31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate. "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign. But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project....
The great organic myths: Why organic foods are an indulgence the world can't afford Myth one: Organic farming is good for the environment The study of Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for the UK, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, should concern anyone who buys organic. It shows that milk and dairy production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain. Also, organically reared cows burp twice as much methane as conventionally reared cattle – and methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Myth two: Organic farming is more sustainable Organic potatoes use less energy in terms of fertiliser production, but need more fossil fuel for ploughing. A hectare of conventionally farmed land produces 2.5 times more potatoes than an organic one. Heated greenhouse tomatoes in Britain use up to 100 times more energy than those grown in fields in Africa. Organic yield is 75 per cent of conventional tomato crops but takes twice the energy – so the climate consequences of home-grown organic tomatoes exceed those of Kenyan imports. Defra estimates organic tomato production in the UK releases almost three times the nutrient pollution and uses 25 per cent more water per kg of fruit than normal production....
Alaska to challenge polar bear listing The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts. Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said. Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polar bears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican. The announcement drew a strong response from the primary author of the listing petition. "She's either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming," said Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Alaska deserves better." Siegel said it was unconscionable for Palin to ignore overwhelming evidence of global warming's threat to sea ice, the polar bear's habitat....
Proposed change to water law riles landowners A proposal backed by environmentalists to change one word in the Clean Water Act and subject tens of millions more acres of land to new federal oversight has ranchers and farmers fuming. "It's a huge grab for more federal intervention in our lives, and we don't need that," says Montana cattle rancher Randy Smith says. The Clean Water Act of 1972 makes it illegal to pollute "navigable" waters. Over the decades, disputes arose over the government's expanding definition of "navigable," and some landowners complained that the word was being interpreted too broadly. Two Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 came down on the side of landowners, ruling that ponds at the bottom of a gravel pit and a marsh miles from any lake or river were not navigable and thus not subject to the act. The rulings removed important waterways from federal protection, say Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Rep. Jim Oberstar of Minnesota. The two Democrats have sponsored the Clean Water Restoration Act, which would change the wording of the Clean Water Act from covering "navigable" waters to covering "waters of the United States." The new definition would place under federal oversight all water subject to the ocean tides as well as "lakes, rivers, streams, mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds and all impoundments," also known as man-made reservoirs....
President Boxer When Senate Democrats tie one of President Bush's nominees to the whipping post, they usually bother to invent some substantive objection. Apparently the new standard for rejection is merely that a White House nominee dares to support White House policy. In March, the White House nominated David Hill as general counsel for the Environmental Protection Agency. He ought to have zipped through the Senate. Over two decades in Washington, Mr. Hill has accumulated no partisan ballast; when he was nominated as the Energy Department's general counsel three years ago, he was confirmed unanimously. He is roundly liked for his role in developing the Administration's loan programs for clean tech. But yesterday, Mr. Hill was rejected for the EPA post by the Senate Environment Committee during a routine business meeting, a highly unusual maneuver. The 10-9 vote had no relation at all to Mr. Hill's qualifications to serve and everything to do with preventing any policy supervision at the EPA. The committee is chaired by California's Barbara Boxer, who is livid that the EPA has so far declined to rewrite existing environmental laws to regulate greenhouse gasses. At a confirmation hearing, Ms. Boxer told Mr. Hill that he was incapable of "independent thought" because he didn't pay obeisance to her political agenda. Instead, Mr. Hill said he would only sign off on decisions that were "legally defensible."....
State refutes suits’ claims The state of Wyoming has joined up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWS) as a defendant in the wolf-delisting lawsuit filed April 28 by conservation groups and on Friday, challenged the groups’ claims gray wolves are still endangered. The dozen groups, represented by Earthjustice, seek the wolves’ immediate relisting under the FWS Endangered Species Act with a hearing for a preliminary injunction set for May 29 before U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Mont. The state argued Friday that Wyoming’s and the Northern Rockies’ wolf population is not at risk from “a moderate amount of human-caused mortality in any given year,” citing FWS lethal control actions in 2007 resulted in 63 wolves killed for livestock depredation but the state population still grew from 311 to 359 wolves that year. The state also argued wolves are not in “peril” because over the last 14 years, the Northern Rockies’ population has grown an average of 24 percent each year even with 23 percent of that total population dying each year. The conservation groups claim FWS needs to resume control of the wolves because Wyoming, Idaho and Montana state plans do not “ensure a sustainable wolf population in the region.”....
