[Vision2020] Latah County Forests

[Ted Moffett]

The changes in appearance of Moscow Mountain over recent decades, when
viewed from the south looking north, due to logging, are dramatic; and not
only lessen the beauty of this mountain from a distance, but when hiking
through some areas that were marvelous in the 1970s, now look like a bomb
went off... Personally, this is very sad.

Yes, of course: jobs, profit, development... Children to feed, mortgage and
vehicle payment, the college fund and that new big screen monitor; and
lumber for new home construction, paper products, etc. And remember,
"Wilderness, Land of No Use."

I'm not sure of the extent of ecosystem damage or resource depletion from
logging in Latah County, but the issue of logging must be viewed in its
Earth System context, given the magnitude of humanity's expansion over the
planet.  Latah County no doubt consumes products linked to logging in other
nations.  If the human population was under one billion, the impacts of
logging would be much easier to manage sustainably.  But with six billion
and counting, if the rate of consumption of forests products per capita in
the US were extended just to China and India alone, the ecosystem services
from forests, that are critical to maintain the biosphere, would reach a
crisis of depletion and ecosystem damage.

In following our example, China and India alone could devastate the world's
forests.  Maybe we should, on this issue, as the slogan implores, "Think
globally, act locally."  Data below on this issue from the Earth Policy
Institute:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2005/Update46.htm
-----------------
Here in the US we support via our consumption of goods containing forest
products or requiring clearing of forests, the destruction of critical
forest ecosystems in other areas of the world.  US consumption of beef and
soy products (tofu eating may not be as environmentally friendly as some
think) is linked to clearing of rain forest in the Amazon, for cattle
grazing and soy cultivation.  Of course Europe, Japan and other developed
nations also have rates of consumption of forest products that are linked to
this non sustainable trend.

Rain forests are cut for palm plantations in Indonesia and Borneo  (
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/february18/biofuels-rainforest-destruction-gibbs-021809.html),
ironically sometimes for biofuels, also for palm oil that is sometimes
added to vegetarian food... Vegetarians (tofu) and biofuel users supporting
rain forest destruction, absurdities of modern life

In British scientist James Lovelock's "Revenge of Gaia" (I title I cringe
at, because it sounds like a flaky fantasy novel, or a "New Age" screed on
naive back to mother nature spiritualism, rather than the science and
technology based analysis that it is), he lists the three deadly "c's" one
of which is "chainsaws:"  "combustion, cattle and chainsaws."

Below is a provocative (even if misrepresenting Lovelock in some
respects), review of this book from the British Journal of Medical Practice,
which focused on Lovelock's work in part, I assume, because of his medical
metaphors for how we should approach the Earth System.  Lovelock's promotion
of nuclear power as a partial solution to the energy/climate change crisis
is discussed, an issue where Lovelock displays his independence,
intelligence and knowledge as an empirical scientist:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1837861

 Copyright <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/about/copyright.html> © British
Journal of General Practice, 2006.
Book review
Reviewed by Lesley Morrison
 James Lovelock
The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back — And How We Can Still
Save Humanity.
Allen Lane. 2006 PB, 192 pp, £16.99, 0-713-99914-4.

 James Lovelock, the renowned scientist who first introduced us to Gaia, the
concept of the earth as a self-regulating system, has now written, *The
revenge of Gaia*, in which he describes how, after millennia of humankind
exploiting the earth without counting the cost, the earth is fighting back.
It makes extremely uncomfortable reading. For those of us who have always
strongly, instinctively and rationally felt that on no account must we ever
go down the nuclear route to meet our energy needs, it is a particularly
difficult read. He says that, to survive, we have no choice.

Lovelock writes passionately and well and his language is rich in metaphor,
something which, he acknowledges, many scientists find irritating. Gaia
behaves like the other mythic goddesses, Khali and Nemesis; she acts as a
mother who is nurturing but ruthlessly cruel towards transgressors, even
when they are her progeny. Her primary obligation is to the living earth,
humankind comes second. She is struggling to keep the earth cool for all her
diverse forms of life against the inexorable rise in the sun's heat. At this
crisis point neither business as usual or sustainable development are useful
policies. They are like expecting a lung cancer victim to be cured by
stopping smoking; many of Lovelock's metaphors are medical. ‘Both measures
deny the existence of the Earth's disease, the fever brought on by a plague
of people’.

Many of Lovelock's metaphors are medical. He speaks to us as doctors, and
also as spiritual beings … ‘Important concepts like God and Gaia are not
comprehensible in the limited space of our conscious minds’. He describes us
as tribal carnivores apparently oblivious to the global heating (as opposed
to mere warming) which we have caused. He also refers to us as ‘planetary
physicians’ who have reneged on the Hippocratic Oath, ‘first do no harm’.
The threats of flooding and desertification are real and imminent.
Combustion and the accumulation of carbon dioxide are the major hazards to
the planet. In general practice we are familiar with many positive ‘c’
words, ‘care’, ‘compassion’, ‘collaboration’ and ‘connection’. Lovelock's
‘c’ words are his ‘three deadly c's’, ‘combustion’, ‘cattle’ and
‘chainsaws’. We should use them all as little as possible.

