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World's First Tree-sitting Weblog
An anonymous reader writes "Amit Asaravala over at Wired News has an interesting article up about the tree-sitters in Humboldt County. Apparently a bunch of tech activists from the Indymedia Center are setting the tree-sitters up with an 802.11b network so that they can blog about all the logging going on up there. Seems like a pretty interesting way to use technology to help the environment, which isn't something you see everyday."
Only terrorists use 802.11!
that the loggers use Dells and all the tree sitters use Macs. What could that mean? I'll check back in 24.
...so he's protesting logging, and logging the experience.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
how will he spell his scream as he falls out of the tree to his death
If these people dislike logging so much why don't they simply wait until the fire season and start playing with matches.
"Blog" is a stupid word. You know that, right? Okay then.
So you expect people who believe in working for a better world to renounce ALL technology? and if they dont their hypocrites?
The kind of changes their trying to make arent gonna be affected by them buying a laptop with manuals and using electricity from non-green sources - they are trying to change everyones opinion
One person changing does fk all - you have to get hundreds or thousands to change
If them making small sacrifices in how they follow their beliefs so that they can get the msg out in a better way, who are you to judge them as hypocrites?
One of these days, you know, someone's gonna come along with evidence that 802.11 causes birds to fly into trees and buildings.
Do you think that'll stop the tree-climbing environauts from using it?
Of course not!
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
"And if you go up in the tree, you can't come down for anything, not a phish concert, not even for Burning Man"
At least now they can communicate a bit more with the world while sitting in the trees. Though one has to wonder how they recharge their laptops? Those would need to be some pretty long extension cords.
Any metal (mining)?
And not just any metal; copper smelting is about the nastiest of all industrial processes.
As opposed to what? All of the really exciting stuff going on in your parent's basement? Since when have weblogs been interesting? Quite hypocritical for someone who probably plays games all day to rip on someone who is trying to help save the environment.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
They are not as clueless as you are, that's for sure. Chopping down a large part of a forest will destroy the habitat for animals and other species living there, some of which may be very rare.
If you would have read their weblog you would have known more about why they are protesting.
I wonder how much polution the power companies are producing to give them the electricity they need to do this.
http://www.contrast.org/treesit/
I'm not a Karma Whore!!!!
Yeah, you know they are just surfing for porn up there and doing their Christmas shopping on Amazon!
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
It's perfectly reasonable to question how many people will ever read these blogs (aside from those who are already fully on board the movement). It may be preaching to the choir, but it could also be used as an effective alert system to get "the choir" quickly to the site of illegal action.
I'm sure their will also be a couple members of the more mainstream alternative media (folks like Willamette Week, or even Harper's) who will spread some of the better stuff to the general public.
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
If you're blogging about logging,
While sitting in a tree,
Then the chances are,
You're a geek hippie.
Swaying in the branches,
Laptop in your hands,
No safety net to speak of,
Just a couple of rubber bands.
Be safe up in the treetops,
And please try not to fall,
Despite all that long hair,
You will not bounce at all.
Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow...
And that's not to mention the nasty heavy metals used in circuit board manufacture. And of course, I hope that none of them are using CRT's. Lots of lead.
I don't understand why these people aren't just lead away in handcuffs. They're tresspassing. If anybody did that on my property, they'd be looking down the barrel of a gun, and they'd come down out of that damn tree, one way or another.
Do you REALLY think that all the people who consider the earth's natural environment to be of intrinsic value are anti-technology and want to return us to the stone age?
I know many such people and almost all of them see technology as the solution for our environmental problems.
If adequate funding was given to clean energy sources then perhaps this dream could become reality. Of course, with GWII in power, oil buddies come first!
Dear Diary:
Had a grand ol time at Pooh Bear and Tiggers pajama party last evening. Things really rocked when the Country Bears stopped by and busted out some tunes. Ol Smokey really put a damper on things at the end though with the whole "only you can prevent forest fires" blog.
Heard about Bambi's mom. Real bummer, Grizzly Adams was really bent out of shape about it, going on and on about the damn recreational hunters.
And a tree fell yesterday. It didn't know I was watching, it made no noise.
I don't think you can characterize anyone who is pro-environment as anti-technology. Not everyone on /. thinks corporations are the spawn of evil. I do wonder if many people who are pro-environment know all of the pollution that chip manufacturers produce... etc.
However, for all of you who will slam others for their inconsistencies, keep in mind that it is almost impossible to be 100% consistent. Just because someone has decided to choose one area to focus their energies on for some good, and isn't trying to be super(wo)man and fix everything, that should not nullify any truth that is in their message. That should not be pointed out to discredit them, or make you seem smarter. Every bit of good helps.
I don't understand why the logging companies just don't call in the police to remove these tree sitters. Why hasn't this been done yet?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Put simply: why on earth would someone who is against the logging of a forest be automatically anti-technology?
Donate free food here
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
I can just see the IM traffic..
Tr33Hugg3r: Hey man, can you toss me over another bag of granola? The last one fell on that park ranger's truck.
fukDaMan: sure, if you toss me another bag of soy nuts.
veggieChix0r: I'm cold, I want to go home.
1l0v3Tr335 : damn, my batteries in my MP3 player died, no more Bruce Cockburn for me..
Trolling is a art,
No it doesn't, at least for the moment (but not for long if Pacific Lumber has their way) it includes giant Redwoods, some of the oldest trees in the world. RTFA before you spew some bullshit about conifers.
The environmentalists dont want DEAD timber removed. They protest the forestry service constantly - stopping those who *know* what needs to be done and how to maintain the trees from doing their job.
It all started in the sixties, and we're paying the price now. 40 years of dead twigs piling up makes for a hell of a bonfire.
Every summer we sit and watch 3/4 of another state burn down to the ashes, because the forests have become giant tinder boxes.
