“Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along.”

David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

“Allowing the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity to dictate our economic and political direction – through their environmental agenda – is like letting Micheal Jackson baby sit your 12 year old son.”

Chris Vargas “AKA” Dances with Hornets

To satisfy the “Green God,” are you willing to give up the technology that has cleaned our air, cleaned our water and increased our lifespan and lowered infant mortality dramatically over the last 100 years? To satisfy the “Green God,” are you willing to stop all resource recovery? As China rises in the east granting more and more freedom to its people and growing at an astounding rate as an economic and military power, is America’s sunset before her as China’s dawn as the future Leviathan rises?

As the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the rest of the environmental movement campaigns to remove access to our public lands through use of the Wilderness Act, Endangered Species Act, Forest Plans, Invasive Species legislation, lawsuits etc., what effect will this have our ability to get the raw materials that support our economy? Should we stop all resource recovery? Does the environmental movement support any resource recovery? Are they really stopping resource recovery or just moving the impact to other areas?

From our past mistakes and the resulting degradation, we understand that our public lands must be managed. We must conserve our public lands, they must be intelligently managed to provide for the needs of society, and for future generations. That is why we must not forget the economic importance of or public lands – or we will suffer the consequences.

As I mentioned in our last update, in their rush to lock up our public lands, do environmentalists support any resource recovery that will support our economic system? Have you ever read an article where they point out a mining, drilling or logging operation they support? Have they ever addressed how our economy will operate under their eco-socialist mandate of stopping all resource recovery? Raw materials must come from somewhere and as I mentioned in my last update are those raw materials coming from 3rd World Countries with no oversight?

In a November 8th 2003 Los Angeles Times article titled “Dead Trees Fail to Bring Life to Forest – Disappointing bids from loggers hamper efforts to replant and clear deadwood for fire safety,” the decimation of our ability to harvest trees and address forest health i.e. thinning programs was examined.

How did the closing of the saw mills and the statement “California’s timber industry has shrunk dramatically”(mentioned in article) come to be – thus making it uneconomical to harvest these trees?

Here are a few clues:

“For one thing, the commercial strategy assumes a vibrant logging economy that does not exist in California.”

“California’s timber industry has shrunk dramatically, forest economists say, hurt by cheap Canadian competition, A STEEP DROP IN TIMBER OUTPUT IN NATIONAL FORESTS IN THE 1990’S AND THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS IN THE STATE.”

“The basic problem is that the industry in California, especially production in the Sierra Nevada, has just gone away in the last decade,” observed Rich Thompson, a resource economics and management professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. “THE NUMBER OF MILL CLOSURES IS PHENOMENAL. They’re gone.

“In 1992, there were 56 timber mills in California. TODAY THERE ARE 29.”

“FEWER MILLS MEAN FEWER BIDS.”

What part did the environmental movement have over the years in making it nearly impossible to harvest timber, resulting since 1992, in the reduction of mills from 56 to 29?

What part did the Sierra Club and their allies have in creating the conditions expressed in the following statements from the article:

“The basic problem is that the industry in California, especially production in the Sierra Nevada, has just gone away in the last decade,”

Has the Sierra Club’s decimation of the logging industry helped to decrease or increase the cost to do fuel reductions? How much of these 19 millions of acres that burned since 2000 would not have burned so devastatingly if some of these areas had trees harvested to restore a mosaic pattern to the forest?

While recycling can provide some of these resources, can recycling provide all of the needed resources? A recent study showed that due to the Sierra Club’s almost 30 year campaign to stop the harvesting of trees, California now imports 75 percent of its timber needs, and the environmental movement is campaigning to stop the remaining 25 percent we do harvest.

The statistic of importing 75 percent of our lumber needs comes from a 2003 state report. This 1,400-page draft report by the California Department of Forestry is titled: “Changing California, Forest and Range 2003 Assessment.”

“The more we don’t produce here, the more it will come from other areas. We’re just shuffling our environmental impacts somewhere else,” William Stewart, chief of the state’s Fire and Resource Assessment Program, told the Sacramento Bee.

Among the report’s findings:

. California consumes nearly 15 percent of all of the wood and paper used in the United States, the most of any state.

