British Panel Criticizes 'Climate-gate' Scientists but Clears Them of Bias

A British report released Wednesday on the "Climate-gate" scandal criticizes a key group of scientists for lack of transparency and other problems with how they presented their data, but it concludes that their underlying scientific work is sound -- and one of the top scientists is getting his job back. Climate change experts at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit found themselves under intense scrutiny in November when over 1,000 internal e-mails were obtained and uploaded to the Web by hackers. Some climate change skeptics accused the scientists of manipulating data to suppress evidence. But the new report on the scandal found that the experts' overall "rigor and honesty as scientists are not in doubt." The report was requested and paid for by the university, and the panel that conducted the investigation was led by Muir Russell, a retired civil servant and educator...more

Critical of Climategate report

Leading academics were called for written and oral evidence before the Russell enquiry, and in many cases the report accepts their account of events. The subjects of their criticism were not invited, not were climate scientists critical of their behaviour. For example, in their capacity as IPCC gatekeepers, the academics are cleared of excluding critical evidence, and yet bending the rules to include supporting studies. To reach this particular conclusion, for example, the report finds a criterion: a "consistence of view" with earlier work. The earlier work here was in fact produced the academics under scrutiny. So, having compared the CRU academics' work against their previous work, and found it to be consistent, they are cleared of malpractice. Despite the gentlemanly and clubbable tone, the report nevertheless has deep systemic criticism of the institution and the team's processes. UEA "fell badly short of its scientific and public obligations", according to one review panel member, Lancet editor Richard Horton...more

Environmental Law's Greatest Tragedy

Like many others, I think the nation’s system of environmental laws and regulations, both at the state and federal level, is broken and its problems need to be addressed. One of the biggest problems can be summed up in two words: “agency deference.” “Agency deference” is the judicial doctrine that precludes judges from revisiting administrative agency decisions (s/a those made by the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service) except in the most extreme circumstances. It’s also the doctrine that has made it nearly impossible for there to be any independent and dispassionate review of decisions made by federal agencies that have become more like industry enablers than hard-nosed neutral regulators. The seminal case outlining the doctrine of agency deference is the 1984 decision in Chevron v. NRDC. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly outlined the “agency deference” doctrine. The agency deference doctrine essentially stakes out the territory of administrative agencies and courts in preventing and remediating pollution. The Supreme Court essentially determined that a court’s role in engaging the environmental law framework is very limited; the primary responsibility for environmental protection rests with administrative agencies. When a court reviews an agency determination about an environmental matter or an interpretation of an environmental statute or regulation, it must assume an exceptionally deferential posture, only re-visiting the agency decision if it’s “arbitrary”, “capricious” or “manifestly contrary to the statute” – vague concepts that readily give judges the opportunity to evade deciding a difficult issue because they’re perceived as too technical or complicated...more

Give most federal lands to Montana DNRC

If elected in November, state senate candidate Patty Lovaas said she will seek to transfer management of most federal lands in Montana to the state. In fact, if she hadn't gotten so deeply involved with property tax issues, Montanans might have decided the issue themselves. Patty introduced an amendment to the Montana Constitution last July invoking state sovereignty rights so that most public lands would be managed by local communities and state agencies. "This absolutely has to happen, for the health of our state, for the health of our people, and for the health of our economy," she said. "It would be better to transfer these public lands to local control. There is a code in the Federal Regulations that allows for local control of the public lands. It is absolutely a viable option." The constitutional amendment would not apply to national parks and wilderness areas. She was forced to postpone the public lands effort when she started fighting property tax reassessments, but promises that public lands will be atop her legislative agenda. "That's what needs to happen, because the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM never get anything accomplished, due to political bureaucracy," she said. Patty made the remarks in response to a query from the Chronicle, asking community leaders how to increase local decision-making in the federally-managed forest lands. Patty said she has been deeply involved with the issue for the past 10 years in Beaverhead County, which is about 60 percent public land...more

U.S. Forest Service worker retires at 91

Mary Merrill has three passions in life: the United States Forest Service, Weber State University basketball and the Utah Jazz. After Tuesday, the 91-year-old Roy resident will have a lot more time to watch basketball because she retired from the Forest Service office in Ogden after working there 31 years. "It's sad," Merrill said during her retirement party Tuesday at the Federal Building. "I'll miss everyone here. I love my job." Merrill worked as an office clerk for the Forest Service, doing manual jobs that required penmanship, archiving maps and photos, and other clerical tasks. Merrill said one of her favorite parts of her job over the years was writing on the backs of photos and archiving them for the Forest Service. Supervisor Sean Harwood said it was sometimes difficult working with Merrill, only because they would run out of things for her to do. "I'd give her a project that would take a week, and she'd have it done in two days," he said. "Our toughest job is keeping her working."...more