These forest fires are a direct result of the tree-huggers preventing selective removal of deadwood. 3 cheers for people who self-reightous assholes who dont know what the fuck they're talking about.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The laptop being used is made entirely of hemp.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I have been working on a computer that consists only of rocks, grass, live insects (unharmed) and air. I have managed to get a web server running on it. Please be careful, don't wreck the enviroment!
Maybe, I'm one of few, but I see the environment pretty much everyday.
Trying is the first step towards failure.
Right. Nobody's suggesting that *all* economic activity should stop on environmental grounds. What they're protesting is how and where logging happens.
Sure, we need wood and paper, but do we really need to cut down ancient redwood forests containing the tallest trees in the world? If managed correctly, tree farms can produce all the pulp that we need.
A car battery recharger powers the equipment
I'm not quite getting how this works. A car battery charger plugs into wall and thus charges the battery. But, since the activists are up a tree, how are they plugging in?
I'm assuming it means they're using a car-battery to charge it, but eventually that would run out of juice too.
I suppose this article is timely - it is the season of fruitcakes after all! But seriously, isn't there something useful they can be doing with their time?
Maybe they could study architecture or engineering and come up with good, economical ways to build housing without lumber? Or do fundraising to purchase land to make reserves? Or research to find better, more environmentally friendly ways of logging? Perhaps if some lumber company choose to do old style logging (where you pick individual, strategic trees to remove instead of clear cutting leaving a good variety of trees and undergrowth), they could lobby to support such companies, despite higher lumber costs?
I dunno, just seems like there's more productive ways to spend your life, and still make a difference.
Slashdot: New for Hippies, Stuff that is irrelevant.
If these people dislike logging so much why don't they simply wait until the fire season and start playing with matches.
You don't know how hard I had to resist moderating that as flamebait.
It is not contradictory to use technology to protect the environment. By and large, what these people are against is the thoughtless, greedy, UNSUSTAINABLE raping of earth's resources. Corporations have demonstrated themselves to be incapable of thought beyond the bottom line.
People like this are you and I. There's a saying: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Instead of labeling these public servants, read a bit about the issues and I'll bet you find yourself in the same mindset.
~gb
Yes I do expect them to renounce all technology, and furniture for that matter ;-)
Most of these people have a hypocritical, short sighted, rose colored view of the world. Instead of sitting in the damn tree maybe they should be negotiating (note not suing) with the logging company to develop their replanting and harvesting strategy. If the protesters were more open minded then maybe they could help loggers take trees out of the forest selectively and leave a variety of ages of trees in an area, plus plant new ones. A consession would probably have to be more low maintenance roads to get into the areas and selectively cut. It baffles me that the choice is either rape the land, or don't touch it. Stewardship of resources is not really discussed or handled, basically because the activists have iron clad belief in not doing anything. It's pretty well proven that when you do that the forest will burn. Of course when you clear cut and then replant trees that are all the same age fire danger can go up as well.
Maybe the solution is actually somewhere in the middle.
Blogging about logging.
Well.
I know I'm excited.
And shouldn't that be "tree-huggers", not "tree-sitters"?
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
This is real, honest to god, natural selection. With medical facilities as good as they are in this day and age, deaths due to stupidity are rare, but here's a classic example. Good to see at least one more idiot won't be contributing to the gene pool.
On a related note, the sitter in this article named her tree "Jerry". And takers on when she's gonna be the next example of natural selection in action?
If it gets slashdotted the whole damn forest could go up in flames taking the activists with it.
Hey, wait a minute...
I was just at the site and they have pictures of the activist chicks doing the traditional wood nymph blessing dance...in the nude. Check it out...streaming video too!
This is more than a little offtopic, but do these people come down to do their business or do they just hang their asses over the branch and let loose on the unsuspecting below?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
But of course they won't do that because these kinds of groups are very unreceptive to criticism and debate. Trolls aside (and what message board doesn't have trolls), I think they would find that their cause and methods are not as accepted or supported as many of them believe.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
A group of australia lifeguards have expressed immense interest in the endeavour; the only technical hurdle they have to face is that their thongs are too small to accommodate any extra piece of equipment, namely the wireless devices needed to access the service.
"Is that your cellphone in your Speedo, or are you happy to see me?", asked Cindy, when meeting her fellow lifeguard Jon.
Some redwoods have been alive for a thousand years.
They most certainly don't grow back in "..a few years.."
You must be from the east coast, where they don't have any real trees...
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
In five easy steps.
1 - Climb down out of the tree.
2 - Get a job.
3 - Save up money.
4 - Buy land with trees on it.
5 - Don't cut them down.
Out of all of them, #2 is the only one that takes a lot of effort.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
From the article: A car battery recharger powers the equipment
So what powers the car battery recharger? A Honda generator?
most "environmentalists" stick only to a narrow selection of appealing topics. something difficult, like elephant culling (elephants destroy forests), they don't want to know.
for example, most tree-huggers are pro-whale and pro-forest. but forests only provide about 10% of the oxygen in the air; most of it is produced by algae in the sea, which, incidentally, is eaten by whales. so if the tree-huggers were really environmentally sound they would be campaigning to have the forests cut down to make harpoons and whaling ships.
The amount of paper wasted by magazines and newspapers in the 20th century was enormous. Still, without Gutenberg's revolution you would probably still think the earth is a plate. To be pure is impossible: we're just humans.
-- Let's go Viridian.
"I think the great thing about tree-sitters using 802.11 is how they can post on the Internet without wires. That way, they can type 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!' while falling out of a tree, and click 'Submit' right before they hit the ground."
...
I'm one of those nutty Indymedia activists. I have serious problems with the conservative domination of our so called "liberal" media, and am doing proactive, constructive things to work to change that. Among them is writing for my local IMC, another is working for media reform, as much of this has been made possible by federal legislation and other actions by the Fed.
anyway, serious bravo to folks at San Fran IMC for doing this. Technology is not necessarily paradoxical to environmental activism -- and if anything, the high tech world needs a serious dose of environmental awareness, power consumption and chip production being the two main things that I'm sure we could come up with very creative solutions to.
