Bush to host climate-change conference Global-warming specialists and international government climate-policy officials are gathering this week in Washington at the invitation of the White House, to hash out a plan to reduce greenhouse gases, which are thought to cause global warming. The Bush administration — which has been criticized for not doing enough to slow the process of global warming, for failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gases — is hoping to move the process forward and demonstrate to the international community that it's serious about dealing with global warming. "At this meeting, [the U.S. will] seek agreement on the process by which the major economies would, by the end of 2008, agree upon a post-2012 framework that could include a long-term global goal, nationally defined midterm goals and strategies, and sector-based approaches for improving energy security and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions," said Harlen Watson, a senior climate negotiator for the United States at a global climate workshop in Vienna, Austria, late last month. Critics of the Bush administration on global warming are cautious. Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said this week's meeting "brings together the right group of countries," but is skeptical about the plan the Bush administration hopes to set up. The administration will host a Meeting of Major Economies on Climate Change and Energy Security on Thursday and Friday in Washington....
Climate Pact Needed Now to Avoid Disaster, Ban Says A new global commitment to cut greenhouse-gas emissions is urgently needed if the world hopes to avert the most dire affects of human-caused climate change, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. ``The message is quite simple,'' Ban said today at a special UN session on climate change in New York. ``We know enough to act. If we don't act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating.'' The one-day summit, with about 80 heads of state or government attending, is the largest gathering ever of world leaders focused on the subject. The meeting is intended to set the stage for negotiations on a global climate agreement scheduled to begin in Indonesia in December. A ``real breakthrough'' will be needed to reach a new treaty before the current Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, Ban said. A potential major sticking point is President George W. Bush's continued opposition to mandatory limits on carbon dioxide. Scientists say carbon dioxide is one of the main emissions causing temperatures to rise, which may lead to potentially irreversible climate shifts and rising sea levels that would threaten world economies, ecosystems and human health. World leaders as well as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger indirectly ramped up the political pressure on Bush today by stressing the need for the world's major emitters to agree on greenhouse-gas reductions. Bush is set to address the annual UN General Assembly tomorrow....
Legislation that Would Enrich Select Special Interest Groups to be Voted on This Week This Wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee will vote on a bill that would funnel over $135 million of federal pork to special interest groups in select members' districts. The "Celebrating America's Heritage Act," put forth by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), would create six new national heritage areas, including the controversial Journey Through Hallowed Ground. It would also increase congressional funding for nine existing heritage areas by 50 percent. This self-dealing is indicative of a Congress that has little interest in reforming ethics or earmark abuse, says the National Center for Public Policy Research. National heritage areas are creations of Congress in which special interest groups, whose work at times has been funded through secret Congressional earmarks, team up with the National Park Service to influence decisions over local land use previously made exclusively by elected local governments and private landowners. For instance, the special interest group lobbying for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground heritage area (which has been quietly slipped into the Grijalva bill) received an anonymous one million-dollar earmark in the 2005 transportation bill. Incredibly, the group wasn't even incorporated at the time. This is an instance where one pork-barrel earmark was distributed to bolster support for another pork-barrel earmark. Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has observed: "[O]nce a federal line is drawn around property for a heritage area, the door for annual federal earmarks and grants is opened." According to figures from the National Taxpayers Union, the Celebrating America's Heritage Act's $135+ million price tag is equal to the annual federal income taxes paid by 33,276 middle class Americans. Ironically, it is the middle class that stands to lose the most, as heritage area interest groups are typically hostile to property rights and frequently use their muscle to restrict land use and make housing more expensive for middle-income buyers....
Mountain Lion Warning Issued in Santa Barbara County Santa Barbara's Sheriff's Department is warning residents in the Buellton area to be aware of mountain lions. Over the weekend there were sightings of two mountain lions near River Park, including a rancher who claims they killed small livestock Saturday morning. The rancher reported the deaths of small livestock and it is believed that the mountain lions are still at or above the River Park area. The Sheriff's Department is now urging residents to call 9-1-1 if these animals are sighted. State Fish and Game officials have been notified of mountain lions in the area as well.
Group: Wyo can limit fire risk More homes built near fire-prone forests mean ever higher firefighting costs for local, state and federal governments. And with 50 to 90 percent of wildfire-fighting costs spent to protect these homes, it's uncertain who's going to pick up the tab, says a new study by Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Mont. Blending census and economic data with geographic information system maps, Headwaters Economics found that only 14 percent of the available “wildland/urban interface” in the West is currently developed, leaving tremendous potential for new home construction in the remaining 86 percent. The potential for growth in Wyoming is even greater: Only 4.1 percent of the Cowboy State’s wildland/urban interface has been developed, meaning 95.9 percent could still be developed. Other states are far worse off. The highest percentages of developed lands near forests are in Washington (21 percent) and Colorado (20 percent), while Wyoming and Utah have the smallest at 4.1 and 4.8 percent, respectively....
Outgoing chief says wildfires consume most of his budget The retiring chief of the U.S. Forest Service's Intermountain Region says the days of unrestricted cross-country travel on public lands are quickly coming to an end. Jack Troyer will empty his desk Oct. 3 in Ogden, where he took charge of 32 million acres of national forests and grasslands in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California and Colorado. His replacement, Harv Forsgren, now regional forester for the Southwestern Region in New Mexico, will take over in December. Troyer, 60, is retiring as the Forest Service deals with growing conflicts on forest land and a buildup of forest debris blamed for causing more catastrophic wildfires. ''One of my greatest hopes is: We've got billions of tons of fuels out there, and we are a country that says we have an energy issue,'' said Troyer, who believes the forest debris could be turned into ethanol for transportation fuel. Troyer said 50 percent of his budget is being consumed by controlling wildfires, up from 13 percent in 1991. That has left less money for other programs, he said....
Nature has own 'let it burn' policy The Rocky Mountain Front's Ahorn and Skyland fires, which firefighters fought from the beginning, racked up expense sheets of more than $16 million a piece. Fool Creek, the third large fire on the Front this summer, which initially was allowed to burn in the wilderness under a policy called "fire use," cost just under $6 million to fight. The results were the same — each grew to between 50,000 and 60,000 acres. Forest Service experts say the similar outcomes — despite the $10-million gap in suppression costs — illustrate the futility and expense of trying to extinguish some of the large fires that are becoming the norm in tinder-dry forests across the West. At the same time, they add that fire management can be just as effective — with less risk and cost — if they strategically pick their spots and manage blazes long term, as they did with Fool Creek. Officials note that, in the future, the agency's response to fires needs to acknowledge, as does the public, that a bigger policymaker is at work in today's extreme fire environment. "It's Mother Nature's 'It's gonna burn' policy," said Mike Munoz, the ranger in the Rocky Mountain Ranger District, playing off the so-called 'let it burn' policy that has drawn fire for decades....