Features
Bush vs. the Environment
Carol Brocker
Ebbtide Correspondent
Earth Day is on April 22. As we Americans are preparing to celebrate our Environment, I would like to turn the clock back to a statement made by the ‘New Yorker’ on Nov 14, 2002. “The Bush administration, with remarkable single-mindedness, has set about undoing more than thirty years of work to protect the nation’s air, water, and shrinking wilderness.”
The Sierra Club is gearing up with television and radio ads to target the host of Bush’s administration policies that have presented an exceptional threat to the health and safety of America’s communities. Earth Day celebrations are customarily a time for increase awareness of conservation issues – they will draw attention to the Bush administration’s environmental record.
The Bush administration has launched an assault on laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Act passed over thirty years ago by Congress, in spite of or to spite the fact they’re working.
Many Americans are unaware of this attack on the environment, partly do to being busy looking for jobs, raising families, the conflicts about the war, and Bush’s administration making every effort to avoid as much news coverage as possible as well as misnaming these policies as “Clear Skies.”
The Sierra Club is building environmental community campaign and is asking public to get the word out by talking to neighbors anytime you have the opportunity. The hope is that we can start to build a stronger community that will be willing to stand up against this kind of abuse on our future, our children and grandchildren’s future. We must stand up and speak out to protect our air, water, and land from polluters.
Some of the environmental assaults Bush has planned for our children and grandchildren:
He has rejected the principle of “polluter pays” shifting the cost of big business toxic waste clean up to you and me.
He has stripped protection from 10 percent of American’s land, so far, opening large areas to logging, mining, and oil drilling.
Mercury pollution is out of control and Bush’s administration has no plan on correcting this – one out of eight women of childbearing age has unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies.
Increasing levels of smog and soot from power plants are being dumped into our air with no evidence of any corrective action being done by the current administration.
"Earth Day is a time for Americans to reflect on the state of our environment," said Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director. "As we take stock this Earth Day, Americans will see that the Bush administration's policies leave little to celebrate. By dismantling the Clean Air and Water Acts, selling out public lands to the timber and oil industries, and allowing polluting industries to rewrite environmental laws, the Bush administration has its sights firmly set on overturning a century of environmental progress."
There is always a better way than Bushes way
Technology exists for cleaning the air like smokestack scrubbers, we have renewable energy like wind and solar that doesn’t pollute, and we have workable laws that just need to be enforced. The only real reason these are not now widely used is that big money want more money.
Please checkout the Sierra Clubs Website at www.sierraclub.org and start building a stronger cleaner tomorrow.
The Ancient Forest Roadshow
Carol Brocker
Ebbtide Correspondent
America’s Living History
The Ancient Forest Roadshow is taking part of a 420-year-old Douglas fir known as “The Doug” on a road trip across the USA. The tree is a symbol of our nation’s heritage, and will be used to show Americans the impact of Bush’s current timber polices.
The campaign has four primary objectives:
- To build a nation-wide forest movement through intensive face-to-face interaction with the American citizens.
To educate people on Bush’s polices and their effects on our forest land.
To inspire people regionally, as well as at the national level, to take action on issues that directly affect the Northwest.
To bring awareness back to local forest conservation issues and organizations in the areas were the Roadshow plans to stop.
History of the tree;
“The Doug” was 25 years old in 1607 when the first English colony settled in what is now known as Jamestown, Virginia, and when Pocahontas saved John Smith. It was 40 years old in 1622 when the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. It was 195 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. When Oregon became a state in 1859, the tree was 277 years old.
“The Doug’s” life span came to a sudden end after 420 years on July 10, 2002. “The Doug was cut down as a part of the “Berry Patch” timber sale in the Willamette National Forest in Western Oregon. This old growth sale resulted in clear cut logging of 99 acres, enough trees to fill more that 1000 logging trucks.
‘The Doug’ is from a Douglas fir tree that stood more than 200 feet tall and had a diameter of 6.5 feet with an age of 420 years. It is the second tallest tree species in America.
“The ‘Berry Patch’ timber sale is just one example of more than 150 planned timber sales that target 80,000 acres of mature and old growth forests in Western Oregon and Washington,” said James Johnson, Director of the Cascadia Wildlands Project. “These logging plans clearly show that the Bush administration is ignoring the public’s desire to protect America’s ancient forest.” The Cascadia Wildlands Project is just one of the many environmental groups supporting the Forest Roadshow.
Log it – to prevent forest fires
The Roadshow started as a result of Bush’s “Healthy Forest Restoration Act.” The Bush administration and the timber industry blocked attempts from Congress to focus on forest-fire fuel-reduction work. Fuel reduction would involve removal and thinning out of the under brush and trees that contribute to fires in overcrowded areas, as well as in areas around homes and communities that are most threatened by fires.Instead they pushed through the “Healthy Forest Restoration Act” which will result in the logging of large old growth: commercially valued trees that are the most fire resistant ever and are the furthest from homes and communities. Those critical of the plan say the law will have no effect on fire prevention, and will only affect the destruction of our valued old growth forests and financially benefit the timber industry. Supporters of the plan maintain that the logging will be a sustainable amount, within current predictions of growth made by the Forest Service.
Reducing Protections for Wildlife
Currently, The Northwest Forest Plan stipulates that before certain federal lands are logged, an investigation must take place to look for rare and threatened species that are dependent on the old growth forest and the surrounding areas. The Forest Service is required to “survey and manage” these forests so that the vital habitats are not lost. The Bush administration has recently made the research requirement more lax in favor of expediting forest thinning projects.
Removing Protections for Water Quality
Our endangered salmon and trout – both important symbols of the Pacific Northwest – require cool, clean water to spawn and raise their young. Trees provide the shade that controls the temperature of streams and prevents soil erosion that chokes the eggs and young fry. The correlation is simple: remove the tress and the fish die! Bush’s administration has made changes to the Aquatic Conservation Strategy that is under the Northwest Forest Plan. Now the Bureau of land Management and the Forest Service no longer have to guarantee that the water meets the required quality for the aquatic habitats that are directly harmed by logging and road construction.
The Answer
These drastic changes to how we manage our Pacific Northwest forests are the reason for the start of the Ancient Forest Roadshow. Getting the word out is the only way to be sure everyone is aware of the price we are now paying for the future of our natural resources.
For more information on the Ancient Forest Roadshow visit their Website at http://www.forestroadshow.org.