Gore's Message To Climate Change Skeptics on 60 Minutes Confronted by Stahl with the fact some prominent people, including the nation’s vice president, are not convinced that global warming is man-made, Gore responds: "You're talking about Dick Cheney. I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the world is flat,” says Gore. "That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off," he tells Stahl. Gore’s campaign to make the world more aware of man’s role in global warming won him the Nobel Peace Prize last year. He donated the $750,000 prize money to The Alliance for Climate Protection, the non-profit he started to help him on his quest. He and his wife, Tipper, tell Stahl they not only matched the Nobel money with their own, but they are also donating to the organization the significant profits from his book and Oscar-winning documentary film about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." The funds will help The Alliance for Climate Protection execute a new $300 million ad campaign on global warming set to start next week. Some of the ads will feature unlikely alliances to drive home the message that people of all stripes are concerned about global warming. These include the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Pat Robertson, Toby Keith and the Dixie Chicks, and Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich....
Governors to Gather at Yale for Climate Change Conference Governors from across the United States will meet at Yale University on April 17 and 18 to review state-level programs to combat global climate change and to develop a strategy for future action. The gathering will also celebrate the centennial of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors, which launched the modern conservation movement, planted the seed for the National Parks System, and inspired significant state efforts to protect land. The event will celebrate 100 years of state leadership on critical environmental issues, confront the present climate challenge, and set out a vision of a federal-state partnership for future action. “Roosevelt showed remarkable foresight a century ago in engaging the states’ chief executive officers to preserve and protect the nation’s natural resources,” said Yale President Richard C. Levin. “Now, we face a new and critical challenge—global climate change—and leadership in the United States is coming from visionary state governors.” Governors who plan to attend the conference include M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Christine Gregoire of Washington, and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Canadian Premier Jean Charest will also be present, and a dozen other governors are exploring whether their schedules will permit participation....
State deals blow to zero-emission vehicle supporters California's Air Resources Board voted Thursday to slash by 70% the number of emission-free vehicles that carmakers must sell in the state in coming years, a significant blow for environmentalists and transportation activists. But the panel set new rules requiring automakers to build tens of thousands of plug-in hybrid cars, which run on electricity and gasoline. And it adopted a motion to overhaul its entire Zero Emission Vehicle program to align it with tougher greenhouse-gas emission standards enacted in California in recent years. That could lead to the production of many more clean vehicles, but the overhaul won't happen until at least the end of 2009. Under the new standards, passed unanimously, the board will require the largest companies selling cars in the state to produce 7,500 electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for sale, lease or loan in California from 2012 to 2014 -- down from the 25,000 required in the period under the previous rules. In addition, carmakers will be called upon to make about 58,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the same period. The previous regulation, passed in 2003, made no provisions for plug-in hybrids because they were not considered viable at the time....
Radical Tucson environmentalist gets 1 year, 1 day for speech A radical environmentalist was sentenced Thursday to one year and one day in federal prison for speaking publicly about how to make a homemade Molotov cocktail. Rodney Coronado apologized for his past use of violent tactics in the name of animal rights and the environment, and said he had cut his ties to groups, including the Earth Liberation Front. "I have done things in my past that I now regret," Coronado told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Miller. He said he wanted to serve his sentence and then get on with his life in Tucson, Ariz. The 41-year-old activist pleaded guilty in December to distributing information on destructive devices during an August 2003 speech about militant environmental activism at a community center in San Diego. According to an account and photos of the speech posted on the Internet, Coronado demonstrated how to build a crude ignition device using a plastic jug filled with gasoline and oil. The speech was given just hours after an arson fire destroyed a San Diego condominium project that was under construction a few miles away. A banner at the site indicated that the ELF claimed responsibility for the $50 million blaze, which at the time was the costliest act of eco-terrorism in U.S. history....