. California’s lumber production is at its lowest level in 20 years, while its timber harvests have fallen 60 percent since 1988. Nationally, logging on federal lands has fallen to its lowest level in half a century.

. The state imports about 75 percent of its wood and paper products from Oregon, the U.S. Southeast, Canada and Europe.

. The downturn means fewer jobs in counties such as Siskiyou and Del Norte, where a quarter of residents’ income is from public assistance.

In reality the environmental movement is not stopping the harvesting of trees, mining and drilling they hate, they are just moving the impact elsewhere. Raw materials don’t just appear out of nowhere, there is no spontaneous generation. Should we be seeking ways to sustainably provide for our own needs, especially in regards to harvesting timber, which is a renewable resource that grows back? Or should we accept their premise that these activities should be completely stopped and our sole focus should be on protecting endangered species with no thought to how this course of direction will affect us economically?

But we must “save” the Spotted Owl right? Read on:

“The Orange County Register Sunday, July 4, 2004

Spotted-owl ‘science’ is endangered

Ten years ago, an allegedly declining number of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest was used by environmentalists and the Clinton administration to virtually shut down the cutting of so-called old growth forests on public lands across the region. The policy, not surprisingly, has been catastrophic for the area’s economy and turned many once-thriving timber towns into rural ghettos, with high unemployment rates and increased reliance on government handouts, including federal “spotted owl payments.”

But a decade later, what has resulted from of this costly effort to save the beloved spotted owl? Nothing much, as it turns out. The owl’s numbers aren’t rebounding, as expected, and this trend has less to do with the preservation of forests, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatory predilections of a winged rival, the barred owl.

The second owl, originally from Canada, has been involved in a century-long invasion of the spotted owl’s habitat. And as invasive species are prone to do, it is wiping out the established animal.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that the two species evidently have interbred, raising questions about which of the owl variations, if any, merit continued federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.

But rather than admit that the reason for the owl’s problems isn’t really the harvesting of trees and reverse direction, or acknowledge that the mistake has needlessly cost thousands of people their livelihoods, owl advocates seem poised to execute a classic bait and switch. One expert on a panel currently advising the federal government about what to do next recently suggested that still more government actions would be needed to “save” an owl not being wiped out by man, but by another owl. “The spotted owl really taught us a lot about conservation in the last decade in terms of (preserving habitat),” the expert said. “Now it’s going to teach us what kind of sacrifices we have to make to battle some of these new threats.”

Another expert suggested that the only way to rebuild spotted owl populations was to begin killing off barred owls and see what happens.

But all this case really has “taught us” is the folly that ensues when the government acts based on flawed, biased or immature science. And we don’t see what “sacrifices” owl experts or wildlife advocacy groups have made at all in this situation. All the sacrifices have been made by the thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods as a result of this debacle, and the taxpayers now paying to support them.”

States such as Oregon that are stopping the harvesting or trees (once a primary job source) and economic development, either by policy or by lawsuits filed by environmentalists, are increasingly seeing their state economic status decline. But California, the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world, by federal taxation, is becoming the sugar daddy of states such as these, subsidizing them with the federal tax dollars of Californians. But as the eco-socialists attack the economy of California, currently in debt to tune of billions, can California continue to be the golden goose?

I’m I saying the sole purpose of our public lands should be resource recovery and recreation? – NO! But we must seek a balance that provides what John Stewart called the triangle of Forest Management: preservation, recreation and resource recovery. It is just as extreme to say our sole objective in the management of our public lands it to provide for resource recovery (or recreation) as it is to say our sole objective should be to protect endangered species. For the sake of the future of our country we must find solutions that provide for all three aspects of forest management in a balanced and reasoned way.

Are we capable of managing our pubic lands in a balanced and reasoned way? Should we accept the premise that the redemption of nature, the preservation of it in a “static” state is dependant on the decline of mankind, and preservation should be our sole purpose? Or should we place our faith in our ability to rise to the occasion, evolve and advance our civilization to overcome the conflicts that face us? To accept the premise of the environmental movement that mankind’s survival is secondary to all else will certainly doom us to failure and result in the decline of our civilization, a condition many environmentalists have hoped for.