Should wolves have a sanctuary? A barely perceptible gasp swept through the crowd of onlookers standing next to state Highway 75 just after sunrise Saturday a few miles downstream of Stanley. Less than an hour after the sun hit the jagged peaks of the nearby Sawtooth Mountains, the attention of the 20 to 25 warmly dressed people was drawn to an open, sun-splashed slope above the Salmon River on the northwest side of the highway. Picking its way through dense stands of chest-high sagebrush, a lone gray wolf gave the crowd the spectacular display they'd come to find. Saturday's sighting of the single wolf—a member of central Idaho's Basin Butte wolf pack—took place in the heart of a large wolf-occupied area that ICL members hope state wildlife managers will designate as a Central Idaho Wolf Viewing Area. The conservationists' aim is to have the Idaho Department of Fish and Game designate lands on both sides of several highways in the region as an area where wild wolves can go about their lives free from the threat of hunting. Portions of the viewing area would fall inside the 756,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area, a popular destination for travelers arriving from around the nation to recreate in its many mountains, rivers and abundant wildlife areas....
Report criticizes Interior over delisting decisions Several top officials may have played politics with Endangered Species Act cases and the Interior Department could have found more such decisions had it better investigated the problem, a new report says. And of the eight species delisted in recent years, including the Yellowstone National Park grizzly bear population, only two had met all their recovery criteria, the report said. The department already revised seven decisions because of political interference by Julie MacDonald, a former Interior deputy assistant secretary. They include those for two species in Montana - the Canada lynx and the Preble's meadow jumping mouse. But that number could have been higher had the department not limited its investigation, a Government Accountability Office report says. Robin Nazzaro of the GAO testified Wednesday to the House Natural Resources Committee that at least four other Bush appointees might have played questionable roles in the ESA decisions approved by MacDonald. They include a former assistant secretary, a deputy assistant secretary and the secretary's chief of staff, she said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service excluded numerous cases from its investigation of decisions that may have been improperly influenced by simply leaving out all decisions made by Interior officials other than MacDonald. It also excluded policy decisions that limited the application of science and those that were changed but not significantly or to the point of negative effects on the species....
Scenic alpine lake above Tahoe being sold to Forest Service A scenic alpine lake and private enclave overlooking Lake Tahoe that once served as a playground for the rich and famous should be in the public's hands this summer under a compromise announced Wednesday. The Incline Lake Corp. will receive a deposit of at least $46 million for 777 acres, including Incline Lake, atop a forested ridge of the Sierra between Lake Tahoe and Reno, the current landowners said. A trial will be held in federal court to determine whether additional compensation is justified under what was described as a "friendly condemnation" proceeding, the Reno Gazette-Journal first reported on it's Web site Wednesday afternoon. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., suggested the compromise. It was arranged after the landowners and U.S. Forest Service failed to agree on value of the property. The Incline Lake Corp. originally asked for $75 million but federal appraisals put the value as "tens of millions" less than that, said Glen Williams of Terra Firma Associates, representing the owners. The scenic property should transfer to the U.S. Forest Service sometime in June, although the exact value of the land won't be determined for perhaps a year, Williams said. The lake will remain closed to the public until next year while all improvements, including buildings, foundations, water tanks and utilities, are removed, landowners said....
Groups Blame Forest Service Policy for Mega-Fires Current forest management policies are causing annual catastrophic fire, and resulting in negative economic, environmental and health effects for Montana residents, according to several former government agency employees and two area citizen groups. At a public symposium last Sunday at the Flathead County Fairgrounds, about 60 people gathered to hear five presenters – three of them current or former employees of the U.S. Forest Service – speak on topics ranging from the history and policy decisions of the Forest Service to adverse health effects and increased fire intensities. The Flathead Business and Industry Association and the Big Sky Coalition, a group that bills itself as “Environmentalists with Common Sense” and advocates thinning practices on national forest lands to reduce fuels, hosted the presentation. “Simply continuing to fight these unnatural high intensity fires while ignoring the things that have caused or led up to them is not the way to go,” Sonny LaSalle, executive director of the coalition and a Forest Service retiree, said. “It’s more cost effective to maintain a forest than to continually fight these mega-fires.” Jack Ward Thomas, a retired Forest Service chief, began the symposium with a detailed history of the Forest Service, describing how political and social changes in the country have led to a muddied purpose for the agency and large decreases in logging. Changing climate, drought conditions, a lack of thinning and maintenance in the forests and decreased road access for firefighters have all combined to make it harder to contain wildfires and have led to a fire season that’s 78 days longer on average, two fire management officers said. “It used to be that 10,000 acres was a really, really big fire and you could work your whole career without ever seeing one top 20,000,” Dave Bunnell, a retired Forest Service fire management officer, said. “Now, 10,000 acres is just a spot fire off something like Chippy Creek that nobody even cares about.”....