Commissioners voice opposition to any expansion of Pinon Canyon Pueblo County commissioners told opponents of the Pinon Canyon expansion efforts Thursday that they will approve a resolution urging the Army to go elsewhere to acquire more training land. The commissioners previously had endorsed a one-year ban on the Army spending money on the effort, but they took a bigger step by saying they oppose any future expansion of the 238,000-acre training area northeast of Trinidad. Commissioner Jeff Chostner, a retired Air Force colonel, said he understood the military's need for training land, but he believed the Defense Department has adequate training acreage elsewhere in Texas, California, Nevada and other states. "This expansion would effectively seal off Southeastern Colorado from the public," Chostner said, referring to the plan to add 414,000 more acres to Pinon Canyon. "I think this is a case of the Army overreaching."....
America's grasslands vanishing amid agricultural boom To the west of this small town, which helped inspire Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic book series that included Little House on the Prairie, the view opens to a vast, unbroken landscape that seems to roll on forever. But this untamed vista is shrinking. The USA's open plains and prairies are threatened by soaring grain prices that have increased their value as cropland. Grain prices have been driven up by a seemingly insatiable worldwide appetite for food and by federal energy policies promoting corn-based ethanol that are working at cross purposes with government programs designed to conserve open spaces. As a result, landowners in South Dakota and across the USA's Farm Belt are converting to cropland marginally productive acres that for decades — in some cases, centuries — have remained uncultivated because farming them wouldn't have been profitable or because of their environmental value. "We're kind of in an ag revolution," says Bill Wilkinson, a farmer-rancher near De Smet....One government intervention messin' up another government intervention. Kinda fun to watch...but in reality it's pretty sad that they never learn.
As Uranium Firms Eye N.M., Navajos Are Wary Twenty years after uranium mining ceased in New Mexico amid plummeting prices for the ore, global warming and the soaring cost of oil are renewing interest in nuclear power -- and in the state's uranium belt. At least five companies are seeking state permits to mine the uranium reserves, estimated at 500 million pounds or more, and Uranium Resources Inc. (URI), a Texas-based company, wants to reopen a uranium mill in Ambrosia Lake. Industry officials say a uranium boom could mean thousands of jobs and billions in mineral royalties and taxes for the state. But the deposits are largely in and around Navajo land, and the industry's poor record on health and safety as it extracted tons of the ore in past decades has soured many Navajos on uranium mining. In 2005, the Navajo Nation banned uranium mining and milling on its land, and thousands of tribe members are receiving or seeking federal compensation for the health effects of past uranium exposure. During mining's peak, from the early 1950s to the early 1980s, about 400 million pounds of uranium were extracted from the region. At the end of the boom, around 1984, the price of uranium languished below $10 a pound. Mines shut down, and the United States began importing nearly all of its uranium, with the bulk coming now from Canada, Russia and Australia. But by last summer, the price had rebounded to a record high of $136 a pound....
NOAA to Assess Whether Melting Ice Endangers Seals The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced yesterday that it will evaluate whether four kinds of seals inhabiting Alaska's Bering Sea should be placed on the endangered species list because of melting sea ice. In December, an environmental group, the Center for Biological Diversity, petitioned NOAA's Fisheries Service to list ribbon seals as facing extinction because global warming has affected the extent of ice cover in both the Bering and Chukchi seas, where the seals live. NOAA officials said they will review the status of bearded, spotted and ringed seals, as well, because they all use the same sea ice in different ways, at different times of the year. The decision highlights the extent to which federal officials are grappling with climate change's impact on vulnerable species. The Fisheries Service has placed two species of coral on the endangered species list in part because of global warming, and the Interior Department was supposed to announce in January whether it would declare the polar bear in danger of extinction....
