The sheer affrontery! while the rest of Cascadia was digging the soil, planting gardens, cleaning up beach, pulling up invasive species, the Oregon Department of Forestry was quietly giving away the last trees - Your trees: Public Land y'know - on Earth Day. Apparently the only thing 'Green' about it is the money changing hands. Six hundred thousand acres have been cleared for clear-cut. All in the name of "jobs and economic returns". In terms of natural capital, we the people of Cascadia have been robbed, cheated and lied to. What happened yesterday is Salem is a disgrace. The board has now revised its revised forest management plan leaving very little forest to stand and develop into older growth.
But 'Nature Always Bats Last': Global climate destabilization has another slap in the face wake-up call for us: the fungus cryptosporidium gattii is burning through Oregon killing a few of us on its way to California. It’s a ruthless bug because, atypically, it’s a threat to otherwise healthy people. Climate change has got lots more whaere this came from...
Meanwhile, this week the eyes of the world are on Cochabamba, Bolivia, site of the first World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth. Conceived by Bolivian President, Evo Morales following the unsatisfying results of the COP15 conference in Copenhagen, the meeting will bring together representatives from non-government organizations, environmental groups and public citizens to develop new ideas for resolving the global climate crisis.
- KBOO