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Henry’s Farm, a local organic farm that brings a wide range of produce every week to my local farmer’s market, stirred the pot a bit lately when they asked shoppers to byob, or pay $0.25 for a biodegradable bag to tote their produce home.  BYOB?  It stands for Bring Your Own Bag.

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It’s hard to watch television or browse the internet these days without hearing regular stories about how celebrities are “going green.” In the past week alone, I have read or skimmed through stories about how musician Sheryl Crow is launching an Eco Fashion Line, actress Pamela Anderson is building a green hotel, and comedian and actor Will Ferrell will be the first celebrity to drive BMW’s new hydrogen car. According to the story, Will Ferrell has also built a solar-powered environmentally friendly home. Should we care? Read the rest of this entry »

One of the biggest crises facing the human population is not a complete shocker. It affects countless nations across our planet, and is continually getting worse and worse. There are things that we can do, but so many of us fail to do anything. Governments are worse, prolonging worsening conditions and human lives in the process.

And no, it’s not global warming. It’s the myriad humanitarian crises that plague the third world.

That I am writing about it here though, obviously speaks to a link to one of PlanetSave’s main topics; climate science.

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Now that the June 20, 2008 California lightning fires are nearly contained, talk has turned to salvage logging the burned areas.  Two years ago, an Oregon State University study has called into question the practice of salvage logging after a fire as a means of promoting forest rehabilitation and future fire safety, as well as the US government loses money on these salvage sales.  With Representative Wally Herger already calling for expedited NEPA procedures to allow unrestricted salvage logging in burn areas, we need to take a hard look at this practice.

Four years ago, a devastating fire spread across my property.  We were told by locals, foresters, loggers, and USDA conservationists that we needed to log the burned land.  We were told that the bugs would come and ruin the timber anyways and then kill the trees that had survived.  We were told that our property would be in greater fire risk danger if we did not remove dead timber, and we were encouraged to take out living trees that were predicted not to survive.  The loggers told us we would make about $60,000 logging 80 acres, but they didn’t tell us that sawmills automatically lower prices when a fire occurs and it would cost $40,000 to replant this same land.  We proceeded with the expedited timber harvest plan, only to pull the plug on the salvage operation after 12 acres.

Our property is now the perfect case study of what happens when a burned area is left alone or salvage logged. In the areas that were logged, invasive species of brush have grown enthusiastically, and we had to replant with nursery stock.  Natural regeneration was wiped out by the heavy logging equipment, and this part of our land is a mess.  In the areas that were left alone after the fire, the rate of natural regeneration of mixed conifer species was incredible and required no replanting and little removal of invasive weed species.  The living trees in the burn that were predicted to die by the foresters are still living today, and the bugs came and went.  Read the rest of this entry »

Yucca Mountain, “Yes”; transport waste through my state?, “No”; what Grand Canyon?

It’s hard to tell if Senator McCain’s age is catching up with his memory, or if he’s just trying to ride a lot of fences when it comes to nuclear power.

The Sierra Club sent out a release today, pointing out the Senator’s love affair with nuclear power, revealed a YouTube clip of McCain saying he would not approve of shipping 77,000 tons of dangerous nuclear waste through his home state of Arizona, but felt it would be ok to move it through 44 other states.

With this in mind, let’s examine his stand on drilling for uranium in the national parks surrounding the Grand Canyon. Read the rest of this entry »