Briefly more on IMC: I can only speak for my local Indymedia, but we've been doing a lot of reporting on things that the Big Media(tm) have ignored. There've been a number of controversial things happening in Madison over the past few years. While we are fortunate to have more than one daily newspaper, we're as affected by radio, TV, and cable conglomeration as the rest of the United States. That means that in the major press outlets, many of these controversial issues have gone on without more than the Official Word(tm) being spoken about it. While we're still small, we're growing, and with it a sense that fair and accurate reporting needs to happen by everyone -- corporate media and volunteer/activist media alike. I'm proud to be working with what must now be the thousands of other media activists in the 100+ IMCs that exist around the world. let's keep it up!
-- haaz.
So you can't be an environmentalist unless you live in a shack, grow your own food, forgo Western medicine, and don't use any technology that you didn't build yourself? That's absurd. I consider myself an environmentalist. I try to minimize my consumption. I think about purchases. I don't own a car. I try to educate others. But I live in a city, I use technology, and I use fossil fuels. Am I hypocrite?
Listen, it's easy to be a critic, but if you've ever seen with your own eyes what these tree sitters are fighting for, you might change your mind. I've been to some of the clearcuts on Vancouver Island, BC. You wouldn't believe the logging practices that went on before the environmental movement helped put a stop to them. There are entire mountains there that have been clearcut bald, from the summit straight into the valleys. Whole landscapes, brown and full of nothing but broken stumps. Soil washed away so nothing will grow back for a long time. It's gastly. But now, clearcuts like these are banned, and sustainable logging is being practiced more and more widely in BC.
These environmentals aren't against the wholesale use of wood, or oil, or technology - don't be silly. That's a false choice. It's in how we do things. Do we drive around town in Hummers, getting 8 miles per gallon, or do we acknowledge that yeah, there's more to living on this planet than unfettered self-gratification, and learn to make due with a smaller car? Or public transit? It's about rationale choices, man.
...does anyone hear it fail?
Bush should have died, not Reagan -- Morrissey
Morrissey rides a cockhorse -- The Warlock Pinchers
It's not all one sided, of course. But the upper management of LP, the ones with the power to change things, are pretty much all hard set against negotiation - they take a very hard line, and use considerable influence with local government (which is largely corrupt) to get thier way.
New trees will grow to take their place.
Xaotik Designs
Can't we add loggers, lumberjacks, and similar extractivist workers to this extinct species list? If they are unable to adapt to the new environment-conscious society that has evolved in the last few decades they should die.
Some how, there's something very darwinian about reading the stories of deaths from people falling out of trees where they were living/sitting in protest. Makes you feel like humanity is taking a step in the right direction..
Truth is I support some of their argument, but this is not how to do it....plus the laptop up there is throwing doubt on my joy of eliminating the dead weight!
LOL, Bravo!
They're probably fighting to save the big trees to hide the little trees.
There was a pretty good movie, Homegrown , about pot growers in Humboldt County.
This generalizing, stereotyping, vitriolic bullshit comming from someone that doesn't even have the miniscule amount of courage needed to log in and put his name on his words. Ho hum, nothing to see here.
XML causes global warming.
Pssht. The logging industry was devestated by clearcutting in the 70s, before the activists even got started, and they haven't grown back because when you strip a mountainside all the soil washes down into the river, where it kills all the salmon (no fishing in the northwest anymore, either). So all the lumber companies close the mills and move em to Mexico, and start making particleboard instead of board lumber, because there aren't any trees left big enough to mill. Get a frigging clue.
Day six: Frank asked if I was a vegetarian today. He already knows this. What does he mean?
Day twelve: Will no one let it rest that I dreamed I heard chainsaws?
Day twenty-nine: Another fricken squirrel!
Day sixty: I'm just going outside, and I may be some time.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
Corn and wheat farmers don't cut existing old-growth corn and wheat forests in federal land. They plant their own farms. Instead of cutting existing forests, why doesn't the logging industry buy farmland and plant trees there?
Mature Redwoods (like the 200+ year old ones being clear cut by Pacific Lumber) will survive even severe forest fires, read this. However no tree can survive Pacific Lumber's chainsaw. Period. And let's not bullshit about whether they are clear-cutting or just 'clearing out dead wood'. Don't insult everyone's intelligence.
Today we have 100 or 200 year fires every year from the crap in the forests that the forest service and loggers can't remove because of environmentalists.
There are regular prescribed fires in the California forests.
But let's see if I understand what you're saying:
- Environmentalists are preventing forest workers (and loggers) from clearing out 'dead wood'.
- Since 'dead wood' is allowed to pile up, it results in unspeakably horrible forest fires worse than any of those seen before.
- If loggers were allowed to clear cut, then we wouldn't have to worry about bad forest fires! Horray loggers!
If you can spare any, I'd like some of the crack that you're smoking, because it's clearly pretty good. Luckily, common sense tells us that since loggers have only been around for the last couple hundred years, and forests have been around a LOT longer than that, those "terrible, terrible fires" have been happening for millions of years. Luckily, we now have what's called "prescribed burns" that help reduce the naturally intense forest fires into several smaller, less dangerous fires. The smaller fires are not prevented by environmentalists, and allow more trees to survive. But even the larger more sever fires don't (usually) kill the ancient Redwood trees. Nope, only Pacific Lumber has managed to do that.It's people like you that are quicking destroying our planet and making this a barren rock with nothing other than Humans, pets, and house-plants. The environmental damage caused by our race in just the last 100 years is absolutely staggering, and the rate of destruction is only increasing. Sad, really.
