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The Latest by Tom Turner

Author & Historian

April 1, 2009

On the Right Path to Roadless

By Tom Turner

Two million acres of new wilderness, miles of new scenic rivers, the withdrawal of land in the Wyoming Range and elsewhere, all signed into law by President Obama (it still feels really good to type that) just in time for my birthday. The bill, a so-called omnibus, was a patchwork of nearly 170 separate bills, …

March 25, 2009

Congress Crowns "The King" With Wilderness Status

By Tom Turner

A couple of weeks ago we jumped the gun and announced that Mineral King, a lovely high-elevation valley in the southern Sierra Nevada in California, would be added to the National Wilderness System along with around 170 other areas totalling about two million acres. Last minute parliamentary tricks in the House kept it from happening …

March 17, 2009

Nanuclear of the North

By Tom Turner

Quick—what country exports the most oil into the United States? Saudi Arabia? Venezuela? Iraq? Nope. Canada. And the oil we get from our northern neighbor is about the most ridiculous energy bargain imaginable. Most of the stuff comes from vast deposits of tar sands in Alberta. Eventual emissions of CO2 are three times as much …

March 12, 2009

The King and Egg and I

By Tom Turner

That yellow you see is egg on our face. A few weeks back, the Senate passed a bill providing for a two-million acre expansion of the National Wilderness Preservation System, and we all cheered. It was a umbrella bill that encompassed some 170 smaller bills, many of which had been pending for years. One small …

March 3, 2009

To the Barricades

By Tom Turner

I just received notice that Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, has put a hold on the nominations of John Holdren  to be Science Advisor in the White House and Jane Lubchenko, who is slated to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. According to anonymous sources quoted by the Washington Post, the senator has no objection …

March 3, 2009

ESA Bush Rule Frozen by Obama

By Tom Turner

The Obama administration signalled today that it is rescinding a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that eliminated a requirement that executive agencies (the Forest Service, for example) must consult with scientific experts in the Fish and Wildlife Service or NOAA when a project may affect protected species. When Bush instituted the change last …

February 25, 2009

"Roadless Rules" is Out!

By Tom Turner

Order "Roadless Rules" at www.islandpress.org/roadlessrules. On the checkout page type in RR09 (that’s a zero, not a capital O) for a 25 percent discount. As longtime readers of this screed know all too well, I’ve been obsessed by the Roadless Rule for a long time. The trigger for this was when several states, the timber …

February 12, 2009

U.S. Whaling Commissioner Selling Out to Japan

By Tom Turner

One of my favorite memories is of being in Brighton, England, in June 1985 when the International Whaling Commission, after a struggle that lasted well over a decade, adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling, to last for at least five years. It has lasted for almost 24 years, but now seems in jeopardy of being …

February 7, 2009

A Threat to National Security?

By Tom Turner

I never know whether to dignify irrational wing-nut attacks on environmentalists in general and specific organizations in particular by mentioning them in print, but the latest is so over the top that I can’t resist. Something called the Capital Research Center recently published a screed titled, "EarthJustice [sic] Legal Defense Fund [sic]: How Environmentalism Weakens …

February 3, 2009

"Long Live Mineral King…"

By Tom Turner

After writing a blog item about the storied Mineral King valley, I crafted an essay about it for the High Country News. The news is that it is about to be declared America’s newest wilderness. Here’s how I started the HCN article: "A half-million abandoned mines litter the American West, many dribbling poisons into rivers …