by Alex Gimarc                                Mon., January 28, 2008

Interesting Items 1/28 -

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. Tongass
2. Dust
3. Warming
4. Conoco
5. Franken

1. Tongass. The Bush administration published the latest iteration of their Tongass National Forest Management Plan late last week. In it, the administration designated three million acres of the 17 million acre forest open for logging. The rest have been removed so that cruise ship passengers won’t have to look at the “ugly scars” of clear cut logging in the forest. Indeed, the tourist industry has been a double edged sword up here, bringing in the money while pressuring the locals to shut down industries that rely on extracting and using natural and renewable resources. We may be getting to the point where tourist dollars are too expensive to chase. The Tongass comprises much of the Alaskan southeast, on the western border of British Columbia. Greens, st arting in the Clinton administration, all but destroyed a thriving logging industry over the last 15 years. The new management plan, while not the best solution is a solid step forward. The three million acres open for logging will allow sales of about 267 million board feet of timber to be sold and logged on a rotating basis yearly. The roadless forest opponents are already out complaining about the decision, as 82% of the forest locked up against logging is not a big enough win for them. From my standpoint, this is an acceptable st art, certainly not a finish. ADN, Sat.

2. Dust. Our local McClatchy fishwrapper, the Anchorage Daily News has swung hard left over the course of the last year as they elevated arch-environmentalist Matt Zency, who assisted the Clinton administration, local greens and the courts in destroying access, road construction and the logging industry in the Tongass National Forest as one of their lead editors. We have been treated to an increasing flow of breathless, doomsday front page editorials masquerading as news stories reporting of environmental issues on almost a daily basis. The ADN, formerly a democrat and union mouthpiece, is now all enviro-disaster, all the time. One such story last Monday worried about the excessive dust from the Red Dog Mine near Kivalina in far northwestern Alaska. The mine is owned and operated by a native corporation; is an open pit mine; and is one of the major producers of zinc in the world. The mine is connected to the sea by a 54-mile long haul road constructed by the mining company. When you grind a mountain to dust, you get dust. When you lay crushed rocks down on the tundra as a gravel road, and move the mountain from the mine to the shipping point, you get dust. This dust contains ground up mountains, which usually contain more metals than the resident plant life contains. Imagine the surprise of everyone involved when the feds find increased amounts of metals in the tundra plants adjacent to the haul road. The feds proclaimed the dust as pollution, designating the mine as the worst polluting business in the state, if not the country. Interesting designation, and should it stand, every single dirt road nationwide would be a source of pollution for the surrounding plant life. The writer interviewed all the usual suspects, including local villagers who claim to be worried about the dust. The EPA and the state DEC are now reviewing the results promising to take “appropriate” action. Environmentalists, long in opposition to any hard rock mining in this state, are busily writing their briefs, intending to use the high dust levels as a vehicle to get some black-robed, Clinton appointed, simpering twit sitting on a federal bench to order the mine shut down. I told you all that to tell you this. What is the claimed problem here? Ground up mountains. What else out there grinds up mountains? Glaciers!! And they do it naturally, with the dust going everywhere. Here in Anchorage, we sit some 50 miles or so south of the Matanuska Glacier. The closest town to the glacier and the ice field it flows from is Palmer. Palmer is famous (infamous) for high winds, which blow off the glacier much of the warmer times of the year. And when those winds blow, they pick up lots and lots of dust – ground up mountains – deposited by the glacier at its face. To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever done a study of increased metallic content in local plants, lichens and mosses due to the glacial dust downwind from the Matanuska or any other Alaskan glacier. Once again, context is everything. Rather than being lauded for using the leftover rock from the mining operations to protect the tundra (the gravel road from the Red Dog mine to the Chuchki Sea), the Nana Corporation is being reviled for despoiling the pristine wilderness of lichens, mosses and permafrost. What rot.

3. Warming. Yet another day, yet another out of context scare story from the ADN. This one concerns a draft Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory Report being prepared by the rocket scientists at the state DEC. The headline on this story was: “State plays large role in world's warming. Per Capita: Alaska inventory finds jet flights, energy use to blame.” The front page, above the fold story describes in excruciating detail an inventory being prepared by the state of Alaska Dep artment of Environmental Conservation. The document takes human activity and applies estimates of carbon dioxide, methane and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. In other states, these sorts of estimates have been the precursors to state mandates to tax, cap or otherwise control the emissions. The problem with this inventory is that it neither considers natural greenhouse gas emissions nor puts their estimates into context with everything else that is going on in the natural world on a daily basis. More importantly, the inventory report does not include the effects of water vapor, responsible for upwards of 95% of the entire effect. Natural sources for carbon dioxide, methane and sulfur dioxide up here in Alaska include volcanic eruptions, forest fires – massive forest fires, and the decomposition of natural materials in bogs, muskeg and the tundra. It does not include the contribution of growing plants. In short, it little more than a political document, fatally flawed, and worth little more than the paper it will be printed upon. Finally, despite what the Goreists may claim, there is no scientific connection, causal relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and episodes of global cooling or global warming. We are paying for this sort of junk science with our tax dollars.

4. Conoco. One of the major oil producers on the Alaska North Slope, Conoco Philips, announced an agreement with TransCanada, an agreement to jointly build and operate an oil pipeline that will deliver Canadian crude to refineries in Illinois and Texas. The deal is important, as TransCanada is the company selected by the Palin administration to construct the Alaska natural gas pipeline. TransCanada has no access to Alaskan natural gas needed to fill the pipeline. Conoco Philips has a substantial portfolio of North Slope natural gas. The fact that the two companies are now dealing on an oil pipeline is a very good sign, and may portend a future arrangement on the Alaskan natural gas pipeline. Who knows, this thing may work out after all.

5. Franken. Former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken announced himself as a candidate for the US Senate seat currently held by Norm Coleman (R, MN) earlier this year. Last week, he had his own macaca moment, in which he verbally went after a conservative college student attending one of his campaign events. Franken was boorish, nasty and demeaning, and pursued the verbal assault on the kid long enough for people at the event to get pretty uncomfortable. Unlike former US Senator from Virginia George Allen, Franken does not have the Washington Post to use the event and his actions at it to blast away at him for months before the election. The Washington Post beat up Allen on a daily basis following his macaca moment. The Minneapolis St art Tribune, yet another McClatchy leftist newspaper, brushed it off as nothing at all. Franken is a leftist troll with a nasty streak. The more he gets away with this sort of thing at campaign events, the nastier he will get. Should Minnesota choose to put him in the senate this November, senate democrats will have a bookend set of jerks between him and Jim Webb (D, VA) to entertain us for the next four years.

More later –

           - AG

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.