[at-l] Drilling & trees, etc...

[silas_wright@yahoo.com (Ben Wright)]

I spent more thing deciding where to send this
(to Charles or to the list) than actually writing
it.  But, I felt it begged a public response. Sorry.

--- "Charles P. Copeland" <charles@uswnet.com> wrote:
> 1) I don't like Clinton.  He has no moral character.
>  Period. 

I tend to agree about Clinton. However, how's that
saying go..."Let he who is free of sin cast the
first stone..."  Now who actually is that going to
be in the Republican or Democratic side of things.
Its the hypocracy that pisses me off. I am an
independent but I can't say I'll ever vote for a
Republican again after what I've seen from the
Newt Gringrich Contract ON America to the recent
political thievery.
  
> 3)  The USFS was formed to manage the use of our
> forests for lumber production.  Trees are our only
> truly renewable resource and if properly managed,
> our forests can sustain us with wood for our homes
> and for paper indefinitely.  

This is just flat out wrong. With ever increasing
population and consumption of products and land,
"indefinitely" ain't gonna happen. Look at the
dwindling diameter of the trees coming out of the
forests and compare that to historical photos. Look
at all the laminate products to create bigger lumber
and the scarcity and expense of large dimensional
lumber. At what point are we going to be cutting
toothpick sized saplings and still calling it
sustainable. Managing production without managing
consumption is a no-winner.  Now if you want to
talk about straw bale construction and paper made
of other non-wood fibers, then we can talk about
reduction and recycling of agricultural wastes and
getting closer to the "indefinitely" fantasy that
always seems to crop up when talking about "renewable"
resources.

> Even
> though Georgia's plantings are down, a billion trees
> a year are still being planted in this country -
> mostly pines and mostly for lumber and paper.  These
> billion trees take about 20 years to be harvested. 
> These billion trees reduce the need to go into new
> USFS or private timber areas but do not eliminate
> it.  

Think about this. Is a row on row tree plantation,
sprayed with herbicide to reduce competition with
the primary species, a forest or is it a crop? Is
that a living forest supporting a diversity of
species or is that a field to be harvested exclusively
for human needs? Think about this and maybe you'll
see that not one iota of monospecies tree plantation
is the same as a functioning forest.

> 4) The oil drilling plan is not a production plan. 
> It won't supply oil for a second.  It is a six year
> exploration plan.  It is a proposal to test a very,
> very, very small area in the northernmost part of
> Alaska for the existence of oil.  It will still have
> an impact on the environment - but not nearly to the
> extent the opponents would lead you to believe. 
> There is a totally separate proposal for production
> if adequate quantities of oil are found and its not
> even under consideration - yet.

Why is there even an exploration plan if it is not
fully intended that a production plan follows? And
once an exploration plan is implemented what odds
would
you give that the following rationale WOULDN'T be
"well we already spent all this money to explore,
we gotta produce..." You lay odds on that and I'd
bet my entire life-savings against you. The
incremental
argument that proponents use is nothing but smoke
being
blown up our...

Ben Wright

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