solutions.

Climate change activists need to make better useo mainstream media and public demonstrationsto broadcast the seriousness o climate change tothe world. Kister suggests that individuals joinlocal and national environmental organizations,

contact elected ocials, circulate petitions, andwrite letters to the editor. The beauty o activ-ism, Kister muses, is there are so many ways todo it.

Kisters healthy perspective o optimism and real-ism can be summed up in a phrase, We mightnot always win, but we cannot aord to give up,because nothing less than our survival is at stake.With passionate and dedicated people like ChadKister out there in the world, we just might havea ghting chance.

For more information on Chad and the natural areashes worked to protect, visit www.arcticrefuge.org

climate change is a much moreserious threat than terrorism

While industry complains of thecosts of lowering greenhouse

emissions, they ignore the muchgreater costs that come from

doing nothing.

People tend to ocus on thehere and now. The problem

is that, once globalwarming is something that

most people can eel inthe course o their dailylives, it will be too lateto prevent much larger,

potentially catastrophicchanges.

-Elizabeth Kolbert

The New Yorker

Photo: Chad Kister


12/16


by Daniel GilbertNo one seems to care about the upcoming attackon the World Trade Center site. Why? Because itwont involve villains with box cutters. Instead,

it will involve melting ice sheets that swell theoceans and turn that particular block o lowerManhattan into an aquarium.

The odds o this happening in the next ew de-cades are better than the odds that a disgruntledSaudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate ashoe bomb. And yet our government will spendbillions o dollars this year to prevent global ter-rorism and well, essentially nothing to preventglobal warming.

Why are we less worried about the more likelydisaster? Because the human brain evolved to re-spond to threats that have our eatures eaturesthat terrorism has and that global warming lacks.

First, global warming lacks a mustache. No, really.We are social mammals whose brains are highlyspecialized or thinking about others. Understand-ing what others are up to what they know and

want, what they are doing and planning hasbeen so crucial to the survival o our species thatour brains have developed an obsession with allthings human. We think about people and theirintentions; talk about them; look or and remem-ber them.

Thats why we worry more about anthrax (with anannual death toll o roughly zero) than infuenza(with an annual death toll o a quarter-million toa hal-million people). Infuenza is a natural ac-cident, anthrax is an intentional action, and thesmallest action captures our attention in a waythat the largest accident doesnt. I two airplaneshad been hit by lightning and crashed into a NewYork skyscraper, ew o us would be able to namethe date on which it happened.

Global warming isnt trying to kill us, and thatsa shame. I climate change had been visited on usby a brutal dictator or an evil empire, the war onwarming would be this nations top priority.

The second reason why global warming doesntput our brains on orange alert is that it doesntviolate our moral sensibilities. It doesnt cause ourblood to boil (at least not guratively) because itdoesnt orce us to entertain thoughts that we ndindecent, impious or repulsive. When people eelinsulted or disgusted, they generally do somethingabout it, such as whacking each other over thehead, or voting. Moral emotions are the brainscall to action.

Although all human societies have moral rulesabout ood and sex, none has a moral rule aboutatmospheric chemistry. And so we are outragedabout every breach o protocol except Kyoto.Yes, global warming is bad, but it doesnt makeus eel nauseated or angry or disgraced, and thuswe dont eel compelled to rail against it as we doagainst other momentous threats to our species,such as fag burning. The act is that i climatechange were caused by gay sex, or by the practiceo eating kittens, millions o protesters would bemassing in the streets.

The third reason why global warming doesnt trig-ger our concern is that we see it as a threat to ourutures not our aternoons. Like all animals,

people are quick to respond to clear and presentdanger, which is why it takes us just a ew milli-seconds to duck when a wayward baseball comesspeeding toward our eyes.

The brain is a beautiully engineered get-out-o-

the-way machine that constantly scans the envi-ronment or things out o whose way it shouldright now get. Thats what brains did or severalhundred million years and then, just a ew mil-lion years ago, the mammalian brain learned anew trick: to predict the timing and location odangers beore they actually happened.

Our ability to duck that which is not yet comingis one o the brains most stunning innovations,and we wouldnt have dental foss or 401(k) planswithout it. But this innovation is in the early stag-es o development. The application that allowsus to respond to visible baseballs is ancient andreliable, but the add-on utility that allows us torespond to threats that loom in an unseen uture

is still in beta testing.

