Category: RT Newswire

Published on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 by The Chicago Tribune
US Using Food Crisis To Boost Bio-Engineered Crops
by Stephen J. Hedges

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.0514 03 1

The value of genetically modified, or bio-engineered, food is an intensely disputed issue in the U.S. and in Europe, where many countries have banned foods made from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Proponents say that GMO crops can result in higher yields from plants that are hardier in harsh climates, like those found in hungry African nations.

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“Mekong forests are also home to a range of endangered animals,
including the clouded leopard, tiger, and Malayan sun bear.”
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NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/NEWS

U.S. Major Importer of Illegal Asian Timber, Study Says
Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
May 13, 2008

Vietnam has become a hub for processing Asia’s
illegally logged timber, much of which is sold in
the United States as outdoor furniture,
conservationists say.

In a report released in March, the U.K.-based
nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA) and its Indonesian partner Telapak warned
that the illegal timber trade is threatening some
of the last intact forests in Southeast Asia,
especially in Laos.

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As the climate warms, there will be more, larger, hotter forest fires…&
they won’t distinguish between public & private lands…

ASW

—————————- Original Message —————————-
Subject: Cost of building homes in harm’s way
From: “Lance Olsen” <lance@wildrockies.org>
Date: Wed, May 14, 2008 10:26 am
To: “cmcr-outreach” <cmcr-outreach@vortex.wildrockies.org>
————————————————————————–

————————-
“Big price to protect homes

“Suppressing wildfires in the wilderness-urban
interface accounts for 85 percent of firefighting
costs in the United States, according to the
report.”
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The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 05/14/2008 12:16:43 AM MDT

Growing focus on fires leaves other
Forest Service programs withering
By Steve Lipsher

The U.S. Forest Service plans to spend $1.9
billion – nearly half of its annual budget – to
prevent and fight wildfires this summer.

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Note the US Forest Service official’s quote at the end: smells like something’s afoot…

ASW

———————————————
“The findings run contrary to expectation. It was
thought that more trees meant more carbon being
drawn from the atmosphere. ‘If you suppress fires
and lots of little trees show up, then you ought
to store more carbon,’ says ecologist Richard
Houghton of the Woods Hole Research Center in
Falmouth, Massachusetts.”
—————————————————————

Nature
14 May 2008   doi:10.1038/news.2008.818

News

Forest-fire management ‘raises carbon emissions’

California study suggests fire-free forests store less carbon.

Quenching forest fires leads to more carbon in
the air, says new research carried out in
Californian forests. The discovery suggests that
forests spared from fire may release more of the
greenhouse gas into the air than they absorb.

Decades of suppressing natural fires has
increased the number of surviving trees in
California’s forests. But this growth has been at
the expense of larger trees, which are less
resilient to drought and other stresses than
smaller, younger trees, resulting in a decline in
the total amount of carbon stored in these
forests.

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