Farmland acts as the skin of the planet and is a precious resource. We have
a false sense of our ability to manage it. ‘We are no more capable to be the
stewards or developers of the Earth than are goats to be gardeners’. Organic
farming is a luxury we cannot afford. We need to make maximum use of the
land we have with minimal transport and carbon dioxide production.
Synthetically produced food using carbon compounds sequestered from power
station effluent is one option. He believes that the Green movement is in
denial about the irreversibility of climate change and that many of their
policies are positively harmful. Hostility to nuclear power is an example.

Lovelock does not see nuclear power as a panacea but as a temporary
solution, which we have available now and which is less harmful to the
planet than existing alternatives. In the public consciousness cancer and
radiation are firmly linked. What tends to be ignored are the
cancer-inducing risks of the life-giving gas, oxygen. Thirty per cent of us
will develop cancer and a contribution to the process of carcinogenesis is
from the fiercely reactive radical products of oxidation which can cause DNA
damage and the growth of cancer cells. Oxygen and carbon dioxide, not
radiation, are the real and pervasive threats to life. Lovelock has famously
offered to have a container of nuclear waste products buried in his garden
as a demonstration of their safety. He believes that, until such time that
we have developed a combination of clean energy from renewables, fusion (the
energy from hydrogen combustion) and burning fossil fuel under conditions
where the carbon dioxide effluent is safely sequestered, we are obliged to
use nuclear fission energy as a temporary measure. He offers a further
medical analogy, that of a haemorrhage being stemmed by a paramedic until
the patient reaches hospital.

The time has come when all of us must ‘plan a retreat from the unsustainable
place where we have reached through the inappropriate use of technology’.
Appropriate technological fixes which he describes appear to teeter on the
brink of science fiction; large sunshades placed between the earth and the
sun, the production of artificial clouds, the use of sulphuric acid aerosols
to bounce heat rays away from the earth.

But the situation is so dire that all measures need to be considered and all
assumptions need to be scientifically challenged. Undoubtedly this book is
successful in doing that. Lovelock describes the process by which people
have become convinced that ‘anything nuclear is evil’ as cognitive
dissonance summed up in the phrase, ‘don't confuse me with facts, my mind is
made up’. The over-riding sense I was left with at the end of this book was
of the precious beauty of the Earth and the sadness of its plight. And of
the responsibility we all share to participate in an informed debate about
our country's and our planet's energy future. Next month we are holding a
public meeting on nuclear power with our Green MSP, Chris Ballance. With
several of us having read this book, the discussion promises to be lively.
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 7/18/09, roger hayes <rhayes at turbonet.com> wrote:
>
> Hello,
> Traveling north the other day I found I was appalled at the
> deforestation of our small mountains. All along McCrosky park, clear
> cuts denude the land up to the borders of the park. On the east side of
> Plummer creek valley huge swaths of bare ground look like a war zone. A
> war against forests...
> Yesterday, we went out to Little Boulder by Helmer. All the mountains
> surrounding the Potlatch valley are newly logged. Not a stick standing.
> Brown, erodible land showing for miles.  Log truck (yes, I know jobs,
> and I understand that) roared by every few minutes. I looked carefully
> at a few loads and the logs looked green and healthy. I saw no borer
> sap marks.
> Up by Laird park, if one looks 360 degrees around the valley the
> mountains are cut clean of timer in huge swaths.
> Finally, every day on my way home from work, I see that Moscow
> mountain, and along the shoulder toward the East and West Twins are
> becoming gradually cleared of any timber. New logging road are clearly
> visible as they wind their way up the mountain.  From the Chipman
> Trail, and the Pullman highway, Moscow mountain presents a lovely view
> as it stands above our city. Sunsets are particularly beautiful.  The
> slashes up the mountain side detract from that picture, and show that
> maybe we don't care much about our environment.
> What happened to selective logging? I see many small landholders
> continue this practice, and the results doesn't look half bad.
> I know that much of the land mentioned above, particularly Moscow
> mountain, is private land, and I guess people can do what they want
> with that land. What about Federal and State land? Why do those lands
> have to be clear cut? What about erosion? What about our water
> resources? Don't the mountains surrounding our area supply at least
> shallow aquifer water? What about our creeks and rivers? Don't they
> supply water and critical habitat?
> Will there be any trees left in Latah county it this keeps up? Kind of
> sad...
>
> Roger Hayes
> Moscow
>
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