We havent quite gotten the knack o treating theuture like the present it will soon become, becauseweve only been practicing or a ew million years.I global warming took out an eye every now andthen, OSHA would regulate it into nonexistence.

There is a ourth reason why we just cant seem toget worked up about global warming. The humanbrain is exquisitely sensitive to changes in light,sound, temperature, pressure, size, weight and justabout everything else. But i the rate o change isslow enough, the change will go undetected. I thelow hum o a rerigerator were to increase in pitchover the course o several weeks, the appliancecould be singing soprano by the end o the monthand no one would be the wiser.

Because we barely notice changes that happengradually, we accept gradual changes that wewould reject i they happened abruptly. The densi-ty o Los Angeles trac has increased dramaticallyin the last ew decades, and citizens have toleratedit with only the obligatory grumbling. Had thatchange happened on a single day last summer,Angelenos would have shut down the city, calledin the National Guard, and lynched every politi-cian they could get their hands on.

Environmentalists despair that global warming ishappening so ast. In act, it isnt happening astenough. I President Bush could jump in a time

machine and experience a single day in 2056, hedreturn to the present shocked and awed, preparedto do anything it took to solve the problem.

The human brain is a remarkable device that wasdesigned to rise to special occasions. We are theprogeny o people who hunted and gathered,whose lives were brie, and whose greatest threatwas a man with a stick. When terrorists attack, werespond with crushing orce and rm resolve, justas our ancestors would have. Global warming is adeadly threat precisely because it ails to trip thebrains alarm, leaving us soundly asleep in a burn-ing bed.

It remains to be seen whether we can learn to riseto new occasions.

Daniel Gilbert is a professor of psychology at HarvardUniversity and the author of Stumbling on Happi-ness, published in May by Knopf.

If Only Gay Sex Caused Global WarmingWhy were more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than amuch deadlier threat.

The fact is that if climatechange were caused by gay sex,

or by the practice of eatingkittens, millions of protesters

would be massing in thestreets.

Deforestation CausesGlobal Warming

Most people assume that global warming iscaused by burning oil and gas. But in actbetween 25 and 30 percent o the greenhousegases released into the atmosphere each year 1.6 billion tonnes is caused by deoresta-tion.

Trees are 50 percent carbon. When they areelled or burned, the carbon dioxide theystore escapes back into the air. Accordingto FAO gures, some 13 million hectares oorests worldwide are lost every year, almostentirely in the tropics. Deorestation remainshigh in Arica, Latin America and SoutheastAsia.

- Food and Agriculture Organization o theUnited Nations

Human beings add carbon dioxide to the at-mosphere mainly by burning ossil uels likecoal and oil. Deorestation is the second ma-jor way we increase atmospheric carbon diox-ide. Felled timber releases carbon dioxide as itburns or decays, and disturbed soils producecarbon dioxide rom burned organic matter.Forests give way largely to annual crops thatstore carbon dioxide or only a season, or tocities with little vegetation at all.

- NASA

The loss o natural orests around the worldcontributes more to global emissions eachyear than the transport sector.

- Sir Nicholas SternStern Review on the Economics o ClimateChange or the British government

Deorestation accounts or about hal o thehuman releases o carbon dioxide, one o themajor causes o global warming.

- Nigel SizerPerverse HabitsWorld Resources Institute Forest Notes,

June 2000

Unless we changedirection, we are likelyto end up where we are

headed.-Chinese proverb


13/16

by Karen Pickett

The dishonest and corrupt underpinnings o theexecutive branch o the U.S. government andcongressional pillars like Tom Delay have now be-come common knowledge. While many progres-sive activists look more avorably to the state and

regional level to eect change, in recognition othe grassroots genesis o most signicant reorm,now even that road is raught with potholes lledwith the smelly muck o corruption and a corpo-rate agenda. Replicate the Abramo method oinfuence peddling and shoot in under the publicradar screen directly into all 50 state legislatures,and you have the American Legislative ExchangeCouncil (ALEC).

ALEC is a conservative public policy lobbyinggroup unded by over 300 corporations in thebusiness o writing and promoting hundreds opieces o legislation serving the corporate agenda.ALEC has provided models or over 3,100 pieceso legislation introduced, and more than 450 laws

enacted in 1999-2000. Their agenda is supreme-ly anti-environmental and pro-privitization andree trade.