Bullshit. The ones that break into zoos and set the animals free are the extremists. Oh, wait, that was a movie.
XML causes global warming.
this is actually kind of funny!
**>>BELCH
You either have no clue or no morals. I'm guessing no clue. The Headwater Forest is full of ancient redwood trees. You ever see them? The Coast Redwoods are up to 2000 years old. The Giant Sequoias can be over 3,500 years old. Some of these trees were around when the Phoenicians invented the alphabet, and when Jerusalem was founded. Young trees of 700 or so were around when the first Samurai drew his first sword.
Replant? Don't be ridiculous.
Of course there's a kook in every group but by and large these "hypocritical short-sighted" activists you speak of aren't out to ban all logging, renounce all technology, or any other such luddite activity. They just think a happy medium is logging oak or maple trees, not chopping down irreplaceable 2000 year old redwoods to make coffee tables.
Most people think it's fine to eat meat, but would be appalled to see bald eagle and rhinoceros meat at the deli. At minimum the same logic should be applied to threatened irreplaceable two to three thousand year old trees.
You really think they should compromise and let just a few people panel their basements in Sequoia? The idea is disgusting.
Not one redwood. There are plenty of other trees.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Could someone seriously explain what these people are protesting for? Is it wrong for people to cut down trees?
Trees are burnt to the ground in forest fires, how come people aren't protesting forest fires? I understand that it would be bad if someone were to cut down all the trees, but that wouldn't make much financial sense for a logging company to do that. Is it an age thing? Like an older tree shouldn't be cut down but it is ok to cut down younger trees? What is the criteria for being an older tree?
BTW, what are their platforms made of? Plastic? Metal? Wood?! What about the food they eat? Even if they are vegan, what makes a tree's "life" more sacred than some bean sprout?
Speak truth to power.
Logging companies completely clearcut vast swaths of forest. When they bother to replant, they typically do so with monocultures - a single tree species, which must then be massively fertilized and insecticided to survive. When not clearcutting they select the tallest, straightest, healthiest trees which leads to a degradation of the tree gene pool in the area and shittier trees.
Clearcutting also results in the decimation of streams and habitat for other creatures. Trees also create rain and are the sources of forest streams through transpiration, so clearcutting is also an assault on our water resources.
Modern agriculture is a disaster. We've created a system where we put in more calories of energy into a crop than we can harvest. Simply saying that logging companies are doing 'tree farming' is really a complete condemnation of what they're doing.
It is possible to profitably harvest trees at a sustainable rate that has a negligible effect on the forest. It can even improve the forest by thinning out diseased or damaged trees. Yes, this would result in a somewhat lower supply of trees, but there are many, many methods to reduce tree usage in home construction.
1 house == 1-2 clearcut acres. Is this really the way to go???
> Most of these people have a hypocritical, short sighted, rose colored view of the world
Really. How well do you know them ? Have you actually spoken with a decent number of them or listened to what they are saying ? The environmental activists I have met have been informed, intelligent and realistic, perhaps a bit on the pessimistic side, but often with good reason.
> they should be negotiating (note not suing) with the logging company
What on earth do they have to negotiate with. The logging company is only interested in making as much money as possible. They will invest some of that money for campaign contributions to make sure regulation is kept to a minimum. Costing the logging company money by occupying trees is a mechanism to gain some negotiation power.
> It baffles me that the choice is either rape the land, or don't touch it.
Where the hell did you get that idea ?
Do you think these people spend time, discomfort get beaten half to death by paid goons etc while remaining completely uninformed about everything.
They are not doing it for fun. They have been successfully painted as a bunch of stupid unrealistic hippies by a sophisticated PR industry that manipulates the vast majority of the media. Check out this sometime if you want to understand better where you get your views from.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
She also says:
In short, it sounds like negotiation and criminal and civil litigation have already been attempted and have failed. Their demands do not indicate that they want the lumber industry to stop cutting altogether - she lists four things she'd like to see:
I'm not sure I agree with the first "demand" - I'd have to be given better reasoning than just "it's bad" - so I'll leave that one as being perhaps a little overboard. But I dunno.
I'd hope we can all agree that simple clear-cutting is bad and irresponsible. The lumber industry would actually be better off replanting or leaving enough trees so that the forest can grow back. However, MAXXAM/PL is apparently taking an incredibly short-sited view of things and is going for as much profit short-term as possible, instead of attempting to ensure that they will be able to continue with a source of lumber into the future.
As for herbicides, I'd love to know why a logging company would be spraying herbicides. It would seem to increase the damage from any wildfires (as it would cause there to be more deadwood). I would guess they do it to help clear the underbrush to be able to pull trees out easily? Seems unnecessary and quite possible to be worked around. Not being a logger, I don't know.
The last one again should be just common sense. You know what prevents a large sloped mass of dirt from being a large flowing mass of mud? Roots, be they tree roots or other undergrowth. Remove the trees, the roots die, and then you get mudslides in rainy conditions. But anyone engaging in clear-cutting probably doesn't really care about the land after they've finished exploiting it, so they probably feel fine about letting the area turn into a deathtrap once they've got their wood out. At the very least, one would hope that on slopes with the danger of landslides, lumber companies would either be forced to leave most of the trees and immediately replant around the trees they have removed a new tree and probably grass as a stop-gap measure until the tree matures enough to hold the ground in place.
The solution probably is in the middle, but if you actually read the 'blog, it seems that the logging company is intent on maximizing immediate profits with no concern for what will happen as a consequence.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
You've committed a (probably intentional) logical fallacy. You assume that because the protesters want these particular trees to be saved, that it must mean that they want no tree in the world to be cut down, and that therefore their use of any natural resource is hypocritical. Have I got your logic right?
The fallacy of course, is that these particular trees are very unique. They represent some of the last old-growth coastal redwoods left in the world. They are thousands of years old. There used to be a lot more of them, but they've almost all been cut down over the last century, to make crap like this.