Politics of energy development changing Nearly two decades ago, Republicans won the West by linking Democrats to environmentalists, who supposedly cared more for the spotted owl and other favored species than they did for the jobs of loggers or miners. But now, as a boom in natural-gas drilling reshapes the region, Western Democrats have found success recasting environmentalism as a defense of threatened water supplies, fishing spots and hunting grounds. As a result, the party may hold the advantage this fall in the region's key congressional races. The simultaneous rise of Western energy production and the Western Democrat is no coincidence. The Rocky Mountain drilling boom has been aided by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which was once considered a partisan political masterstroke. In providing incentives for energy development, Republicans delivered a profitable gift to an industry that directs most of its campaign contributions to GOP candidates. That gift was sweetened by the Bureau of Land Management, which, under President Bush has expanded the amount of federal land open to energy development and increased the number of drilling permits. But the acceleration of energy exploration has split the national Republican Party from local Republicans upset by the downsides of the energy boom. "Republicans created a monster for themselves," said Rick Ridder, a Colorado-based Democratic consultant. "They put public policy in direct conflict with their base voters." In Wyoming's Upper North Platte Valley, Jeb Steward, a Republican state representative, helped lead the successful 2007 opposition to the BLM's proposed sale of 13 oil and gas parcels. "We have customs and cultures that have developed over a hundred years based on the utilization of multiple renewable resources - agriculture, tourism, wildlife, fisheries," Steward said. "When BLM proposed issuing the leases, residents were asking, 'What does this mean to the lifestyles that we've all grown accustomed to?'"....
Tap federal lands for oil, BLM urges The answer to rising fuel prices may lie under millions of acres of federal land, mostly in the West, that for a variety of reasons are off limits to oil and natural-gas development, according to the Bureau of Land Management. A BLM inventory of public lands released Wednesday shows 279 million acres of untapped resources throughout the United States. Those areas contain an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil and 231 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. "If we want to lower the cost of energy, we must be willing to use our own energy resources as part of a balanced and rational energy policy," Stephen Allred, assistant secretary of the interior, said in a conference call with reporters. The report found 60 percent of federal lands that have potential for oil and natural gas are closed to leasing, mostly as a result of congressional or administrative mandates. The report does not include state or private lands, which generally have had fewer restrictions on drilling. It also does not address the estimated trillion barrels of oil in shale in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West. All federal land believed to have energy potential was included in the study, the third in a series of scientific reports required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 2000. The United States consumed about 7.5 billion barrels of oil in 2006, 60 percent of which was imported, the study says. Federal lands produced about 5 percent of the 2006 consumption. Allred called the report a starting to point for discussion that could lead Congress to loosen drilling restrictions on public lands....
Jurassic track unearthed in Cactus Park The rocky outcrops of Cactus Park were a real Jurassic Park some 140 million years ago, home to a wide variety of dinosaurs. One of them left a footprint that survived the eons to be discovered this spring by Kent Hups, a science teacher at Manual High School in Denver. Hups unveiled the print on Wednesday in Denver, where he’s showing his students how to make casts of prints such as the one he found. His ankylosaur print is the first such print of the species from the Jurassic Period and the largest print of any ankylosaur from the Age of the Dinosaurs. “This is a first in the Jurassic,” said Dr. Martin Lockley, a track expert from the Dinosaur Tracks Museum and the University of Colorado in Denver. “This is not just any old footprint. This is the first and only ankylosaur footprint ever found in the Jurassic — anywhere in the world. It is another tracking first for Colorado.”....