ALEC-written laws propose to, or example,

Lower diesel emission standards andloosen testing requirements

Prohibit state regulation o greenhouse gasemission prior to ratication o the Kyotoprotocol

Require the ederal government to get stateconsent beore designating nationalmonuments

Exempt large insurance providers rom rateregulations

Require economic impact analysis on par

with environmental assessment Make it more dicult or states to mandate

health coverage

ALEC has also written takings legislation inthe orm o the Private Property Protection Actthat could lead to the dismantling o protec-tions provided by the Clean Water and Air actsand other public trust protections by disallowinggovernment attempts to reduce value or restrictuses o private property unless to abate a publicnuisance.

More recently, ALEC has authored new lawsthat put protest actions that damage corporateproperty into the realm o domestic terrorism,drawing much more severe penalties and aggressiveprosecution.Founded in 1973 by right wing activist Paul Wey-rich, who coined the term moral majority, ALECcalls itsel the largest bi-partisan membershipassociation o state legislators, but is in act oneo the most powerul corporate lobbies in the

U.S., in the business o writing laws, oten withan invisible hand, or state legislators. In the late1980s ALECs agenda became more shaped by bigcorporate money, promoting laws engender-ing privatization o prisons and health care andenergy deregulation. Enrons Ken Lay was a key-noter at ALECs 1997 convention, ater giving$20,000 to help und the convention.

The roster o ALECs unders reads like a whoswho in the extractive and chemical industries:Exxon, Enron, the American Petroleum Institute,Philip Morris, Coors, the American Nuclear EnergyCouncil, Shell, Texaco, Chlorine Chemistry Coun-cil, International Paper. Their privitization agendaextends to prisons, with the Corrections Corpora-

tion o America a big under. Other avorites rom

the very long list include the NRA, Archer DanielsMidland, McDonalds, AT&T, Wal-Mart.

How does ALEC operate so ar under the radarwhile throwing around its considerable politicalweight?

Unlike Congress, many state legislators have littleor no paid sta to carry out the research, dratingand act-checking scrutiny required to survey thevolumes o legislative proposals that food theirdesks. Moreover, these oten-harried representa-tives can reap benets o ALEC membership likejunkets and other ringe benets. ALEC operatesby convening task orces, bringing legislators(nearly all Republican) to the table to sit acrossrom corporate reps to hash out solutions to im-pediments to corporate control.

Its a pay to play game whereby corporations,through ALEC, have their special interest legisla-tion promoted to state legislators across the coun-try without having their name on the legislation.In keeping with ALECs agenda o increasing

prison sentences while ignoring corporate crime,U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was a ea-tured speaker at ALECs annual meeting in July2006 in San Francisco. A.G. Gonzales also helda press conerence last January with FBI headRobert Mueller to announce the grand jury indict-ments o environmentalists or crimes o propertydestruction allegedly carried out by the Earth Liber-

ation Front. The indictments, dubbed OperationBackre by the government but more properlylabeled the Green Scare because o governmenttactics o round-up and intimidation reminiscento the anti-communist crusade Red Scare o the 50sinvolved no injuries but were trumpeted in thepress as acts o domestic terrorism. Sentences veto ten times the median were threatened, thosethreats now codied in laws passed in Pennsyl-vania and Maine. Similar eco-terrorism laws,written by ALEC, in collaboration with the U.S.Sportsmans Alliance, have been introduced inother states as well as at the ederal level.

Criminalization o dissent has long been withinthe purview o the FBI, but now that champion osurveillance and inltration has an ally in ALEC,whose agenda is protection o wealth and protec-tion o private property. ALEC would put damageto property on par with threat or actual harm tolie. When the Department o Justice announcedthat environmental and animal rights activists astheir top domestic terrorism priority, nowhere inthe pronouncements o how heinous these actsthey call terrorism are, were body counts or evena litany o injuries. The injury is dened in mil-lions o dollars to corporations who are in thebusiness o building multi-million dollar develop-ments on endangered species habitat.

