Bush on Global Warming: A Big Mistake that Could Have Been Worse President Bush's speech on global warming today lays out a blueprint for slow motion economic decline. It legitimizes global warming alarmism and undermines opposition in Congress to disastrous energy-rationing policies, such as the climate legislation championed by Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA). “President Bush's global warming proposals could have been worse,” said Competitive Enterprise Institute Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell. “But it was still a pointless speech that was unnecessary. While the President said that the global warming debate was intensifying, global warming alarmism is collapsing all around the world. With today's proposals, however, the President has managed to re-energize that alarmism.” Thanks to conservative opposition, the President has stepped back from the most damaging proposals being considered, such as supporting a cap-and-trade program for utilities. It's not clear, however, what exactly is left. His emphasis on new technologies is encouraging, although it opens the door to massive and wasteful government subsidies. The vague principles that the President enunciated could end up supporting sensible policies or damaging policies....
The Governator's genius pain-free enviro pitch Last month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unceremoniously fired a former mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, from the State Park and Recreation Commission. Ordinarily, the sacking of a minor official from a state board most Californians have never heard of would not have set off a media frenzy, even in the gossip-crazed Golden State. But, in this case, the ex-mayor just so happened to be Clint Eastwood, a longtime parks advocate who had served on the panel since 2001. Adding fuel to the fire, Schwarzenegger also axed his own brother-in-law Bobby Shriver from the same commission. The governor claims he wanted to give others a chance to serve, but Eastwood, Shriver, and environmentalists see an ulterior motive: The two men opposed a planned 16-mile extension of a toll road that Schwarzenegger had championed, which would cut through the picturesque San Onofre State Beach north of San Diego. The celebrity angle to the story tended to obscure its larger significance. Schwarzenegger is often cited as a model for Republicans--John McCain in particular--who want to build a greener public image. But his firing of Eastwood is yet another episode in a relationship with environmentalists that's been, at times, far rockier and more complicated than his reputation might suggest....
NM governor pledges to fight Gila River diversion Gov. Bill Richardson said Thursday he'll consider proposing a statutory protection for the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico to block the construction of dams or water diversion projects on what he calls the "state's last free-flowing river." The Gila has been named as one of the nation's most endangered rivers by American Rivers, a conservation group. The biggest threat to the river, according to the group, is the potential for a diversion project that would draw water out of the Gila, store it in an off-stream reservoir and transport it over the Continental Divide to provide municipal water supplies for growth and development in the Silver City area or elsewhere. A state water official says no diversion project has been proposed for the river, however. The Gila is New Mexico's only "mainstem" river, such as the Rio Grande, San Juan and Pecos, without a major water development project such as a reservoir. Richardson early in his administration pledged to oppose the construction of dams on the river. He reiterated that policy Thursday in announcing the Gila River's listing as the seventh most endangered river in the nation. Dam projects were proposed for the river in the 1970s and 1980s....
Ashton Ranchers, Sportsmen Want Wolves Out of Idaho A community plagued by wolf activity decides to take a stand tonight. About 100 people from the Ashton area met with outspoken anti-wolf activist Ron Gillette to discuss their options. Gillette is working to collect about 50,000 signatures in an attempt to ban wolves completely from the state, by any means possible. Most of the audience had a wolf story to tell. Many say they've had cattle killed, pets killed or are scared to be outdoors alone. "I'm an outdoorsman, a hunter, an outfitter, we have cattle and we can see that the wolves are serious detriment to all the things I enjoy in this country," Sportsman Richard Beesley said. "It's kind of scary if you go out camping. Like we brought up tonight, you have to bring a gun. In the middle of night, if one comes in or a bear, you wouldn't have much of a chance. So it's kind of a worry," Rancher Brent Harshbarger said. Another major concern is elk population numbers. Outfitters are convinced wolves have crippled our state's elk population....
Proposed federal compensation for wolf kills Montana Senator Jon Tester and Wyoming Senator John Barrasso are teaming up to help livestock owners whose animals are killed by wolves. The Gray Wolf Livestock Loss Mitigation Act would create state trust funds to pay ranchers for those losses. It would also allow federal grants for states to help lower the risk of wolf kills by improving fencing and grazing practices, using guard dogs, and other means. The bi-partisan plan is in response to the federal government's decision in March to remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act and turn over wolf management to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. In 2007 wolves killed 75 head of cattle in Montana, up from 32 in 2006. Sheep losses rose from 4 in 2006 to 27 in 2007. In Wyoming it's estimated that wolves killed 100 adult cattle and 600 calves in 2007. Sheep losses reached 100 ewes and 400 lambs last year.
