The Obama Administration's decision today to open Alaska's Tongass National Park for logging is, in my opinion, the first major blunder of their tenure. This is one of America's last outposts, a pristine environment that should be protected in perpetuity. While Alaskan Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich approved the decision, claiming it will create jobs for underemployed loggers, it does little to address the major issues at stake here, namely biodiversity, global climate change, and the preservation of our natural resources. Much of the world's rainforest has either been destroyed or is endangered, for short-term economic gain, and the United States must lead here by example and find better ways to employ our work force.
The notion that we can simply turn a blind eye to pressing environmental issues feels like a carryover from the Orwellian practices of the last administration. During the past three decades, our logging policies in this country led to the decimation of our forests in the Pacific Northwest, when corporate raiders like Charles Hurwitz bought up logging rights and wiped out entire groves of old growth. This hideous example of mismanagement was done in the name of economics. The Pacific Lumber Company, which Hurwitz bought, had been a self-sustaining operation for over 100 years, privately owned by proud stewards of the forest. And when they sold, not only did their ethos of sustainability fall by the wayside, so did their way of life.
It is time to recognize that if man and nature are to live together in harmony, we must treat our forests as the treasures they are. They are the lungs of the planet. The Obama Administration must take the lead role here by example, treading gently if the rest of the world's governments are to follow.
Profits come and go; our resources to not.
I have read that the logging lease that is in question was sold before the Roadless Act of 2001, and therefore was exempt from the rule due to a grandfather clause. There is a lot of posturing that Obama is being like Bush on his environmental policy because of this decision, but the fact the lease pre-dates the Act indicates that the wheels for this sale were already in motion under Clinton. Legally, it seems that if the sale does not violate any pre-existing regulations (such as the Endangered Species Act) that it should be allowed to proceed.
What Obama is trying to do (energy, health care, etc...) is groundbreaking and controversial. Currently he faces harsh criticism on the grounds of people's opinions. However, if he is willing to transgress upon what is considered legal just to please special interests, he places himself at risk to lose much political capital and become ineffective on these bigger issues.
As for the environmental side of this issue, if you don't like logging, cut back on your use of wood products. Or at least stop bad-mouthing the loggers who perform a dangerous, low-income job so you can have toilet paper, furniture, the house you live in, etc…
Why?
1. Rainforests help to lessen the impact of climate change
2. This project costs MUCH more than it brings in
3. This in an untouched, roadless aera with trees 500 to 2000 years old. Even if new trees are planted the economic system as it exists now there will be destroyed
4. It means to put a foot in the door to destroy one of the last pristine aeras
5. Other jobs could be created and retraining paid for the now jobless people of the aera
Please make your voice heard!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Sign this petition to save the Tongass National Forest for the NRDC: http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_tongass_0109_a/step1
http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/roadless_0709?qp_source=landingpage&first_names=Rosemary&last_name=Alles&email=rosemary.alles%40gmail.com&x=47&y=6#startform
Also:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Ask the president to keep his campaign promises.
Gripe away.
My initial reaction was OMG, NOOO!! (while holding my head firmly in both hands) On further consideration, I thought, "surely to GodAlmighty, Barack Obama's staff has gone rogue, and he knows nothing of this decision!"
Say it isn't so. Please.
Is it not common knowledge, even Outside the geek-community of which I am proudly a part, that trees (and every green thing on the planet) are the only things keeping us alive in a growing carbon-dioxide glut on the atmosphere? Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you... Trees Inhale CO2 (that's the greenhouse gas that's causing global warming!), and Exhale Oxygen (that's the stuff that keeps us alive!)
Cutting trees, while preaching an emergency reversal of global warming, is throwing jet-aviation fuel on the fire in your kitchen!
I guess you haven't been following the bailout or torture debate?
Tongass national forest = 17,000,000 acres
Proposed Sale = 400 acres
Get over it, the economy is rough and people need jobs.
and dont even get on me about how the gov't is profiting from this because historically gov't gets no profit from the logging industry.
educate yourselves.
same excuse can be used to build more nuclear weapons. it's really a very lame excuse.
these "loggers" should have been retrained years ago. the writing has been on the wall for a very long time.
or: selling .002% of a national forest which can be regrown in a generation to create jobs, or employing people to create weapons that can vaporize 250,000 human beings in a flash of an eye.
hmmm....
a slightly unbalanced comparison and i'm pretty sure you're aware of that.
im all about the preservation of natural majesty and beauty, but seriously folks, are we actually considering abandoning the president over this? refusing to support him on future policies only 1/8th of the way through his tenure? if it wasnt this it would be something else though, i can count on that. on that same note, im not saying support any president blindly because hes our leader, thats just ignorant, what im proposing is that everyone here try a LITTLE harder to educate themselves on the facts, not play into the emotional "reeling-in" that this article was blatantly written to appeal to. it lacks facts, and is saturated with half truths.
again, i urge you, EDUCATE YOURSELVES.
thanks