These trees should not be cut down. There's plenty of non-unique timber out there.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Ah, good idea. If you can't dispute what people are saying, then focus on the worst of their crowd, and then you can either, at least, make them all seem like nuts so their position is discredited, or at best, actually convince the general population that you are doing the right thing!
Yep, absolutely true - some environmentalists are getting violent (because previous nonviolent efforts have had little or no effect) so, that must mean they're all crazy and it's perfectly ok to go ahead and clear-cut California! Man, the logic there is unquestionable.
Well they are trying to do just that in fact.
Read this article about a really tough fight.
and how exactly do you argue with those in power before they clear cut the old growth. I have a business, and can easily recognize the necessity of doing what you believe in. many people are hippocrits, these people just happen to actually do something the rest of the time. as for your scientific statement of forest fire causes, the research is inconclusive (just like global warming!), and affects primarily planted areas, not established forests which are older than our country. i oppose clrear cutting primarily because nobody respects the material any more. it's such a shame to cut down trees such as these for shit furniture and mini-villas. stewardship! lol!
Who will win?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Okay that's enough of that, I don't believe that shit for a second, but it's fun to yank chains. You're absolutely right that clearcutting is wrong, and I think it should be stopped by any means necessary, up to and including sabotage. Though I fail to see how wooden shoes will help, they're probably made in sweatshops and we come back to the argument that started this thread.
We *do* have a serious problem with disposable electronics in this world, however. Handheld computers, household appliances, and also computers contribute. On the other hand, I expect this trend to taper off, if industry will let it. There are two reasons why it continues. The first is that companies want to SELL SELL SELL you everything they can. That means that they want to make things that break and/or they want to supersede the old equipment so that, in either event, you will buy more. The other issue is that we are just rounding a bend of technology in which computers are becoming able to do all the shit we've seen them do in the movies. Once computers can do all that crap (which is partly a software issue, and partly a bandwidth issue, and yes, we do need a bit more CPU still) then I believe the tendency to throw them away will lessen.
Don't scoff at this person's assertion that by using a computer which DRAMATICALLY increases the world's entropy, usually in ways which pollute or destroy the environment - Do you really believe that the metal in the laptop was acquired any way other than strip-mining? You think that plastic's made out of corn, or hemp? Think again, sparky. The production of everything in that laptop save the silicon (and its production tends to be a fairly noxious process) directly contributes to havoc wreaked on the earth which will render the landscape even more wrecked than clearcutting. I do agree, however, that there's more contrast between the before and after in most cases.
In the end the solution to both is technology; Moving away from using wood to build at all, and going to steel for frames and plastics for everything else; Finding more efficient ways to mine, refine, and recycle steel. Eventually I expect housing to be made out of materials like carbon fiber (getting cheaper all the time) monocoques built in pieces and bolted together for light weight (shipping) and rigidity. More houses will have active floors so they can be lightweight and low-material while still feeling completely rigid.
And even more finally, there ARE people who believe we should go back to living on the farm, practicing sustainable agriculture (IE crop rotation) and do more things by hand. They can screw right off in my opinion, but they do make some good points.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
not about some fundamentalist eco-purism.
Maxxam's desperate cutting to pay off it's junk bond funded buyout of Palco (a tactic made illegal shortly afterwards) has resulted in many folks who live downstream from the timber lands losing their homes to floods and landslides.
And the silting and warming (due to removal of the sheltering canopy of the big trees) of the rivers that flow through Palco's land has greatly impacted the the local salmon fishery, which used to employ thousands (alot more than the increasingly mechanized timber industry).
IOW, this is about protecting the common resources of the area from a rapacious multinat, not about extreme environmental purism.
Semi-on topic, but flat out avoiding logging and squashing every flame that comes along is not necessarily in the best interest of the environment.
Protected the trees from fire and logging changes the environment. For example, some pine trees take a brute force approach of many many many seedlings that are individually weak and the expectation is that a fire will wipe most out, but the few that remain will be fine..... Others, take a long time to develop a few saplings while fireproofing. Without fires, these slow and steady species get starved out. I don't know too much about this stuff (my wife is the Bio/Botany/Genetics person), but moderating logging can serve as a good, efficient replacement for raging wildfires (which interfere too much with our lives to tolerate beyond small, controlled, often wasteful controlled burns).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
and the previous Sherrif & DA who supported a more active (aka brutal) campaign against protest(including dabbing pepper spray in the eyes of bound protestors) lost the last election in a landslide.
Since Maxxam bought Palco with junk bonds and instituted hyper aggressive logging practices to pay them off, which practices led to the flooding of dozens of homes, and a sharpt decline in the salmon industry (which used to employ thousands), the local folks have gotten pretty fed up.
Palco used to rely on thousands of employees of it's own to vote the company line on local issues, but Maxxam's liqudation of the Palco pensions and automation of it's tree farms have resulted in very few people actually relying on the timber industry any more, with a consequent decline in local political support.
In short, the cops will come when they aren't busy with murders, rapes, and robberies, and they will definitely come if the loggers kill anyone again, but they aren't going to climb any trees or set up trail blocks to protect the "private" property of a multinat that has severely impacted the property and businesses of it's downstream neighbors.
Well, since you don't personally own any forest, I suppose it's fine with you if we destroy every tree on the planet.
The logging companies seldom own the land either. If they did, they would manage it. Usually it's federal land which they bought logging rights to for a pittance [although it works out a little more if you include campaign contributions].
Oh - too bad if you can't breathe anymore. In fact, since you don't own the air you should stop breathing immediately.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
You're absolutely right. I think that a bunch of big, meat-eating, smoking, spitting, arm-wresting super-macho lumberjacks that work for the company that owns the land should go "protest" in the tree-sitter's apartments. They should sit there indefinitely. Maybe then they'll understand that you can't just tresspass and take away a person (or company)'s right to own and use private property.