Agency Yields to Concerns of Flood-Weary Missourians Heeding concerns of flood-weary Missourians, the Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it would counteract the release of millions of gallons of water into the Missouri River. The corps, which early Wednesday morning began its planned 48-hour release of water from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, S.D., said it had begun reducing flow rates at tributary dams on the lower river. Corps officials said the reduced flow rates would effectively cancel the river’s upstream rise as it enters Missouri, which last week suffered extensive flooding. The so-called spring rise, a pulse of water released by the corps, is to help the endangered pallid sturgeon, but it met fierce opposition after floods last week displaced hundreds of people and led President Bush to approve federal disaster aid for St. Louis and 70 Missouri counties. On Tuesday, the state attorney general, Jay Nixon, unsuccessfully petitioned two federal courts to block the water’s planned release. After winning the court fight, however, the corps changed its mind.... Redford-backed film gives account of Texas activists Robert Redford, movie icon, Oscar-winning director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, knows the power of a good story. So when he heard about the battle waged by an unlike- ly assortment of activists to fight the proposed construction of more than a dozen coal-burning power plants in Texas, Redford knew that it was a powerful story waiting to be told. It is a tale of Texas ranchers, farmers, and small-town and big-city mayors who rallied to protect their back yards, their land and their children's health. They largely succeeded. Redford, through The Redford Center at the Sundance Preserve, commissioned a documentary about the fight: Fighting Goliath: Texas Coal Wars, a 34-minute documentary directed by Mat Hames and George Sledge that chronicles the campaign to stop the plants....
Fair game It is now lawful to shoot wolves on sight in most of the Cowboy State, but it might be more difficult to bag the predators than many people imagine, several hunters and licensed guides said this week. Although some outfitters expressed interest in offering guided wolf hunts, all of them said they are still waiting to see if the decision to remove wolves' federal protection holds up in court. Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies were officially removed from the endangered species list this morning. Of the roughly 360 gray wolves living in Wyoming, more than 90 percent are within a new wolf trophy game zone in the northwest corner of the state. The 30 to 35 wolves outside the trophy area are now classified as predators in Wyoming, and they can be killed, without limits, much like coyotes. But several hunters and outfitters said they’d be surprised if many of the wolves in the predator zone were taken by sport hunters. The majority of wolves killed likely will be those shot by USDA Wildlife Services, which will do aerial hunting of the animals at the request of ranchers and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. “The simple reason is, they’re dang tough to hunt,” said Maury Jones, a former outfitter and co-owner of Jackson Hole Outfitters. “It’s like going out and hunting for mountain lions. They’re out there, you see their tracks, but good luck trying to find them.”....
Conservationists push for meadow jumping mouse protections Conservationists want the federal government to take notice of the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, saying climate change and unchecked livestock grazing are pushing the rare rodent closer to extinction. The mouse once lived in nearly 100 locations along rivers and streams around New Mexico and in parts of Arizona, but recent surveys have shown that the furry rodent is now found only in about a dozens places in the two states. The mouse, considered endangered by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, was recently added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's list of plants and animals that are candidates for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. "We've argued that the Fish and Wildlife Service should emergency list this mouse and so we believe that all federal agencies should take steps now to protect the mouse in order to prevent its extinction. It is that imperiled," said Nicole Rosmarino, director of WildEarth Guardians' wildlife program. Conservationists and state and federal biologists agree the biggest threats facing the mouse are grazing and the loss of habitat. The mouse depends on moist meadows along streams and rivers to make its home, find food and reproduce. WildEarth Guardians sent the U.S. Forest Service a letter last week asking that the agency take a close look at grazing practices and other activities on forest land considering the mouse's status....
Hayman Fire Starter Gets 15 Years Probation The former U.S. Forest Service worker who started the most-destructive wildfire in Colorado history has been ordered to serve 15 years of probation and perform 1,500 hours of community service on state charges. Terry Barton, who started the 2002 Hayman Fire, was resentenced Thursday in District Court. Her original 12-year prison sentence was thrown out by the Colorado Court of Appeals in 2004 after the panel ruled the judge who presided over Barton’s trial may have compromised due to the fact that he was evacuated during the fire. The court also said that the maximum sentence without a jury finding aggravating circumstances was six years – the same as Barton’s federal sentence. The two sentences were to be served concurrently, which means Barton will have completed her prison terms on June 2. She is currently incarcerated in Texas. The 2002 Hayman fire burned 138,000 acres in the Pike National Forest, destroying 133 home and 466 outbuildings. More than 8,000 people were evacuated....