I for one will place my faith in mankind and our ability to advance and evolve to meet the challenges that we face, if not for my sake, for the sake of future generations; that is the legacy I want to leave.

We have the luxury of worrying about our environment, and as I stated in my last update, a luxury not shared by others in the undeveloped world that are more concerned with putting bread on the table and a roof over their heads.

As President and the father of our National Park system Teddy Roosevelt stated in a speech he made to foresters in 1903:

“And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for a moment what is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in itself; nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness, though that, too, is good in itself; but the primary object of our forest policy — as of the land policy of the United States — is the making of prosperous homes. It is part of the traditional policy of home making in our country. Every other consideration comes as secondary.

You, yourselves, have got to keep this practical object before your minds; to remember that a forest which contributes nothing to the wealth, progress or safety of the country is of no interest to the government — and should be of little interest to the forester. Your attention must be directed to the preservation of forests, not as an end in itself, but as the means of preserving and increasing the prosperity of the nation.”

The environmental movement, which had its beginnings come about for good reason, has evolved into a morally bankrupt eco-socialist movement that discounts the good in mankind and seeks policies detrimental to our survival and freedom. They hide their ideology and agenda behind slogans such as “Protect and Restore our Forests!” fearful that if the public actually understands what they are advocating, such as in their Forest Plan Alternative 6, they will be defeated. Would we accept a government that operated in this way, deceiving the public and hiding from them the actions that will directly affect their freedom to access their public lands?

This elite attitude, that they know what is best for “the masses” is not new. It is an attitude shared by the worst regimes in history. Many of these regimes also believed they would create nirvana on earth. But as history has shown these regimes were relegated to the dustbins of history. China understood this and changed course over 30 years ago, reforming and allowing their people more and more personal and economic freedom, freedom that they had been denied in the past. During this 30 years China has become an economic miracle, and as America turns to adopt the socialist policies of China’s past, China heads in the opposite direction continuing to reform and allowing more freedom.

As China grows in freedom and in economic and militarily power, will America, under the leadership and control of the environmental eco-socialists, abdicate its’ position as the “Leviathan?”

“I know in my heart that man is good… and there is a purpose and worth to each and every life.”

Ronald Reagan

In our next update we will offer a challenge to the Press, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD).

You are being given the opportunity to protect your freedom to access your public lands by commenting on the future of your forests; please take this responsibility seriously.

We will be evaluating and commenting on the forest plans before the comment period ends in August. We will be releasing these comments to our supporters to evaluate with an email address to the Forest Planning Team so you can comment too. Please do your part to protect your access by visiting our web site for this information or sign up on our email list to be kept informed on the forest plans.

“The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States: We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these 3rd World countries right where they are. And it is important to the rest of the world to make sure that they don’t suffer economically by virtue of our stopping them.”

Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….”

The United States Declaration of Independence

Which statement advocates imposing on 3rd World Countries a type of “Eco- Imperialism” that dictates what their destiny will be? Which statement allows 3rd World Countries the freedom to choose their future for a better life?

If you’ve missed our last “Forest Plan Updates,” they are listed at the end of this commentary.

The Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are advocating their Forest Plan Alternative 6, which will protect endangered species by closing off our forests. As we explained in our past alerts, from 60 to 70 percent of our recreational access would be removed by their road and trail standards

Their trail and road standards (combined with their fire management proposals), will handicap management and severely restrict access. The Forest Service (after public input), did not choose their alternative; if you read the Sierra Club and the Center for Biodiversity’s Alternative 6 you would understand why it was rejected.

In some ways we should consider ourselves blessed. We are not the only ones subjected to their “Eco-Socialist” and other policies. We have not suffered the wide scale deadly effects of their “Eco-Imperialist” policies toward 3rd World Countries.

As the Sierra Club and their allies in the environmental movement portray the United States as the source of all evil in the world, it is their “Eco-Imperialistic” policies, combined with their “Eco-Socialist” Policies that are denying 3rd World Countries the modern technology that would stop the death and environmental destruction that they are currently experiencing. Although political instability and war also contribute to the destruction and loss of freedom in many 3rd World Countries, many would greatly benefit from the technology being denied to them by the influence of the environmental movement.