Bear shot after attack at NM scout camp

A 150-pound bear has been killed at Philmont Scout Ranch after it bit a 14-year-old camper. A spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, Marty Frentzel, says a Philmont employee shot the bear early Wednesday after it jumped on a tent and injured the camper. Game officials say the scout's injuries include a bite to the hand and a deep scratch on his head. He was taken to Santa Fe for treatment. The bear will be tested for rabies. Game officials say the 2- to 3-year-old male bear was killed within two miles of a previous attack on a camper at Philmont last month. Late last month, authorities shot one bear and sought a second after incidents that injured a camper and a goat at Philmont. AP

New Mexico seeks feds’ help on off-road vehicles

The New Mexico Environment Department is requesting help and funding from federal officials to address the unauthorized use of off-road vehicles threatening rivers and streams in national forests in the state. NMED Secretary Ron Curry sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requesting assistance and expressing concern about the impact on the environment and water quality that results from the use of unauthorized trails and roads by off-road and all-terrain vehicles in national forests. He also requests $150,000 to finance an assessment of water quality impacts caused by ATVs and ORVs in the Jemez Mountains in the Santa Fe National Forest. “These informal motorized routes follow or criss-cross streams, damaging stream bank integrity and riparian vegetation, accelerating erosion and creating deep gullies and headcuts that are particularly devastating in New Mexico’s fragile arid landscape,” Curry wrote in the letter. He said he toured an area of the Jemez Mountains affected by the vehicles in 2009 and expressed concern to the Santa Fe National Forest supervisor. “One year later, ORVs and ATVs are still uncontrolled on our national forest public lands, destroying fragile soils and riparian ecosystems that have been entrusted to the Forest Service,” Curry wrote...more

Feral burros compete for dollars, habitat

What is it about burros that causes otherwise intelligent people to lose their objectivity and capacity for rational thought? And, where in the world are the environmental groups? Where is the Sierra Club? Where is the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, besides stopping badly needed thinning projects? Why have they not been calling for, yelling for, ecological balance? In mid-June, Arizona Game and Fish Department Director Larry Voyles told the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board that federal proposals to change how wild horses and burros are managed must have a goal of ensuring a thriving ecological balance between horses and burros and wildlife, and include the involvement of state wildlife agencies. Seems like a no-brainer, but the burro program is totally out of whack. The BLM spends millions of dollars on burros in corrals waiting adoption and in rounding up more burros to put in those corrals. By some counts they spend more on burro management than they do on native wildlife. Would you believe that the BLM 2011 budget lists horse and burro management as one of their top six priorities -- costing $76 million -- an increase of $12 million over their 2010 budget. This does not include $42 million to purchase land for a wild horse preserve...more

Slaughtering horses illegal in US, people abandon instead

Over the last several years, hundreds of starving horses have been seized by authorities across the country. This is a result of the rising costs of hay and fuel, a depressed economy and the dubious political actions of animal rights activists that have led to the closing of the now much-needed equine slaughterhouses in the United States. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the number of horses whose owners will not or cannot care for them is rising at an explosive rate. Americans own more than 9 million horses today, up from just 6 million in the mid-1990s. With the state of the economy, many of these horse owners are unable to afford the costs of equine care. The price of hay alone has more than doubled this past year because of rising fuel prices. In the past, this set of circumstances might not have led to quite the crisis horse owners face today. Until recently, a market for unwanted horses existed in equine slaughterhouses which, according to a Department of Agriculture report, processed upwards of 70,000 horses annually for human consumption in Europe and Japan. Unsavory as it might seem to the sentimental, such slaughterhouses played a vital role in this country until they were shut down in 2007 because of pressure from animal rights activists. Today, while some unwanted horses end up in Mexican and Canadian slaughterhouses, thousands more are left to suffer and starve...more

Song Of The Day #353

Continuing with the Light Crust Doughboys, here they are performing Bear Creek Hop.