Conservancy district sues NM Game and Fish over rodents The New Mexico Game and Fish Department and the State Game Commission is being sued by the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District over the agency's proposed recovery plan for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse and the Arizona montane vole. The conservancy district said Wednesday it is seeking a court order to keep the Game Commission from taking action on the plan during its meeting next week so that residents of the Middle Rio Grande Valley can have an opportunity to weigh in on the plan. The district, in a lawsuit filed last week in state district court in Socorro, claims the plan could have a "devastating impact" on agriculture in the valley and that Game and Fish failed to get input from the residents. Chuck DuMars, an attorney for the district, claims the plan would result in the diversion of water from agriculture to help rodents and that beaver dams would be encouraged to restore riparian habitats. However, the district usually removes beaver dams to keep its drainages operating properly. "We're saying that before they adopt such a plan that could include diversions of water from farming and grazing operations, which are directly tied to the MRGCD's function, that we should be given proper notice and be allowed input. That didn't happen," DuMars said....
High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules High gas prices have driven a Warren County farmer and his sons to hitch a tractor rake to a pair of mules to gather hay from their fields. T.R. Raymond bought Dolly and Molly at the Dixon mule sale last year. Son Danny Raymond trained them and also modified the tractor rake so the mules could pull it. T.R. Raymond says the mules are slower than a petroleum-powered tractor, but there are benefits. "This fuel's so high, you can't afford it," he said. "We can feed these mules cheaper than we can buy fuel. That's the truth." And Danny Raymond says he just likes using the mules around the farm. "We've been using them quite a bit," he said. Brother Robert Raymond added, "It's the way of the future.
House overrides Bush veto on farm bill The House has overridden President Bush's veto of a $290 billion farm bill and senators soon may follow suit. It was only hours before the House's 316-108 vote Wednesday that Bush had vetoed the five-year measure. He said it was too expensive and gave too much money to wealthy farmers when farm incomes are high. The legislation includes election-year subsidies for farmers and food stamps for the poor — spending that lawmakers could promote when they are back in their districts over the Memorial Day weekend. The Senate is expected to begin consideration of the bill Thursday. There are expected to be enough votes to reject the veto. The veto was the 10th of Bush's presidency. Congress has overridden him once, on a water projects bill....
New Mexico lawmakers object to bovine TB testing The New Mexico congressional delegation Wednesday urged U.S. Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer not to take any action related to bovine tuberculosis testing that would harm the entire state’s livestock industry. In a letter to Schafer, Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Pete Domenici, along with Reps. Heather Wilson, Tom Udall and Steve Pearce, objected to a possible plan by the Department of Agriculture to force all New Mexico ranchers and dairies to test their cattle for bovine TB. In 2003, bovine TB was discovered in cattle in Curry and Roosevelt counties. Since that time a zone within the two counties has been the only place in the state where cattle needed to be tested before being shipped out of state. The discovery of a single new animal with bovine TB from a feedlot in Curry County has prompted USDA to consider amending New Mexico’s bovine TB status to one that requires statewide testing, according to a press release. In the letter, the New Mexico lawmakers said that statewide testing would be a costly and unnecessary step. “As we understand it, USDA is considering amending the bovine TB regulations to add New Mexico to the list of modified accredited advanced states as a result of the discovery of an infected animal earlier this year. This change would have dramatic consequences on the livestock industry in our state. Because we believe this change is not in accord with the USDA’s existing regulations, we are requesting your prompt review of the decision,” the letter states....
Fried: We eat cow balls so you don't have to So when New Times needed someone to file weekly reports on fried food around the Valley, I was an enthusiastic volunteer. Hey, I eat the stuff anyway; I might as well have a good excuse for ordering it. And while I didn't plan to try anything exotic for my first Fried post, somehow I ended up at The Stockyards Restaurant, putting in order for calf fries. For the unitiated, those are cow testicles. Breaded and fried cow testicles, that is, with a side of marinara. Did I also mention I'm an adventurous eater? I was dining with my friend Jim, who initially pretended to be a good sport. (My other companion, Amy, didn't even feign a willingness to play along. "No balls!" she said, in the tone I might use to discipline my 11-week-old puppy.) "Sure, I'll try one," Jim said, after our waitress delivered an appetizer-sized bowl of balls. After all, they look like fried mushrooms -- nothing scary there. But then we sliced one open, and were treated to a view of the pink fleshy innards. (See above.) "They look surprisingly like what you would think they would look like," Jim said, "and that's not good."....Got to laugh at Jim, but someone please tell the New Time's cuisine cuty that cows don't have balls.