Manager backs plan to let cattle graze in E. Idaho park The manager of a popular state park in eastern Idaho has proposed letting cattle graze there again, arguing it will make the park more like it was when it was a stop on the Oregon Trail by eliminating invasive plants and allowing native plants to return. Kevin Lynott, manager of Massacre Rocks State Park, said cattle would churn up the ground while also fertilizing it, replicating the effect bison had before they were killed off more than a century ago. "You can't do nothing," he said. "The land can't restore itself to a natural state without intervention. This was a grassland habitat, and a grassland habitat was here because of the natural tendencies that were here." Ryan Walz, right of way supervisor for the Idaho Department of Transportation, opposes the plan. "I was raised on a cattle ranch," he told the Idaho State Journal. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to go camping or hiking where there's been cattle." Lynott said the cattle grazing is in line with the park's mandate of maintaining the land like it was in pioneer days. He said nonnative species such as cheatgrass and knapweed have taken over much of the park, eliminating native perennials such as bunch grass. That results in fires about every five years that burn up the accumulated nonnative plants, he said. Lynott said the cattle would only be in the park during the fall and winter when few of the 70,000 to 100,000 annual visitors are in the park. He also said they would graze a small area intensively for a short time to get the desired result, and grazing wouldn't take place at campgrounds....
Colorado: home of the ‘four-corners chicken tour’ In birding circles, Colorado is known for the “four-corners chicken tour.” Wildlife watchers flock here for a unique opportunity to see a variety of grouse and other ground-dwelling birds. Sharp-tailed grouse and greater sage-grouse are found in the northwest part of the state and Gunnison sage-grouse in the southwest. The southeast is home to lesser prairie chickens and the northeast has greater prairie chickens. Throw in dusky grouse and white-tailed ptarmigan in the mountains, and assorted quail, wild turkeys and exotics such as chukar and ring-necked pheasants, and Colorado has reason to crow when it comes to roosters. A couple of weeks ago I headed to the northeastern sandhills to pay a visit to one of the few publicly accessible greater prairie chicken leks in the state. The Wray Chamber of Commerce, along with local ranchers, has arranged tours on which visitors can see the birds. A basic tour includes a pre-dawn bus ride to a converted trailer that acts as a blind for observers. The expanded package includes the lek visit, plus a tour of the town and museum. A grilled steak dinner (complete with an assortment of pies) and entertainment at the historic Laird school are provided the night before the grouse-gazing, and a ranch-style breakfast comes afterward....
Deal opens up land to some Yellowstone bison Montana and federal officials announced a deal Thursday to let some bison migrate through a private ranch bordering Yellowstone National Park. It would let a small number of the animals avoid slaughter under a disease control program that has claimed more than 3,000 bison since 2000. Gov. Brian Schweitzer and park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis said the ranch's owner, the Church Universal and Triumphant, agreed to sell their grazing rights and initially allow 25 bison to pass through the property. The deal, estimated at $2.8 million, would let the bison access more than 5,000 acres of federal land outside the park. Despite criticism from both the livestock industry and bison advocates, Lewis characterized the deal as breaking an eight-year impasse on one of the National Park Service's most divisive wildlife issues. "Until today, bison were never allowed to use that space," she said. All other bison leaving the park during the winter migration still would be subject to slaughter. Since last fall, a record 1,601 bison have been killed to prevent the spread of the disease brucellosis, which can cause cows to abort their calves. Bison advocates noted that most of the killings would still have occurred even if the deal had been in place, since only a small number of bison would have been allowed through the ranch....How do I join that church?
Can Wolf Hunting Help Conserve the Species? Hunting outfitter Ray Rugg toes a crusted depression in the snow. "Wolf tracks," he says. The tracks crisscross this small meadow past a piece of front leg and scraps of hide, the last remains of a white-tail deer. On this damp early Spring afternoon Rugg's only looking for signs of the six wolves he frequently sees on his ranch in the rugged Bitterroot Mountains west of Superior, Montana. But come September, these predators will become prey. Rugg plans to guide hunters into these mountains on both sides of the Montana-Idaho border when the first legal wolf hunting season in the contiguous United States begins. "I already got a line of clients waiting to put in an application if the hunt goes through," says Rugg, whose family has guided hunters in pursuit of deer, elk, black bear or mountain lion in Montana and Idaho for over sixty years. As the first wolf hunts begin in the Northern Rockies, state and federal wildlife officials hail the transition to state management with public hunting as a major step forward in wolf conservation. They say it will develop greater acceptance and a conservation constituency for the contentious carnivore among hunters like Rugg and the public at large, because citizens will have a hand in management. But critics contend that a more enlightened ethic is unlikely, and the wolf's long-entrenched malevolent symbolism, and the backlash it incites, will persist....