The tree-huggers whine about the precious trees, and tie up legal logging in the courts, and then stand idly by when the forests burn down because they haven't been thinned out.
You are completely correct. Selective cutting reduces fire danger. If a selectively-cut forest burns, it is just a healthy burn, taking out the underbrush and leaving the old growth trees intact. Fires are not supposed to take out large trees. That's enviro-crap. A century of fire suppression has made today's fires very intense, killing large trees and often sterilizing soil.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Don't tell that to people in Michigan.
mstyne: real name, no gimmicks
He's clueless? Well dip me in shit, all this time I thought those trees were growing.
You're honestly going to tell me that forestry companies don't replant trees?
Come on people, why aren't you all sitting in wheat fields too? I mean farmer Brown cuts his wheat crop and.....???????
Logging, like any other ag business has a cycle. Plant, tend, harvest, repeat.
The wildlife you speak of also depends upon cycles. There are points in those cycles which used to include forest fires and predators. We've decided to fight fire so in most instances logging can take the place of fire (for wildlife, plant seeding is another issue however {which is why we have more forests now and less prarie})
No pal, you're the one who's clueless. Try hooking up with your local educational facility and learn a bit about biology, ecology, business management and zoology. I don't know how to advise you on obtaining common sense.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
First let me honestly hope that you are referring to those as professions and not people. Maybe not, most environmentalists tend to be violent people in my experience.
Now let's look at why loggers, lumber mills, and paper mills exist. Think about this for a minute. I don't know what society you are a part of but mine demands wood and paper products.
Look around you. Very carefully look around you. Are you, someone who is a part of "the new enviroment-conscious society" creating a demand for wood products?
Unless you can tell me for certain that you do not, in any way, shape, or form, use or depend upon anything wood based......well, I don't want to hear you complain about people who work DAMN HARD to satisify YOUR DEMANDS for wood products.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
Do we drive around town in Hummers, getting 8 miles per gallon...
Your rhetorical question contains a lie. The Hummer H2 (the $50k one, based off a Chevrolet Suburban) gets 11mpg city, 14mpg highway. The H1 (the $100k one, engineered specifically for military duty), gets 14mpg city, and 17mpg highway (due to it having a diesel engine).
The only way you're going to see 8mpg in a Hummer is by towing or taking it off road. which you have in no way suggested. If you don't like vehicles that average 14mpg, well, then say so. But making up statistics reduces the credibility of your statement.
And no, I don't own one.
Figures, you get modded up and I get modded down as flaimbait.
You haven't flown over the US lately have you? FYI we now have more forrested land than ever before in history. Why? Some may ask. Because of better (when implemented) firefighting techniques, and the conversion of some of the grassland to forested lands.
I grew up in a logging community around Mt. Rainier during the 80's and the logging industry clearly had not been devestated.
As for the Salmon, they are now finding that those darn little fish do pretty much what they please. All the fishing problems are artificialy created because these nutball enviornmentalists want to force mother nature into their view of the world. For example -- Overall there are no Salmon problems in the NW. But the distribution in the streams has changed over the years.
If clearcutting made the forest land unusable, then companies like Weyerhuser and Pope and all the other local timber companies would be out of trees by now, wouldn't they?
I doubt that you are interested in educating youself (and disabusing yourself of your cracked views) but you might try reading "Trashing the Planet" by Dixie Lee Ray, former Washington State Governor
Remember Lexington Green!
Shame I haven't got any mod points to burn...
I managed to keep out of the discussion so far, but here I can't resist.
Not going to get into the name-calling - I'm tempted to do that myself, though it's better to exercise restraint. And I'm not going to ask you to explain why socialism is so evil.
So the 'environazies' should buy the trees that legally belong to the logging corporation? And how did those companies come to own the trees? By buying them for their *real* value from the *real* owners, i.e. in many cases indigenous tribes, or the government, consisting of colonists who drove the indigenous population out? But let's not get into that, it's too messy... Either way, I doubt the companies paid much money for them. And you're saying that when I own something, I can do with it what I want? So I can take my gun and shoot you, because I legally bought it? Of course not, I can use my property any way I want as long as I don't harm anyone, wouldn't you agree? I, and these protesters, would argue that cutting down these trees *does* cause harm - to the environment (as other people mentioned - oxygen production, but also biodiversity - the drug to cure the brain tumor you get in 10 years might be discovered in some old-growth forest, and all that stuff), and thus *all of us*.
So your basic premise is that we should have an absolutely free market, with no regulation at all, isn't it? I disagree with that, but FWIW, we haven't. The problem is that a) neither governments nor these companies really play by the rules of a free market, and b) money isn't the only 'value' in the world. Of course society as a whole (i.e. the gov't) should pay for such things - because it benefits all society.
If I were one of these activists and bought a tree or two, I'd want patent rights to all potentially useful drugs and whatever discovered in the area, money from everyone who enjoys the sight of these trees (tourists, people living nearby...) - you'd probably agree with some of these, basically using my property in a different way. But I'd also want to be paid for the oxygen produced, and the CO2 removed from the atmosphere, and the reduction in global warming damage, etc. etc. Not to mention the intrinsic value of nature that simply can't be measured in money. But you might not accept the existence of this, so let's leave it out.
Basically, eco-tourism and other ways of non-invasively using nature, and the idea of buying nature to protect it are wonderful - they're just not enough. If you let these companies do what they want, they'll destroy our planet. Oh, but that's OK because they paid for it and had the right to do so? Don't make me laugh.
Hmm. I need to practice writing something that makes sense without spending too much time planning. I realise that there's probably not enough logical structure in this post, but I stand by the basic points I make.