How does the environmental movement address the problems facing the 3rd World Countries – such as the lack of safe drinking water and the deforestation created when forests are cut down for heat and fuel? We have the luxury of worrying about our environment, a luxury not shared by others in the undeveloped world that are much more concerned with putting bread on the table and a roof over their heads (and fuel to heat and cook with).

As I will show in this update, it is not the policies of the United States that are keeping the world’s poor at deaths door, but the policies of the environmental movement. Many in the environmental movement accuse the United States of crimes against humanity. As the United States advocates the use of technology to better the lives of 3rd World Countries, the environmental movement opposes them. Just who is guilty of crimes against humanity?

In a just world, the environmental movement would be tried for crimes against humanity for denying the 3rd World Countries the very comforts of technology they enjoy. Is this not an elitist attitude for these “Eco-Imperialists” and “Eco-socialists” to have? To deny 3rd World Countries the freedom that they themselves enjoy? Do American environmental organizations abuse America’s power (aided by the “Eco-Socialist” governments of Western Europe and the U.N.), by influencing policies that would deny others the freedom to choose what life saving technologies they can use? Is this not a type of genocide upon the poor of the world?

Even the people of third world countries understand the benefits of a strong economy; yet the environmental movement campaigns against economic development in these areas, which actually increases the degradation and results in many deaths. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide have no access to electrical power; they have no choice but to rely on cutting trees and using animal dung for fuel, which increases pollutants both inside an outside their shelters affecting air quality and their health.

Recent deadly mudslides in Haiti and the Dominican Republic were caused by deforestation, which was not the result of logging, but of the cutting of trees for cooking and heating. Many hours are spent gathering wood and dung by women and children adding to their burden.

The lack of power also has detrimental effects on the 3rd World Countries ability to provide waste treatment and clean water, which contributes to deaths from dysentery and other diseases.

“Wealthy countries want the earth to be green, the underdeveloped countries want to be fed.”

James Shikwati, director of Kenya’s Inter-Regional Economic Network as quoted in Eco-Imperialism – Green Power Black Death

Although the environmental movement touts “renewable energy, it would take 13,000 wind turbines on thousands of acres to provide the power of one 555 megawatt gas fired power plant on less than ten acres. Plus, wind turbines have been blamed for increasing the deaths of endangered birds that fly into the turbines, one of the reasons why environmentalists fought a wind farm near the home of the endangered California Condor. The efficiency of solar power is not much different than that of wind turbines and would also require thousands of acres to match the generating ability of a gas power plant. Plus, if you don’t have wind or you have cloudy or rainy days, this technology is useless.

“Environmental activists ‘romanticize poverty’ then they fly to ‘eco-summits’ like the one in Johannesberg, where they stay in ‘five-star hotels, talking about poverty but not giving options to people who are actually poor to come out of poverty.”

Barun Mita, President of the liberty institute of Delhi India as quoted in Eco-Imperialism – Green Power Black Death

The environmental movement denies 3rd World Countries the comforts of modern technology that their members enjoy – as well as the ability to rise above their circumstances; in the environmental movement’s psyche to do otherwise would deny the “Green” God.

“I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems”

John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The environmental movement’s opposition to drought and insect resistant Genetically Modified Crops (GMC) increases water and pesticide use and also increases erosion. Many of these GMC’s are high yield, decreasing the amount of land in cultivation. Some of these crops also address vitamin deficiencies that are the cause of much suffering and death. These crops have been used in the west but denied to the people of 3rd World Countries by pressure from environmental organizations.

“Zealous researches alleged, for example, that monarch butterflies might be harmed by biotech corn, which contains a bacterium gene (Bacillus thuringiensis) that makes the corn toxic to insects to chew on the plants. They also claimed that feeding transgenic potatoes to rats might damage their immune systems. Both “studies” were quickly seized upon by the Times and tabloids to generate hysterical reactions. Both were subsequently pilloried by scientific panels.

More careful studies found that the number of monarch butterflies and larvae actually increased in the fields where Bt corn was grown, probably because the use of pesticides was greatly reduced in those fields. A review of the potato study concluded that the rat’s immune systems were damaged because they were being fed only potatoes, and their diets were devoid of essential nutrients.”

