Forest fires and environmentalists

Several years ago when we were in Arizona I asked our guide why dead brush and diseased trees weren't being removed. He told us that environmental regulations prevented that--they don't want to encourage anymore home sprawl into the mountains and canyons. "Sure looks like a fire hazard," I said. "Exactly," he said.

So now California, home of the left wing branch of everything, is burning. It's not the worst we've seen, by any means. Remember the early 90s when the suburbs were burning? I have no idea if California has the same rules, so I googled, and found this item from 2003.

America's national forests have for decades been a battleground between forestry's desire to engage and environmentalism's need to protect. From 1950 to 1990, commercial forestry and timber production won out. In recent times, the environmental movement turned the tables, using litigation and the government's own bureaucratic tendencies to bring forestry to its knees.

Environmentalism's success in taking control of our national forests, though, led to problems. Whereas in 1990, environmental activists sued to protect old growth and stop clear-cutting, by 2000 they were aggressively appealing and litigating forest thinnings and even thwarting attempts to clean up flammable dead, downed timber. The results, predictably, have been growing incidences of unnaturally hot, catastrophic wildfires. From Mercury News

I hope the people of California are better prepared than the people of New Orleans were, because evacuating 250,000 people sounds vaguely familiar. I'm sure they'll [environmentalists] find a way to blame President Bush, because we all know it would have rained if only Al Gore had been elected.

Update: Right on call. Despite all the assistance that the feds are sending (this is between the governor and the president) Barbara Boxer is blaming a lack of National Guardsmen (which isn't true, and I suppose she wants to throw them bodily into the fire to stop it even though she won't let them recruit on campus); and dirty Hairy is blaming global warming, so you see, it is all Bush's fault.

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer complained on Capitol Hill Tuesday that the ability of the state's National Guard to respond to disasters like the fires has been compromised because too much of its equipment and personnel are committed in Iraq.

"As you know, one reason that we have the fires burning in Southern California is global warming. One reason the Colorado Basin is going dry is because of global warming." Reid said it, then denied he said Cal was burning because of global warming. Looks like you needed those foresry companies, Harry.