Cloud-seeding program gets little support Armstrong County Commissioner C.M. Bryant Jr. looked around the county judge's office where grime-faced farmers and ranchers had squeezed in and asked who was for the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District's cloud seeding program. No one raised a hand. Despite an extensive presentation by C.E. Williams, the groundwater district's general manager, and Jennifer Wright, the district's meteorologist, designed to show the benefits of the weather modification program and its cost effectiveness, the Armstrong County commission unanimously passed a resolution opposing the cloud seeding program. Gray County can probably expect pressure soon to pass a similar resolution, according to Jay O'Brien of Amarillo, who has ranching interests in Gray, Armstrong, Potter and Donley Counties, all within the Panhandle Groundwater Conservation District. O'Brien has long been opposed to the cloud seeding program, dismissing the district's data as flawed and review by others as assessments by supporters of weather modification....
Iwo Jima Veterans Blast Time's 'Special Environmental Issue' Cover For only the second time in 85 years, Time magazine abandoned the traditional red border it uses on its cover. The occasion – to push more global warming alarmism. The cover of the April 21 issue of Time took the famous Iwo Jima photograph by Joe Rosenthal of the Marines raising the American flag and replaced the flag with a tree. The cover story by Bryan Walsh calls green “the new red, white and blue.” Donald Mates, an Iwo Jima veteran, told the Business & Media Institute April 17 that using that photograph for that cause was a “disgrace.” “It’s an absolute disgrace,” Mates said. “Whoever did it is going to hell. That’s a mortal sin. God forbid he runs into a Marine that was an Iwo Jima survivor.” Mates also said making the comparison of World War II to global warming was erroneous and disrespectful. “The second world war we knew was there,” Mates said. “There’s a big discussion. Some say there is global warming, some say there isn’t. And to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious.” According to the American Veterans Center (AVC), Mates served in the 3rd Marine Division and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima, landing on Feb. 24, 1945....
Bill designed to protect animal researchers to undergo review California lawmakers will begin reviewing a draft Thursday of a proposed bill aimed at protecting researchers who conduct animal testing from animal rights activists. The bill, AB 2296, also titled the Animal Enterprise Protection Act, is currently being reviewed by the state Assembly Judiciary Committee. If passed, the law would provide criminal and civil provisions to the current state law regarding any threats, harassment, vandalism and other violent acts intended to interfere with and intimidate animal enterprises and researchers. Modeled after laws that protect reproductive health care workers and elected officials, the bill would form a counterpart to existing federal and state law that prohibits the harassment of individuals dealing with animal research....
Brazil Questions U.S. Regulations On Imports Of Frozen Beef Negotiations between Brazil and the United States for an agreement that would allow Brazilian traders to ship frozen beef to America have been ongoing for 10 years, but in a recent meeting of the World Trade Organization's Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement Committee, Brazilian officials questioned one of the criteria Washington is considering while determining whether it will liberalize the U.S. market. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is taking into consideration the potential economic impact on U.S. producers due to competition before it begins importing frozen beef from Brazil, which Brazil opposes, an official told Meatingplace.com. "We are proposing that this step be reviewed or suppressed. We understand that only sanitary aspects should be taken into account for a risk analysis. If only that point is considered, certain regions in Brazil are ready to export to the United States," said Márcio Rezende, general coordinator of bilateral and regional agreements for Brazil's Department of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Negotiations of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply. In the coming weeks, Brazilian officials will resume negotiations with the United States, including the Brazilian beef-import issue. Brazil never exported frozen beef to the United States, even though it was the first importer of processed beef from the South American country....