As quoted in Eco-Imperialism – Green Power Black Death by Paul Driessen

The well researched and footnoted book further states:

“Opposition to biotechnology is a ‘northern luxury,’ says Kenyan argronomist Dr. Florence Wambugo. ‘I appreciate ethical concerns, but anything that doesn’t help feed our children in unethical.

Greenpeace co-founder and ecologist Dr. Patrick Moore echoes her sentiments. Now an outspoken critic of the group he once led, he underscores the ‘huge and realistically potential benefits that genetically modified crops could bring ‘for the environmental and human health nutrition.’ He calls the war on biotechnology and genetically modified organisms (GMO) ‘perhaps the most classic case of misguided environmentalism ‘ in memory.

‘There are no know serious negative impacts from growing or ingesting the GMO’s that have already been distributed,’ Moore continues. ‘Yet every half-baked sensationalism and contrivance from activists with no training in science gets airtime on the evening news. Even the Golden Rice, a GMO that may help prevent blindness in half a million children a year, is rejected out of hand by these anti-humanists, who put unfounded fear-mongering ahead of the worlds poor'”

To further quote from the book:

“James Shikwati, director of Kenya’s Inter-Regional Economic Network, raises additional questions that weigh heavily on the minds of people in his part of the world.

* Why do Europe’s developed countries impose their environmental ethics on poor countries that are simply trying to pass through a stage they themselves went through?

* After taking numerous risks to reach their current economic and technological status, why do they tell poor countries to use no energy, and no agricultural or pest control technologies that might pose some conceivable risk of environmental harm?

* Why do they tell poor countries to follow sustainable development doctrines that really mean little or no energy or economic development?”

To deny economic development is to deny the key to population growth in 3rd World Countries. In the developed western world, native populations are declining. In Japan and Italy the dropping of birth rates is becoming a national crisis. In the majority of western countries, it is immigration that is responsible for population growth. Why is this?

In most third world countries your children are your social security. With high rates of infant and adult mortality, and the lack of modern farming and manufacturing methods, large families are the norm and needed to insure someone survives to take care of you when you are old. Think of our own history during the first 125 years of our country in which farmer’s preferred large families.

In Western countries, technology allows us to provide for our needs efficiently without intense labor. Modern technology has raised life expectancies and lowered infant mortality, making large families unnecessary. Of course some of the population growth in 3rd world countries is driven by local customs or religious beliefs, but with education this can and has been addressed.

As explained by Berkeley Professor of Energy and Resources Jack Hollander in the introduction to his book “The Real Environmental Crisis: Why Poverty, Not Affluence, Is the Environment’s Number One Enemy”:

“One of the greatest success stories of the recent half-century is, in fact, the remarkable progress the industrial societies have made, during a period of robust economic growth, in reversing the negative environmental impacts of industrialization. In the United States the air is cleaner and the drinking water purer than in any time in five decades; the food supply is more abundant and safer than ever before; the forested area is the highest in three hundred years; most rivers and lakes are clean again; and largely because of technological innovation and the information revolution, industry, buildings and transportation systems are more energy – and – resource efficient than anytime in the past. This is not to say that the resource/environment situation in the United States is near perfect or even totally satisfactory – of course it is not. Much needs to be done. But undeniably, the improvements have been remarkable.

The media have played a major roll in encouraging the growth of environmental pessimism and technophobia by focusing on worst-case, doomsday scenarios in reporting environmental subjects and consistently underplaying the remarkable progress being made by the affluent societies in enhancing the quality of the environment.

The real enemies of environmental progress are poverty and tyranny, not technology or global markets. On the contrary, technological innovation enabled by affluence and freedom are a major source of the environmental progress already made by the industrial societies, and the global penetration of innovative technologies will most likely be a crucial ingredient for achieving a future sustainable environment throughout the world. Unfortunately, the reality of environmental progress and promise is obscured by the doomsday rhetoric propounded in recent years by many environmental groups and amplified by the media…

Typical of today’s environmental pessimism, these doomsday pronouncements contain grains of truth imbedded in a sea of exaggeration. Without jumping ahead into the details of the scientific subjects they encompass, which is the task of subsequent chapters, I assert here that such broad brush statements mislead the public and, in some instances, are scientifically inaccurate. For example, they usually represent environmental quality as rapidly deteriorating, which is not the case. They usually represent the earth’s productive capacity as rapidly diminishing, which is not the case. The usually represent population growth as a global threat, which is not the case. And they usually represent global warming as definitely linked to human activities, which has not been established. Countering such environmental pessimism with factual basis for environmental optimism is one of the objectives of this book.”