The Pennsylvania law passed in April 2006amends the state code to dene eco-terrorism asa person committing one o a number o speci-

ed oenses against property with the intent tointimidate or coerce another individual lawullyparticipating in an activity which involves ani-mals, plants, or natural resources or the use oan animal, plant or natural resource acility; or bycommitting a specied oense against propertywith the intent to prevent a person rom lawul-ly participating in an activity involving animals,plants or natural resources, or using an animal,plant or natural resource acility.

Those specied oenses against property in-clude risking catastrophe, criminal mischie andinstitutional or agricultural vandalism, as wellas arson. Maines bill makes it a elony to in-tentionally damage, destroy or tamper with theproperty o another... or the purpose o causing

substantial harm to the health, saety, business,calling, career, nancial condition, reputation orpersonal relationships o the person with theproperty interest. O course, arson, trespass andvandalism are already illegal, but ALEC wants to addcodied layers so that those who support thoseactivities nancially or otherwise could also beprosecuted.

I property destruction is put on par with threatto lie, the question must be asked whether thenext step will be increased prosecution or the re-vered tradition o non-violent civil disobedienceor vilication o the successul market campaignscarried out by the likes o Rainorest Action Net-work and Forest Ethics. Ater all, those activities,as well as boycotts, strikes and other labor actionsput a dent in the bottom line. In act, attacks dis-guised as I.R.S. investigations and other back doorstrategies are already on the rise against organiza-tions that carry out civil disobedience and marketcampaigns. It is a short step rom calling sabotageterrorism to viliying those who bring protest tothe streets.

There is little doubt that the publics understand-ing o terrorism includes actual injury to livingpeople, and not acts o protest that primarily a-ect the prot margin o a large corporation. Butthese proposed laws and the current sweep oenvironmental protesters who committed acts osabotage against corporations or animal cruelty a-cilities with zero net injuries are right in syncwith the corporate agenda o protection o wealthand protection o property above all else.

Groups including Move On, the SEIU and Steel-workers unions and others have launched PLAN the Progressive Legislation Action Network to provide a counter lobbying eort at the statelevel to ALECs agenda o bringing the most radi-

cal, right-wing policies to the foor o state legisla-tures across the country. Organizations includingNRDC and Deenders o Wildlie have put up anALEC-watch website, and they campaign againstALEC policies. That work is necessary, but hasdone little to squelch the growing corporate voicein government.

For more inormation on ALEC and their onslaughtagainst democracy, check out the ollowing:

Corporate Americas Trojan Horse in the Stateswww.ALECwatch.org/report.htmlGhostwriting the Law, Sept./Oct. 2002 MotherJoneswww.ALEC.org. You can download their booklet

Animal and Ecological Terrorism in America

Karen Picket is a long time Earth First! activist,director of the Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters inCalifornia, and co-founder of the Alliance for Sustain-able Jobs and the Environment.


The indictments... involved noinjuries but were trumpeted in

the press as acts of domesticterrorism

ALEC would put damage toproperty on par with threat or

actual harm to life

ALEC: Putting Laws on the Books on Behalfof Corporate America

When one tugs at a singlething in nature, he inds it

attached to therest o the world.

- John Muir


14/16


The trade in carbon offsets is anexcuse for business as usualby George Monbiot

Rejoice! We have a way out. Our guilty conscienc-es appeased, we can continue to ll up our SUVsand fy round the world without the least con-cern about our impact on the planet. How hasthis magic been arranged? By something called

carbon osets. You buy yoursel a clean con-science by paying someone else to undo the harmyou are causing.

The Co-ops holiday rm Travelcare has just start-ed selling osets to its customers. I they wantto fy to Spain, they pay an extra 3. Then theycan orget about their contribution to climatechange. The money will be spent on projectsin the developing world, such as building windarms and more ecient cooking stoves. In Au-gust, BP launched its targetneutral scheme,enabling customers to neutralise the CO2 emis-sions caused by their driving. The consequenceso an entire years motoring can be discharged orjust 20. Again, your money will be invested inthe developing world a biomass energy plantin Himachal Pradesh; a wind arm in Karnataka,India and an animal waste management andmethane capture program in Mexico and youneed have no urther worries about what you andBP are doing to the atmosphere (or, or that mat-ter, to the people o West Papua or the tundra inAlaska).