Silent Insect Killer Ravages American West The American West is under attack by a silent killer that's causing some of the worst-ever destruction to hit the nation's forestland: the mountain pine beetle. "People are looking out their windows and seeing dead trees where they used to see green," said Sandy Briggs from the Forest Health Task Force in Aspen, Colo. Despite their small size (approximately 5 millimeters when fully grown), these beetles are doing enormous damage, wiping out millions of acres of lodgepole pines as an epidemic of them explodes across the West. "We have about 1,500,000 acres of trees that have been infested," said Clint Kyhl, an incident commander for the U.S. Forest Service, referring to devastation in Colorado and Wyoming alone. That's roughly twice the size of Rhode Island. The epidemic began in 1996, but in the last year it has really taken off. Five years from now all of Colorado's lodgepole pine forests, another 6 million acres, will be wiped out, and the beetles are expected to infest the entire West over the next 15 years, state forestry officials say. Colorado is just one of eight states across the West that has been impacted, along with Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Montana and Idaho, as well as large parts of Canada in British Columbia and Alberta....
Timber industry argues the opposite in beetle response A conservation group has filed a petition asking the Medicine Bow National Forest to stop logging until the agency has a better scientific understanding of the effects the pine beetle epidemic, combined with continued clear-cutting, will have on species including goshawks and lynx. A U.S. Forest Service representative said this week the staff was studying the petition from Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and would respond in the near future. Biodiversity contends that the road-building and other impacts associated with large logging projects exacerbate the negative effects on the forest from the beetle epidemic, damaging watersheds and habitat. In an interview, Biodiversity program director Duane Short said large logging projects in the backcountry -- such as the impending Spruce Gulch fuels reduction project west of Fox Park -- entail large clear-cuts and "will do nothing to stem the beetle epidemic or protect homes from wildfires." A timber industry spokesman, on the other hand, said logging of the beetle-killed trees should be accelerated. Tom Troxel, a director of the Intermountain Forest Association in Rapid City, S.D., said the Medicine Bow is facing a crisis and as many of the dead trees should be removed as possible during the five years they are still marketable. That would limit the chance of large-scale fires and begin the process of regeneration. "We don�t have time to waste with any more studies and litigation," he said....
Napolitano: ‘Special areas’ need protection from mining Gov. Janet Napolitano has written a letter to U.S. Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., saying she supports their legislation to withdraw Coronado National Forest lands in Pima and Santa Cruz counties from future mining. HR 4228, the Southern Arizona Public Lands Protection Act of 2007, was introduced in November by Grijalva, who hopes to have a first public hearing by the full House Natural Resources Committee this spring. The bill was motivated by concerns over the Augusta Resource Rosemont Mine. But it also addresses potential future mining over a much larger area of concern identified by the Pima and Santa Cruz boards of supervisors. All Coronado lands and some other public lands are included. “While mining will always be a vital part of Arizona's economy, there are certain places where mining is simply not appropriate, such as the lands identified in HR 4228,” Napolitano wrote. “We recognize the importance of healthy watersheds, wildlife habitat, and recreation for our communities. There is no longer a need to incentivize the development of the West; we are the fastest growing area in the country.”....
Bald calf earns 'Kojak' nickname When cattle rancher Ben Gullett first saw a brand-new calf born just last week, images of Lt. Theo Kojak with his bald head and lollipop came to mind. The name, Kojak, is fitting for this newborn calf, born with a bald head and hairless legs. Gullett, whose family has raised cattle for generations, has welcomed thousands of newborn calves in his lifetime, but never one as unusual as Kojak, who lives on brother Flint's 125-acre farm in Duette. "I never saw one quite like that," he said. "I don't know whether she's going to make it or not." Kojak's bald head and hairless legs are one of nature's oddities, when the normally flawless orchestration of chromosomes suddenly goes awry, surmised John Arthington, range cattle research and education center director for the University of Florida. "It's a genetic condition," Arthington said....