I suggest everyone read this well researched and documented book.

“In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.”

Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Where will you place your trust? In the environmental movement that views mankind as a pox on the world; it wishes us to return to the Stone Age and advocates policies deadly to 3rd World Nations – or in mankind’s ability, through freedom and technology, to overcome the threats we have faced.

Is the environmental movement’s policy of “Eco-Imperialism” and “Eco-Socialism,” which has opposed the development of 3rd World Countries, their chosen future for us? What have their actions shown…?

Their actions have shown that the environmental movement, originally founded for good purposes, is in its current state morally and ethically bankrupt. It is an elite ideology in which the failed Socialist policies of doomed regimes have found a home. It is an ideology that hates mankind and dismisses the needs of the world’s poor, apathetic to the cycle of death and poverty that is their reality. The ideology of the environmental movement denies 3rd World Countries the technology to choose their destiny and instead it promises them a life of living hell.

It this not a crime against humanity? Is this not genocide against the worlds poor?

“I have long believed that the guiding hand of Providence did not create this new nation of America for ourselves alone, but for a higher cause: the preservation and extension of the sacred fire of human liberty. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have made not only with ourselves, but with all of mankind. Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few, they are the universal right of all God’s children.”

Ronald Reagan (1991)

You are being given the opportunity to protect your freedom to access your public lands by commenting on the future of your forests; please take this responsibility seriously.

We will be evaluating and commenting on the forest plans before the comment period ends in August. We will be releasing these comments to our supporters to evaluate with an email address to the Forest Planning Team so you can comment too. Please do your part to protect your access by visiting our web site for this information or sign up on our email list to be kept informed on the forest plans.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER COMMENTARY
Sunday, July 4, 2004

Spotted-owl ‘science’ is endangered

Ten years ago, an allegedly declining number of northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest was used by environmentalists and the Clinton administration to virtually shut down the cutting of so-called old growth forests on public lands across the region. The policy, not surprisingly, has been catastrophic for the area’s economy and turned many once-thriving timber towns into rural ghettos, with high unemployment rates and increased reliance on government handouts, including federal “spotted owl payments.”

But a decade later, what has resulted from of this costly effort to save the beloved spotted owl? Nothing much, as it turns out. The owl’s numbers aren’t rebounding, as expected, and this trend has less to do with the preservation of forests, scientists are now realizing, than with the predatory predilections of a winged rival, the barred owl.

The second owl, originally from Canada, has been involved in a century-long invasion of the spotted owl’s habitat. And as invasive species are prone to do, it is wiping out the established animal.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that the two species evidently have interbred, raising questions about which of the owl variations, if any, merit continued federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.

But rather than admit that the reason for the owl’s problems isn’t really the harvesting of trees and reverse direction, or acknowledge that the mistake has needlessly cost thousands of people their livelihoods, owl advocates seem poised to execute a classic bait and switch. One expert on a panel currently advising the federal government about what to do next recently suggested that still more government actions would be needed to “save” an owl not being being wiped out by man, but by another owl. “The spotted owl really taught us a lot about conservation in the last decade in terms of (preserving habitat),” the expert said. “Now it’s going to teach us what kind of sacrifices we have to make to battle some of these new threats.”

Another expert suggested that the only way to rebuild spotted owl populations was to begin killing off barred owls and see what happens.

But all this case really has “taught us” is the folly that ensues when the government acts based on flawed, biased or immature science. And we don’t see what “sacrifices” owl experts or wildlife advocacy groups have made at all in this situation. All the sacrifices have been made by the thousands of people who have lost their livelihoods as a result of this debacle, and the taxpayers now paying to support them.

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