It sounds great. Without requiring any social orpolitical change, and at a tiny cost to the con-sumer, the problem o climate change is solved.Having handed over a ew quid, we can all sleepeasy again.

This is not the rst time that such schemes havebeen sold. In his book The Rise of the Dutch Re-

public, published in 1855, John Lothrop Motleydescribes the means by which the people o theNetherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries couldredeem their sins. The sale o absolutions wasthe source o large ortunes to the priests... Godspardon or crimes already committed, or aboutto be committed, was advertised according to agraduated tari. Thus, poisoning, or example,was absolved or eleven ducats, six livres tournois.Absolution or incest was aorded at thirty-sixlivres, three ducats. Perjury came to seven livresand three carlines. Pardon or murder, i not bypoison, was cheaper. Even a parricide could buyorgiveness at Gods tribunal at one ducat; ourlivres, eight carlines.

Just as in the 15th and 16th centuries you couldsleep with your sister and kill and lie without earo eternal damnation, today you can live exactlyas you please as long as you give your ducats toone o the companies selling indulgences. It ispernicious and destructive nonsense.

The problem is this. I runaway climate change isnot to trigger the irreversible melting o the Green-land and West Antarctic ice sheets and drive hun-dreds o millions o people rom their homes, theglobal temperature rise must be conned to 2C

above pre-industrial levels. As the gures I havepublished inHeatshow, this requires a 60 percentcut in global climate emissions by 2030, whichmeans a 90 percent cut in the rich world. Eveni, through carbon oset schemes carried out indeveloping countries, every poor nation on theplanet became carbon-ree, we would still have tocut most o the carbon we produce at home. Buy-ing and selling carbon osets is like pushing theood around on your plate to create the impres-sion that you have eaten it.

Any scheme that persuades us we can carry onpolluting delays the point at which we grasp thenettle o climate change and accept that our liveshave to change. But we cannot aord to delay.The big cuts have to be made right now, and the

longer we leave it, the harder it will be to pre-vent runaway climate change rom taking place.By selling us a clean conscience, the oset com-panies are undermining the necessary politicalbattle to tackle climate change at home. They aretelling us that we dont need to be citizens; weneed only be better consumers.

British Petroleum (BP) and Travelcare, like othercompanies, want to keep expanding their busi-ness. Oset schemes allow them to do so whilepretending they have gone green. Yet aviationemissions, to give one example, are rising so astin the UK that beore 2020 they will account orthe countrys entire sustainable carbon alloca-tion. A couple o decades ater that, global aircratemissions will match the sustainable carbon levelor all economic sectors, across the entire planet.Perhaps the carbon oset companies will thenstart schemes on Mars and Jupiter, as we will soonneed several planets to absorb the carbon dioxidewe release. Osets, in other words, are being usedas an excuse or the unsustainable growth o car-bon-intensive activities.

But these are by no means the only problems.A tonne o carbon saved today is ar more valu-able in terms o preventing climate change than atonne o carbon saved in three years time. Almostall the carbon oset schemes take time to recoupthe emissions we release today. As ar as I can dis-cover, none o the companies which sell themuses discount rates or its carbon savings (which

would refect the dierence in value between thepresent and the uture). This means they couldall be accused o unintentional but systemic alseaccounting.

And while the carbon we release by fying or driv-ing is certain and veriable, the carbon absorbedby oset projects is less attestable. Many will suc-ceed, and continue to unction over the necessaryperiod. Others will ail, especially the disastrousorays into tree-planting that some companieshave made. To claim a carbon saving, you alsoneed to demonstrate that these projects wouldnot have happened without you that Mexicowould not have decided to capture the methanerom its pig arms, or that people in India wouldnot have bought new stoves o their own accord.In other words, you must look into a counterac-tual uture. I have yet to meet someone rom acarbon oset company who possesses supernatu-ral powers.

At the oces o Travelcare and the orecourtsowned by BP, you can now buy complacency, po-litical apathy and sel-satisaction. But you can-not buy the survival o the planet.

George Monbiots new book, Heat: how to stop theplanet burning is published by Penguin. He has alsolaunched a website www.turnuptheheat.org ex-posing the false environmental claims of companiesand politicians.

Having handed over a few quid,we can all sleep easy again

www.turnuptheheat.org

My ear is not that people will stop talkingabout climate change. My ear is that theywill talk us to Kingdom Come.

