Meadows and ponds abound in a roadless area in Wyoming’s Beartooth Plateau. (© Nelson Guda, 2009 / nelsonguda.com)

<In a major victory for Earthjustice and its supporters, today the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated The Roadless Rule, which protects nearly 50 million acres of National Forest lands against exploitation. Tom Turner, who literally wrote the book ("Roadless Rules") on the case, provides some background here.>

Toward the end of the Clinton administration, the Forest Service declared that most logging and road building no longer would be permitted on nearly 60 million acres of wild, unprotected national forest lands.

The so-called Roadless Area Conservation Rule was immediately challenged in nine separate lawsuits filed by states (Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, North Dakota), a few counties, and several timber industry interests.

Earthjustice immediately moved to defend the rule in all those cases, eventually devoting thousands of hours by many attorneys to the effort. Many major national groups became involved, along with statewide groups. The Natural Resources Defense Council was a key ally in Alaska.

Maureen Mitra

There’s an interesting piece in the latest Earth Island Journal titled “Ready or Not: Climate Change is Coming; Time to Adapt.” The author, Maureen Nandini Mitra, argues that, whether we like or not, the climate is already on the way to significant changes and we have no choice but to figure out how to adapt—as we continue to fight to reverse the trend.

She writes that there is some resistance to this notion from people who argue that acknowledging the need for adaptation is giving up on the primary fight.

Loggerhead sea turtle escaping net. Photo courtesy of NOAA

Loggerhead turtles are beset by a bewildering and deadly series of challenges, much as the other species of sea turtles are. People raid their nests and steal eggs. Hundreds used to die in shrimpers' nets until the advent of turtle excluder devices. Miles of their nesting beaches have been "armored," that is, lined with boulders to defeat natural erosion. Hundreds used to die feeding on baited hooks aimed at catching swordfish and tuna.

Earthjustice and its allies have made significant progress in bringing these threats under control, but sea turtle numbers have continued to decline nonetheless.

So it came as welcome news early this month when a federal judge in Florida ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to take another look at rules that govern the Gulf of Mexico fishery in loggerheads' favored habitat.

There is a curious technique employed by some companies involved in the resource-extraction game: When you have a controversial activity underway that is getting increasing—and unwelcome—scrutiny from the government and the public, take your case to the under-10 set.

Exhibit A today is a coloring book touting the wonderfulness and cleanliness of natural gas. It is put out by Talisman Energy, a Canada-based exploration company looking for gas deposits in Pennsylvania and environs. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  has a considerable piece on this big news.

The narrator and lead actor in the book is Talisman Terry, a Fracosaurus. This is a bit curious, because it is “fracking” that’s been getting bad press lately. Terry doesn’t say anything about his species, or genus, or whatever he is, or about fracking itself, maybe because fracking involves injecting high-pressure liquids into coal seams to release pockets of natural gas. There are side effects (aren’t there always?)

Tongass National Forest

The long and winding saga of the Roadless Rule, adopted in the Clinton administration after an exhaustive public process, just took a new turn, though it smacks of desperation.

To recap, the Roadless Rule was put in place to protect 58.5 million acres of undeveloped and otherwise unprotected land on the national forests. The rule has been subject of nine lawsuits. An appeals court in Denver has yet to rule on a lawsuit out of Wyoming; the others have concluded with the Roadless Rule still standing.

We said nine suits had been filed to challenge the rule. Make that 10. On Friday, June 17, the state of Alaska filed a new suit seeking to overturn the rule in its entirety.

The Fresno, California, Board of Supervisors has decided not to endorse a proposal by the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group to build a “Clean Energy Park,” outside town. The park would boast two big, 1,600-megawatt, French-made reactors, a solar-thermal plant, and a water desalination facility.

The account in the Fresno Business Journal doesn’t mention Japan or Fukushima explicitly, but the shadow in the background is unmistakable. And it must send shivers down the backs of people promoting a nuclear renaissance as the cure for global warming—especially as Germany has recently decided to stop building new reactors and to retire existing plants as replacement power comes on-line. Japan is clearly rethinking its commitment to nuclear power as well.

Friends of the Earth New Zealand has just published a short, dense booklet that no one will want to read but that everyone should.

"Cars at the End of an Era--Transport Issues in the New Zealand Greenhouse" by Dr. John Robinson makes a very convincing case that the days of both the private automobile and the era of travel by aircraft will one day come to an end--or at least be severely curtailed--probably sooner than later. This is for fairly obvious reasons.

Both depend heavily on fossil fuels, which are running out and which are primary drivers of global climate disruption. And, Dr. Robinson argues, substitutes simply won't work at the scale necessary. Electric cars would almost certainly need fossil-fueled electricity, they rely on heavy batteries loaded with toxic materials, and they are practical mainly for short-haul inner-city trips, where public transit is at its most efficient.

Overpopulation photo courtesy The Green Market

I met Bob Engelman a few years back when we were both working on book manuscripts at the Mesa Refuge near Point Reyes in Northern California. Mine was Roadless Rules. His became More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want. Well, who should turn up in my mailbox this morning but the selfsame Mr. Engelman, now writing for The Solutions Journal. He's out with a new piece, which argues that 40 percent of worldwide pregnancies are unplanned and that we could slow and eventually reverse population growth by providing family planning and contraception services to everyone, avoiding the spectre of forced sterilizations and other intrusive government programs.

And the time for this is certainly upon us--and has been for a long while. The redoubtable Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute has a cover story in Foreigh Policy that reports that worldwide food prices are at their highest point in history and that surpluses and idle land that have provided cushions against shortfalls and weather problems are gone.

Representative Kevin McCarthy (CA-22).

Last week we wrote about an effort by three Republican members of the House of Representatives to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protects nearly 60 million acres of unspoiled lands on the national forests and to deny the Bureau of Land Management's authority to declare its unspoiled areas "wilderness study areas" and protect them until Congress can decide whether to give them permanent protection.

Now the hometown paper of one of the congressmen—Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, CA—has lit into him, invoking the memory of that great Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, who would certainly deplore this foolish, not to say wicked, ploy. We thank and congratulate the editors of the Bakersfield Californian for their graceful and powerful editorial. We hope Mr. McCarthy will pay attention. Fat chance.

Proposed roadless area in Virginia

Forgive me if you already know all about these two sites, but for anyone who doesn't I thought I'd take a minute to recommend both, without reservation.

The first, and I daresay lesser-known, is Wildlands CPR. I came upon this fine institution when I was writing Roadless Rules about roadless areas in the national forests. Wildlands CPR is occupied primarily with roads, the removal of unwanted, unneeded and damaging roads on national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands and elsewhere for the benefit of people and wildlife alike. They also keep tabs on off-road vehicle regulations and debates. It's quite a narrow focus, and quite a worthy program.