I love how enviromentalists are willing ignore the rights of the logging companies to have and use their PRIVATE property just so that they protest. Seems to me the right to private property is one of the biggest tenants of liberty, which gives them the opportunity to protest. Protesting is fine until it starts infringing on other people's rights.
And, of course, the fact that the logging that Pacific Lumber Company is ok, since it doesn't hurt anyone else.
It hasn't filled Humboldt Bay with mud, seriously degrading the habitat for fish, and it hasn't seriously damaged the ability of the watershed to filter and buffer rainfall from storms, which made Freshwater Creek less likely to flood.
The fact that residents of Eureka now see a lot more flooding, and the flooding being directly traceable to the logging doesn't matter, does it? The fact that their logging doesn't just affect their private property, but is damaging large amounts of both private and public property isn't important?
I'm sure if you found your PRIVATE PROPERTY was regularly getting flooded and your PRIVATE PROPERTY was being destroyed by the actions of the logging companies, that you'd be a little less likely to say "they're only doing it on their private property, they have that right!"
Massive amounts of logging affect much more than just the land that's logged. So would it be fair to say "Logging is fine until it starts infringing on other people's rights"?? Because that is EXACTLY what this company is doing.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
No, they'd be outcompeted by the guys who don't have the overhead of studying or practicing renewable techniques.
The change has to come from the marketplace or from the government... it's pretty hard to get the marketplace to do anything ethical, and the government is corrupt.
The marketplace won't change for the same reason as industry... only the wealthy can afford to spend ethically, everyone else has to go as cheap as they can.
The government is corrupt IMHO because capitalism broke democracy... through campaign contributions, employing citizens and feeding the taxbase, corporations have too much sway over government.
So how do you fix democracy so that it can take control back from capitalism and focus on what is right for the people? and not for the corporation?
You can't... for the same reason the marketplace and corporations can't change; Changing the government means changing a country and countries must compete on an international scale. Any country to toughen up on its corporations looses domestic jobs and international power.
The only way to recover that power is to build new jobs by slashing down forests, building factory farms etc.
We're all stuck in a rut. Renewable forestry will become popular only when it is either 1. absolutely necessary, or 2. every other country in the world is forced to adopt it due to (1) and the last country to hold out is wealthy enough to choose the ethics they want to practice.
It's amazing how many people bring up the whole "it's their private property" line, without realizing that their loggins has demonstratably affected other peoples' private property, along with public property.
The fishing in the area has been hurt because of all the mud that's been washed into the rivers because the trees aren't there to keep it from eroding. There's also the fact that Eureka is now flooding more often because the watershed can't buffer the large storms. People's houses and businesses are being flooded. OTHER peoples' private property is being destroyed.
Or is tresspassing a much worse offense than the destruction of property?
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
PMP
example.org - powered by Linux!
I doubt very many people have nicks that appear on their drivers license, although a permutation of mine does.
XML causes global warming.
Couldn't possibly know or care less about the state of forestry in general. I do however have firsthand knowledge of the specific area being talked about. The salmon industry there was thriving and is now non-existent. The clearcut areas have not and will not grow back without enormous and expensive terraforming (which won't happen aytime soon). The local lumber mill was downsized and most operations moved to Mexico when they couldn't support it anymore - all that comes out of it anymore is particleboard.
It must be that smug superiority of geeks, sustained and amplified through years of telling each other we're all so goddamn smart that we actually believe the hype. Gosh, if you can hack the Linux kernel, or if you can build a complete content management system for a company Web site, or if you can get paid a buttload of money at a computer job right out of high school, why then, you must know everything there is to know about the world, right?
That's the only explaination I can find for the concentration of knee-jerk anti-enviro hounds around here. Okay, if all y'all think yer so goddamn smart, a challenge:
It's easy to pick at an argument or position, to find inconsistencies or to attack parts of it. It's a hell of a lot harder to posit a position or argument yourself. The challenge, then, is to explain and support the idea that all of the changes made to the natural environment by humankind are a-okay and nothing to worry about. Oh yes, and no references whatsoever to the defects in the arguments of environmentalists, or any technology-will-fix-it-all-someday hand waving. Bonus points if you're actually aware of all or most (or even a lot) of the changes made to the natural enviroment by humankind.
Anybody up to the challenge?
Save the whales, fuck the humans! Complain amd whine about everything, and offer no possible solutions. Then write it all down on a clip-board and post it on your blog so the world knows how much of a weeny you are. Goddamn, at least help some worth-while causes like landmines or starving folks in N. Korea.
/. Slow news day, eh?
If it somehow involves the exchange of energy in the form of electricity, someone just has to post it on
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Of course, if any of you people who use this argument had actually bothered to educate yourself on the topic, you'd know some interesting facts:
Fire-suppression in the nation's forests became entrenched policy and widespread with the rise of the conservation movement in the United States, with the likes of Gifford Pinchot. The idea was that fires destroy the valuable lumber in the forest. Yep, fire-suppression is a policy implemented to protect commercial logging interests.
First loggers suppress the small, brush-clearing fires that don't affect the big trees, then bitch when the fuel builds up to fuel crown fires of Biblical proportions. A lot of environmentalists favor letting the little fires burn. They know that fires aren't supposed to take out large trees. That's logger crap.
Instead of burning, big trees are supposed to fall down and rot. Forest soil is generally not rich soil, and a healthy forest needs the nutrients from rotting trees for the next generation of trees. Logging, even selective logging by the big lumber corporations, pulls out those nutrients.
That's not to say that selective cutting isn't possible in a healthy forest, just not on the scale of the big lumber companies. There's a Native American reservation here in Wisconsin where they practice intelligent selective cuts. They started with 3 billion board feet of lumber in the 19th century, they've produced 9bn board feet over the years, and have 6bn now. That's good stewardship, but production rates that the big lumber companies would scoff at.
To recap: Letting small fires burn also reduces the danger of the catastrophic forest fires, but it's the logging interests suppressing the small fires.