Few corporations or public gures are nowstupid enough to deny that climate changeis happening, or that we need to reduce ouremissions o greenhouse gases. Instead, mosto them now claim to be on the side o theangels. They make public statements or pub-lish reports designed to persuade us that theyare working towards sustainability.

In a ew cases, they really are. But or everygenuine reormer, there are hal a dozen whoare simply greenwashing their existing prac-tices. The people who will destroy the ecosys-

tem are not, or not only sneering indus-trialists in pinstriped suits, but nice-lookingpeople in open-necked shirts who claim thatthey are just as concerned as the rest o us tosave the planet.

This site aims to ensure that they dont getaway with it. Its purpose is to expose theudged gures, dodgy claims and emptypublic relations campaigns o the charmingpeople who are wrecking the biosphere.

This is not to say that everyone on this siteis a ully fedged climate criminal. They areeatured in the greenwash section or one othree reasons:

they make infated claims about their envi-ronmental perormance

they urge other people to do as they dont

they help corporations to greenwash theirpublic image

I have also started a section exposing the sci-entic mistakes made by some o the journal-ists and public gures who claim that climatechange isnt happening (see Bluers Corner).

The success o this venture depends on you.Im relying on you to send me inormationabout people, companies, political par-ties, pressure groups or even environmentalorganisations which ought to eature on thissite, and to put pressure on those already ex-posed here (see the Action to Take sections atthe bottom o each entry). I you care aboutthe survival o the earths systems, and o thehundreds o millions o people threatened bytheir destruction, please help me to make surethat spin does not become a substitute oraction.

- George Monbiot

Excerpt from George Monbiots Turn Up theHeat website: www.turnuptheheat.org

Selling Indulgences

Buying and selling carbon

offsets is like pushing the foodaround on your plate to createthe impression that you have

eaten it

We shall require asubstantially new mannero thinking i mankind is

to survive.~Albert Einstein


15/16


Does anyone really want to stopclimate change?by George Monbiot

You have to pinch yoursel. Until now, the Sun hasdenounced environmentalists as loonies andeco beards. Last week it published photograph-ic proo that climate change is real. In a page thatcould have come straight rom a Greenpeace pam-

phlet, it laid down ten rules or its readers toollow Use public transport when possible; useenergy-saving lightbulbs; turn o electric gadgetsat the wall; do not use a tumble dryer

Two weeks ago, the Economist also recanted. Inthe past it has asserted that Mr. Bush was right toreject the prohibitively expensive Kyoto pact. Itco-published the Copenhagen Consensus papers,which put climate change at the bottom o the listo global priorities. Now, in a special issue devotedto scaring the living daylights out o its readers,it maintains that the slice o global output thatwould have to be spent to control emissions isprobably below 1 percent. It calls or carbontaxes and an ambitious programme o govern-

ment spending.

Almost everywhere, climate change denial nowlooks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaustdenial. But Im not celebrating yet. The danger isnot that we will stop talking about climate change,or recognising that it presents an existential threatto humankind. The danger is that we will talk our-selves to Kingdom Come.

I the biosphere is wrecked, it will not be done bythose who couldnt give a damn about it, as theynow belong to a diminishing minority. It will bedestroyed by nice, well-meaning, cosmopolitanpeople who accept the case or cutting emissions,but who wont change by one iota the way theylive. I know people who proess to care deeplyabout global warming, but who would soonerdrink Toilet Duck than get rid o their agas, patioheaters and plasma TVs, all o which are stagger-ingly wasteul. A recent brochure published by theCo-operative Bank boasts that its solar tower inManchester will generate enough electricity ev-ery year to make nine million cups o tea. On theprevious page, it urges its customers to live the

dream and purchase that perect holiday homeWith low cost fights now available, jetting o toyour home in the sun at the drop o a hat is armore achievable than you think.

While environmentalism has always been charac-terised as a middle-class concern, and while thishas oten been unair, there is now an undeniablenexus o class politics and morally superior con-sumerism. People allow themselves to believe thattheir impact on the planet is lower than that othe great unwashed because they shop at Waitroserather than Asda, buy tomme de savoie insteado processed cheese slices, and take eco-saaris inthe Serengeti instead o package holidays in Tor-remolinos. In reality, carbon emissions are closelycorrelated to income: the richer you are, the more

likely you are to be wrecking the planet, howevermuch stripped wood and hand-thrown crockerythere is in your kitchen.