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As hysteria subsides, a calm second look

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, you're obviously not going to be at home in Washington. We were all supposed to be dead by now. Avian flu was supposed to get most of us, or maybe it was AIDS, SARS, Hong Kong flu, killer tomatoes, poisoned peanut butter, global warming or strangulation by kudzu, all once-familiar doomsday threats to the planet. Sometimes, it's hard to keep up with the reasons we're all dead. Earlier this year, it was swine flu, and a polite cough or an innocent sneeze was enough to call the undertaker to reserve a suitable coffin against the day when none would be available, so great would be the demand. The feds announced last week, in a footnote to the latest hysteria, that vaccine stockpiled for treating swine flu, once worth $250 million, would be disposed of since this year's killer flu was a big bust. The only people who get anything out of these exercises are the government bureaucrats, who never let a crisis go to waste, which is why they have become so skilled at manufacturing crises. You could follow the money, and see whose agencies grow in the wake of hysteria. British Petroleum, or whatever the BP executives are calling themselves this week, is spending billions to clean up the mess they made, but the betting here is that this is a paltry sum compared with what President Obama and his spendthrifts will eventually spend in creating new government programs to "prevent" future disasters...more

Monument plan will hurt landscape, local economy

Concerning the proposed Siskiyou Crest National Monument, Danielle Linder writes:

Our opposition is based on the history of other monument designations and on professional expertise in natural resources. The proponents of the monument state on their website that the monument needs to be designated in order to protect the environment from the perceived threats from public land sales, road building, private logging, cattle grazing and off-road vehicle use. They have, in a sense, stated that any human influence on the landscape is detrimental to the environment and thus they need to restrict activities that are historical to Siskiyou County and the foundation of our rural economy. The proponents claim jobs will be created by thinning forests and decommissioning roads. However, look at what has happened since the designation of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument just over the Siskiyou County border in Oregon. This national monument encompasses approximately 53,000 acres. The management plan proposes thinning 5,000 acres (none done to date), eliminates grazing, does not allow Christmas tree or firewood cutting and will close or decommission 74 miles of road. This would equal 800 miles of road if the same percentage of roads were closed in the proposed national monument. When one looks to other national monuments in the state, we can see that thinning projects, as were proposed in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, were vehemently opposed by the Sierra Club and these projects are still held up in court to this day. Don't be misled to think that projects would go forth without additional controversy if these lands were given monument status. Since most federal lands within Siskiyou County over the past 20 years have had large areas limited to management, the economy has significantly declined. Unemployment and welfare rates are at all-time highs, currently exceeding 19 percent. Mills have closed. Working families have left the area and schools are suffering steep declines in enrollment and quality of education. The economy of this county certainly is not robust or diversified, and creating the monument will only continue the financial decline...more

DeGette may adjust wilderness proposal in Carbondale area

Two areas in Pitkin County are ripe for a wilderness designation, according to U.S. Rep Diana DeGette, but the congresswoman said Tuesday she is considering adjusting the boundary of one to remove a mountain biking trail. The Assignation Ridge/ Thompson Creek area that is part of her bill encompasses some 25,000 acres, including the Braderich Creek Trail. DeGette said she is considering removing the trail from her proposal so that mountain bikers can continue to use it. DeGette's bill proposes designation of 34 areas comprising 850,000 acres in Colorado as wilderness. That is down from 63 areas covering 1.6 million acres when she began the effort 11 years ago, she said...more

Here is the interesting part for everybody:

Now, the Natural Resources Committee, on which she sits, is contemplating putting forward an omnibus public lands bill this fall. The “stars are aligned” to push through some of the wilderness in her bill, DeGette said. “What we're trying to do is figure out areas that are appropriate for wilderness designation right now so they can be included with this bill in the fall,” she said.

If Rep. DeGette's information is correct, we are heading for another omnibus bill this fall. Rather than having an up or down vote on each bill based on its merit, they lump them all together and ram them through with one vote.

Montana wildlife officials recommend wolf hunting quota of 186

State wildlife officials will recommend increasing the quota of wolves allowed to be killed by hunters this year to 186, compared to 75 in last year’s inaugural hunt. The increased hunting quota could decrease the state’s wolf population for the first time since the gray wolf was reintroduced to the Northern Rockies in 1995. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission will meet Wednesday and Thursday to set the parameters of this year’s wolf hunt. The commission started taking public comment in May after approving quota alternatives of 153, 186 or 216 wolves — targets the agency estimated would reduce wolf numbers in Montana between 8 percent and 20 percent. The agency received about 1,500 comments over that time that were “very diverse,” said state wolf program Coordinator Carolyn Sime. After receiving those comments, the agency decided to recommend a 186-wolf quota over 13 wolf management areas, an expansion from the three management areas in last year’s hunt. Montana’s wolf management plan calls for a population of at least 150 wolves and 15 breeding pairs. There were an estimated 525 wolves and 37 breeding pairs at the end of last year...more

Argus Hamilton sez

President Obama demanded amnesty for illegals Thursday, the same day he slapped a tax on tanning salons. What fun. Only a Democrat would subsidize brown people who want to be Americans, then turn around and tax Americans who want to be browner people.

