Liberty
Matters News Service
March 11, 2008
HR 2016; 26 Million Acres in Jeopardy
On Wednesday, March 12, the House Resource Committee will meet to mark up HR 2016 in preparation for a full House vote. HR 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System, would place 26 million BLM acres under the watchful eye of the National Park Service and could lead to the end of multiple use of those lands that Americans have enjoyed for many years. Proponents say the legislation merely codifies a system that former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt put into place in 2000, and would not change current management practices. However, in his opening remarks before the House Subcommittee on Parks, Forests and Public Lands in June 2007, Rep Rob Bishop (R-UT), Ranking Member, expressed reservations about the bill, saying: "This appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to insert restrictive National Park Service management methods in order to lock up public lands which were intended to be multiuse…[S]ome of these lands are remarkable, but were created at the whim of special interest groups by a sympathetic president." Section 3 of HR 2016 reads; "In order to conserve, protect, and restore nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values for the benefit of current and future generations, there is established in the Bureau of Land Management the National Landscape Conservation System." The term "values" is troublesome, believes Mr. Bishop, as The National Park System (NPS) has struggled with the definition for years. "In the NPS a value is now interpreted to include such subjective things as sound-scapes, view-sheds and the occasional smell-shed." He continued; "After this bill has become law, we should expect an onslaught of bills for new units of the National Landscape Conservation System." The Senate companion bill is S 1139. "We should consider this proposal carefully because the special interests have already put 'multiuse' in jeopardy," Bishop said.
URGENT ACTION: Contact Your
Congressmen To Stop HR 2016
Sue Their Pants Off
Weather Channel founder, John Coleman, had harsh words for his brain-child when he spoke at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City March 3. "The Weather Channel had great promise, and that's all gone now because they've made every mistake in the book on what they've done and how they've done it." In December 2006, the Weather Channel's Dr. Heidi Cullen said that meteorologists who didn't agree that humans cause global warming ought to be kicked out of the service. Coleman said he thinks the best way to expose "the fraud of global warming" is to sue those who sell carbon credits. "If the lawyers will take the case - sue the people who sell carbon credits, (who include Al Gore), that lawsuit would get so much publicity…I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming." Lord Christopher Monckton told the Conference much the same thing. Monckton said the media has perpetrated the [global warming] hoax by refusing to allow skeptics to express their opinions. "You sell far more papers by saying, 'Gee, wow - World to End; Shock; Sensation' than you do by saying 'Climate Continues to [be] Changeable,' which is the truth." Lord Monckton agreed with Coleman that the courts are the likely place to settle the issue. "That is the place where if you go and make a reasoned argument based on the science; you can always beat the other side, because their science - and we heard it over and over again today - is simply incorrect." The usual suspects are behind the scare, Monckton said. "It's the same people behind it. It's the International Left. They've got the science wrong and it will gradually penetrate to the general public that they have got the science wrong and once the penny drops - that will be the end of this scare too. We're not far away from it now," Monckton added.
Weather Channel Founder Blasts
Network; Claims It Is 'Telling Us What To Think'
Former
Thatcher Adviser Monckton Warns Global Warming Alarmism "Kills People If You
Get The Science Wrong'
A New Ice Age?
Ice storms across Oklahoma and Nebraska; Chicago receives more snow this year than in decades. Wave after wave of snow storms have hammered the upper Midwest, on into the New England states. The northwest is hidden under a blanket of snow that continues to pile up day after day. Ontario and Quebec have experienced similar winter events and China is suffering its worst winter in a century. What's going on here? Where are the balmy breezes and mild temperatures that environmentalists and their political allies have preached global warming would bring us? The U.S. National Climactic Data Center (NCDC) reports that the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 average." A few short months ago environmentalists hysterically screamed that because Arctic Sea ice was rapidly melting (due to man-caused global warming), polar bears would soon become extinct. But the cold reality is a different story. Senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, Gilles Langis, says the Arctic winter has been so severe this year, the ice has not only recovered, it is actually thicker in many places than at this time last year. Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona says, "We missed what was right in front of our eyes." It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Because researchers either didn't know about the effects of winds on the currents or ignored them, they placed greater emphasis on the theory that human activity was the culprit in polar ice melt. But now comes news that solar activity is also slowing, which could bring on a lasting cold snap. Professor Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, said last month because solar activity has dropped off dramatically, people ought to "stock up on fur coats." Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council, also thinks we are in for a cold spell if sunspot activity doesn't pick up soon. The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth endured the Little Ice Age that lasted five centuries, from about 1400 to1850 A.D. The real message to all of this is: don't let Congress do a thing about global warming. That is what this is all about anyway - get government to control more of our lives and our tax dollars.
Forget Global Warming: Welcome To
The New Ice Age
Wildlands Project in "Coma" in Washington State
A Seattle Democrat, Sen. Ken Jacobsen, has authored legislation designating the northeastern corner of Washington state as part of the Yukon to Yellowstone (Y2Y), a migratory path for grizzly bears and wolves. Y2Y is part of the dream of radical environmentalists to cleanse America of every trace of civilization and return her to the glory days before 1492. The two thousand-mile corridor would extend from Yukon Territory, through the corner of Washington, consume two-thirds of Idaho, half of Montana and end in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. That is just the beginning of their plan. Our vision is simple: we live for the day when Grizzlies in Chihuahua have an unbroken connection to Grizzlies in Alaska; when Gray Wolf populations are continuous from New Mexico to Greenland…Our vision is continental: from Panama and the Caribbean to Alaska and Greenland, from the Arctic to the continental shelves… - The Wildlands Project Mission Statement. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, an outdoor recreation group says: "Jacobson's legislation here would codify a very dangerous shift already taking place in state wildlife agencies. Agencies originally chartered to manage wildlife for the benefit of the sporting public are moving closer to the agenda of these radical wildlands groups, where predators are used to manage wildlife and man (hunters) are all but removed from the equation." The Senate passed S 5318 (30-19) February 13, 2008. Republican Rep. Joel Kretz, whose district is the site of Y2Y, is not happy. "The plan to auction off the Seventh District to be part of the Yukon to Yellowstone wildlife corridor is pure idiocy," Kretz said. "Property values would plummet and dangerous wildlife would be free to attack children, pets and livestock," he continued. "Folks that own their land would basically be renting it from an out-of-town environmental group." The Nature Conservancy, along with other environmental groups, has already been in Olympia asking the government for $5.5 million to buy land in the Seventh District for the corridor. Fred Grant, president of Stewards of the Range, sent a letter to Rep. Kretz on behalf of Stewards, the American Land Foundation, Liberty Matters, and Owyhee County pointing out "The Y2Y corridor concept is nothing more than an expanded ecosystem plan for restricted human use…An objective of Y2Y…is removal of the obstacle of private property rights to an all encompassing 'nature protection' program. The recommended expansion of use of conservation easements, the recommended purchase of private property to remove property right limitations, to complete emphasis on turning back the clock on human activities, is central to success of the corridor." (click here to read the entire letter) The Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on S 5318, February 27, and due to the testimony against the bill and many letters the Committee received opposing Y2Y, there will be no vote on the measure in the near future. S 5318 is officially "in a coma," said Rep. Kretz's spokeswoman.
'One Washington'? Only If You Live In King CountyThe "Re-Wilded" West