I grew up in Humboldt and Mendocino counties. In a little town called Covelo, and on my grandfather's ranch, 2 miles south of the Humboldt/Mendocino county line. I fully expect to see my post modded down because it is NOT what people want to here. Before you label me a troll, realize this. I have been on slashdot.org for 2 years, and post rather infrequently. This is TRUE and is not trolling.
There are four groups in most of the small towns in that area: the potgrowers, the ranchers, the loggers, and impoverished native americans. The lines between the groups blur, but one thing to keep in mind, is the "full-time" environmental activists up there are often from the pot grower category.
The environmental sentiments of the potgrowers is not leaving nature alone, but leaving their crops alone. There are a some true hearted environmentalists up there, but if you watch you will notice a pattern to them. They will be real active November-February, not hear much from them March-May, and then active June-September. This is because the plant in the spring and harvest in October.
Further the protesters that travel up there do not know their rears from holes in the ground. For example in 1993, approx 25 people traveled up to the Mendocino National Forest to protest logging. They ended up chaining themselves to trees on the Campbell Ranch that were not scheduled to be logged, and rustling and killing 3 calves from the Campbell's herd. Eventually they left the ranch, well, were run off by the sheriff's deputies, and they filed lawsuits for police brutality which were dismissed.
In the Spring of 1990 or 1991, don't remember for sure which one. A PRIVATE airplane went down in a remote canyon in Mendocino county enroute between Eureka, and Lakeport. Its emergency beacon was originally tracked, but shut off approximately 4 hours later. The battery should last for 48-72 hours minimum. I was in the SAR Command post, when the volunteers doing the ground search were driven off by men wielding AK-47's. I was present when an air volunteers plane was shot, and the search eventually called off. I was also present when the coordinator of the search was told in November they got an anonymous tip and the plane found, under a camoflage net near a pot garden. It was not clear if the occupants had died in the crash or from their injuries shortly thereafter.
I know a friend who lost a testicle and part of his hand when he stopped to take a pee next to the roadside and triggered a pipe bomb which was planted to protect a nearby pot garden.
I also saw the same people I knew were growers, marching in protest of logging. Now, many of the loggers have lost their jobs, and moved away.
Probably some do. The nation is full of pre-existing wood-frame houses. I'm sure that some of them live in straw bale, stone, or tamped-earth houses.
Furthermore, tree-sitters are aiming to protect old-growth forest. Y'know, that stuff that won't grow back for another 500-1000 years. Logging has already destroyed all but 1-2% of the nation's old-growth forest. I've been to the last patch of old-growth in Wisconsin. It's less than an acre.
So, why can't the lumber companies do their cutting in secondary-succession forests or the former prairie areas that have become forest, or on their extensive tree farms, and leave old-growth alone? Good forestry practices are not incompatible with environmental goals in the younger forests, but highly destructive in old-growth areas.
I believe that trees are the answer to a lot of questions about our future. These include: How can we advance to a more sustainable economy based on renewable fuels and materials? How can we improve literacy and sanitation in developing countries while reversing deforestation and protecting wildlife at the same time? How can we pull carbon out of the atmosphere and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emissions, carbon dioxide in particular? How can we increase the amount of land that will support a greater diversity of species? How can we help prevent soil erosion and provide clean air and water? How can we make this world more beautiful and green? The answer is, by growing more trees and then using more wood, both as a substitute for non-renewable fossil fuels and materials such as steel, concrete and plastic, and as paper products for printing, packaging and sanitation.
[...]
http://www.greenspirit.com/trees_answer/
there's plenty of other trees to cut down, and frankly I'm glad they're out of the way.
The forest in humbolt county isn't just "a bunch of trees", it's an old-growth redwood forest. Some trees in this forest are thousands of years old. We are trying to protect the last of this ecosystem from destruction.
because while neogotiating might work, sitting in a tree does work, and anyone can do it.
"Teachers leave us kids alone
Was it life imitating art, or art imitating life?
XML causes global warming.
Perhaps. There are the so called "extreme biocentric" guys who really don't like the modern world. But that does not at all characterise tree-sitters.
I spent six months up and down a tree sit in australia. Oh, I also work as a sys admin. We ran wires & wireless stuff all around that forrest. We kept up to date websites. And we locked on when they tried to log a bilby breeding ground.
It's a case of science. It's worth pointing down that over half the people at the blockades where uni trained biologists who felt that since the politicians chose to ignore science, something drastic needs to be done. We where joined by a 80yo+ founding member of the liberal party (the conservative party in government) , a catholic nun. We where supported by the farming community and the members of the federal opposition (and a few from government on the quiet) regularly visited.
And not a hair was hurt on anyones head.
Chose your stereotypes wisely my friend
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Ah... verry rarely does "monkey wrenching" or tree spiking ever occur these days. Most in the green movement see it as taboo.....
In my old treesit days, we used to get fresh faced young punks coming down with grand plans of tank-sugaring and mantraps. Usually within a day of exposure to experienced greenies, they realised that not only was damaging other folks gear morally dodgy, but actually endangered greenies and their cause.
It's possible to stop a forrest logging without damaging a loggers gear. They need that stuff for the more enviro-friendly plantation & selective logging.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Hmm..Crazy thing is , almost all the forrest activist I know are qualified at least to degree levels, and a few PHDs to boot........ Many of the guys in the Renewable energy research center (interestingly enough, researching solar and wind energy) at my uni have to some degree or another been involved..
As for making a difference, It is widely acredited to the forrest blockaders, and the huge public support they got in West Australia that caused the government to announce a massive scaling down of old-growth logging in west australia. I suspect the Californian guys are well aware of the huge number of success stories.
Again... Those stereotypes feel good, but usually there wrong.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Only when you do it while hugging trees. It's part of the costume.
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...