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BP pointed out Thursday the oil spill has resulted in thousands of new jobs in the Gulf. They have every right to brag. It just shows a private company can create more jobs when it's screwing up than a government can when it's firing on all cylinders.

Argus Hamilton

Attack creates worries in West about sheep dogs

Two sheep dogs' attack on a Colorado mountain biker has prompted ranchers in the West to seek better ways to manage the large dogs that protect their herds against predators. The American Sheep Industry Association has been working with state groups and federal agencies to address the problem as more people make their way into once-remote areas where sheep graze. With more hiking and biking trails being cut through public lands the federal government leases to ranchers, sheep herders and outdoors enthusiasts say it's a problem that has become more urgent. "We have more and more dogs in use and more and more encroachment into traditional agricultural areas, and we're running into the need for more management of our dogs and education for the public as to why the dogs are there and what they do," said Peter Orwick, executive director of the American Sheep Industry Association. The dogs, typically Great Pyrenees, protect sheep against coyotes, mountain lions and bears and have become more common since the 1970s and 80s, when the government banned traps and poisons as ways to control predators. Without them, everyone agrees sheep ranchers would suffer huge losses to predators and might give up the business...more

High drama

During the last year the entertainment industry has stepped up its portrayal of agriculture in a negative light. So many of these attacks are based on unsubstantiated information and emotional pleas. No doubt you've seen some of these television episodes, like the couple who dined at a fashionable bistro and died —one from a fast-moving E. coli infection and the other from botulism. The show's detectives determined E. coli originated in a water supply on a cattle ranch and ended up in the woman's salad. Her dining companion contracted botulism from genetically engineered corn. Plenty of other anti-agriculture episodes have aired along with talk-show programs that also target farmers and ranchers, especially on their care and handling of livestock. One particularly outrageous television show featured a character who tried to convince her friends to help her save a pig from becoming bacon. Laughable? Hardly. And when another character refused to participate, she was accused of ignoring the "alleged" ugliness of animal production. What's going on here is "high drama" in the entertainment business. Unfortunately, viewers watch this programming and ratings are high. Hollywood has taken irresponsible liberties with the truth and turned farmers and ranchers into villains...more

Rural Crime Watch targeting crime with computer callouts

The South Cariboo Rural Crime Watch (RCW) has a computer phone fan-out warning system that is aimed at putting a crimp in crime. The computer keeps RCW members’ phone numbers, and when a crime occurs the “investigating” member records a message explaining the situation. The computer then calls everyone on the list and provides the information. RCW spokesperson Jon McCormick notes that one weekend they produced a fan-out warning members of a phone/credit card scam that asked for a donation to a local children’s charity. By using the fan-out system, he adds, RCW was able to reach 650 people with the information. He notes members include ranchers, farmers, resort owners, businesses and homeowners, and they all have an interest in protecting their investments...more

Song Of The Day #352

As we stated yesterday, this will be Light Crust Doughboys week on Ranch Radio.

The Light Crust Doughboys were one of the original western swing bands and early on featured the combined talents of Bob Wills and Milton Brown. W. Lee O'Daniel went on to become the Governor of Texas.

This song is about something everybody should have some knowledge of...if you are a cat owner.

Here's the boys performing Pussy Pussy Pussy.

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If the U.S. Won’t Drill Oil Offshore, Other Nations Will

Although President Obama’s executive order imposing a six-month moratorium on drilling for crude oil and natural gas in ultra-deep waters within the 200-mile territorial limit recognized by international law has at least temporarily been suspended by a federal district judge, offshore drilling will not come to a screeching halt even if that precipitous action ultimately is determined to be within his constitutional powers. As reported in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. July 2, Respol YPF SA, a Spanish company, has announced that next year it will begin drilling exploratory wells off the northern coast of Cuba, just 60 miles south of Key West. Industry experts as well as the U.S. Geological Survey seem confident that substantial deposits of crude oil and natural gas are there for the taking. America’s oil companies cannot participate in exploiting those deposits because of our long-standing and counterproductive trade embargo against Cuba. The point is that if the United States commits to bypassing offshore drilling at depths greater than 500 feet, we will be cutting off our collective noses to spite our collective face. Spain, China, Venezuela and other nations will continue to exploit potential reserves of fossil fuels, wherever they may be found. As a result, more of the world’s supply of crude oil and natural gas will fall into the hands of unfriendly nations...more