It doesnt help that politicians, businesses andeven climate change campaigners seek to shieldus rom the brutal truth o just how much has tochange. Last week Friends o the Earth publishedthe report it had commissioned rom the TyndallCentre or Climate Change Research, which laidout the case or a 90 percent reduction in carbonemissions by 2050. This caused astonishment inthe media. But other calculations, using the samesources, show that even this ambitious target istwo decades too late. It becomes rather compli-cated, but please bear with me, or our uture rests

on these numbers.

The Tyndall Centre says that to prevent the earthrom warming by more than two degrees abovepre-industrial levels, carbon dioxide concentra-tions in the atmosphere must be stabilised at 450parts per million or less (they currently stand at380). But this, as its sources show, is plainly insu-cient. The reason is that carbon dioxide (CO2) isnot the only greenhouse gas. The others such as

methane, nitrous oxide and hydrofuorocarbons boost its impacts by around 15 percent. Whenyou add the concentrations o CO2 and the othergreenhouse gases together, you get a gure knownas CO2 equivalent. But the Tyndall centre usesCO2 and CO2 equivalent interchangeably,which leads to an embarrassing scientic mish-mash.

Concentrations o 450 parts per million CO2equivalent or lower, it says, provide a reasonable-to-high probability o not exceeding two degreesC. This is true, but the report is not calling or alimit o 450 parts o CO2 equivalent. It is call-ing or a limit o 450 parts o CO2, which meansat least 500 parts o CO2 equivalent. At this level,there is a low-to-very-low probability o keepingthe temperature rise to below two degrees. So whyon Earth has this reputable scientic institutionmuddled the gures?

You can nd the answer on page 16 o the re-port. As with all client-consultant relationships,boundary conditions were established withinwhich to conduct the analysis. ... Friends o the

Earth, in conjunction with a consortium o NGOsand with increasing cross-party support rom MPs,have been lobbying hard or the introduction oa climate change bill ... [The bill] is ounded es-sentially on a correlation o 2C with 450 parts permillion o CO2.

In other words, Friends o the Earth had alreadyset the target beore it asked its researchers to ndout what the target should be. I suspect that itchose the wrong number because it believed a 90percent cut by 2030 would not be politically ac-ceptable.

This echoes the reusal o Sir David King, the chiescientist, to call or a target o less than 550 partsper million o CO2 in the atmosphere, on thegrounds that it would be politically unrealistic.The message seems to be that the science can goto hell we will tell people what we think theycan bear.

So we all deceive ourselves and deceive each otherabout the change that needs to take place. The

middle classes think they have gone green becausethey buy organic cotton pyjamas and handmadesoaps with bits o lea in them though they stillheat their conservatories and retain their holidayhomes in Croatia. The people who should be con-ronting them with hard truths balk at the scaleo the challenge. And the politicians wont jumpuntil the rest o us do.

Recently, the Liberal Democrats announced thatthey are making climate change their top politi-cal priority, and two days later they voted to shittaxation rom people to pollution. At rst sight itlooks bold, but then you discover that they havescarcely touched the problem. While total tax re-ceipts in the United Kingdom amount to 350 bil-

lion {678 billion dollars] a year, they intend to shitjust 8 billion [15.5 billion dollars] or 2.3%.

So the question which now conronts everyone politicians, campaign groups, scientists, readerso the Guardian as well as the Economistand theSun is this: how much reality can you take? Doyou really want to stop climate chaos, or do youjust want to eel better about yoursel?

George Monbiot writes a weekly column for the Guard-ian. He is the author of the bestselling books CaptiveState and The Age of Consent, as well as the investiga-tive travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershedand No Mans Land.

How Much Reality Can You Take?

Almost everywhere, climatechange denial now looks as

stupid and as unacceptable asHolocaust denial

The message seems to be thatthe science can go to hell wewill tell people what we think

they can bear.

The warnings aboutglobal warming have beenextremely clear or a long

time. We are acing aglobal climate crisis. It isdeepening. We are enteringa period o consequences.

-Al Gore


16/16

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