Investigation of Canada's 11th Case of BSE Canada’s eleventh case of BSE has been attributed to a less prevalent, atypical strain of BSE which has also been reported in Europe. This is the second case of BSE in Canada that has involved an atypical strain. A common feature of atypical BSE cases is that the affected animals are of an advanced age at the time of diagnosis (for example, both of Canada’s atypical cases involved cattle that were over 13 years of age at the time BSE was confirmed). This is in contrast to Canada’s classical BSE cases where the average age has been approximately 6 years. The identification of these atypical strains of BSE is a reflection of an increased global awareness of the potential for multiple strains of the BSE agent to exist, continuous advancements in diagnostic test methods and is a direct result of the enhanced BSE surveillance activities occurring worldwide....
Montana's sheep industry fading Minutes after a lamb was born, Chuck Dallas scooped up the baby by its back leg and carried it into a small pen, where it could bond with its mother. "Let's see how good a mother this one is," Dallas, 52, said while standing in a muddy corral on his sheep ranch east of Wilsall. "If she's a good mother, she'll follow her lamb in. If not, I'll have to go catch her." While holding the lamb, still slimy and shivering with its umbilical cord attached, Dallas coaxed the ewe into following him by making sheep sounds. The sheep followed her newborn into the pen, where she eventually began nursing it. Dallas is part of a dying breed in Montana's fading sheep industry. He still keeps 300 head on his family ranch and has 250 lambs born every year, but it's more and more difficult for sheep ranchers like him to make a living. They often find other jobs for extra sources of income. After having 370,000 head of sheep in the state eight years ago, just 290,000 head are on ranches this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported. In southwest Montana, the number of sheep has plummeted from 17,000 to 11,100 in the past eight years....
The Cowboys’ Lament Tater Paschal is up at 5 a.m. at his house in south Cleburne, putting the coffee on, then heading out to his barn to feed his horses, getting ready for another day of cowboying. It’s what he’s done for most of 40 years, the trade his father and his grandfather followed, and the only thing he’s ever really wanted to do with his life. On this particular day, Tater, 54, a little thick in the body, with gray hair and mustache and blue eyes, saddles up Lena, an 8-year-old smallish quarter horse mare that Paschal said is really good around cattle. “She’s great at sorting out cattle and in the pens. She’s had it bred into her.” It’s been a rainy spring, so he packs his saddlebags with medicine for pneumonia as well as tools to clean out hoof-rot and iodine to disinfect any areas he might have to cut. “Just your basic cattle-doctoring medicine bag,” as he puts it. On other days, when he’s got to go rope a bull or three, he prefers his much larger 5-year-old black paint-quarter horse cross, Santana. “If I was going to catch a bull, I’d take Santana, because if you’re going to rope something on him, he can hold it.” And he has other horses for other chores. Their horses saddled, Tater’s dad and grandpa would just have opened the gate, most likely, and headed out for their day’s work from the ranchhouse compound – or maybe, from the chuckwagon encampment far from the house, where they’d spent the night before a roundup. But Tater begins his workday by firing up the teal green, four-door Ford F-350 pickup truck and hitching on the horse trailer. In 2008, being a working cowboy or cowgirl in and around Tarrant County usually means day work – doctoring mama cows on a spread near Meridian one day, hunting strays down in Glen Rose the next....
Artifacts belonged to RO ranch owner Panhandle-Plains Historical Society has acquired the ranch records and artifacts of Alfred Rowe , who founded the RO Ranch in 1878 and later died on the Titanic. 'It's a unique story - an Englishman comes and creates one of the most successful ranches in the Panhandle, manages it successfully and then he dies on the Titanic," said Guy C. Vanderpool , director of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. The collection includes ranch business records, personal diaries, photographs, maps, American Indian artifacts and other items. It was procured with an acquisition purchase fund created by Tom and Norma Cambridge. Warren Stricker , director of the PPHM research center, said the RO collection will complement the museum's other ranch holdings, which include records from the XIT and the JA. 'It's just another piece of the puzzle that researchers can use," he said. According to the Texas State Historical Association's Handbook of Texas Online, Alfred Rowe was born Feb. 24, 1853, to wealthy English merchants. He left England in 1878 to invest in western grasslands in the United States. He arrived in Donley County from Colorado in 1878 and spent a few months learning the cattle business before beginning his own venture, the RO Ranch. By 1900, the ranch covered about 100,000 acres. Rowe married Constance Ethel Kingsley in 1901. In 1910, he moved his family permanently to England, but visited his Texas holdings twice a year. According to the handbook, Rowe was aboard the Titanic on its maiden voyage when it sank April 15, 1912. His body was recovered and buried in Liverpool....