W.O.P.R. will test Obama commitment to science

B.L.M.’S Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) – A bad idea


Our departing president ignored or corrupted scientific evidence when it didn’t fit his political agenda. President elect Obama has promised to pay attention to what scientific research has to say. The B.L.M.’s WOPR will provide an early test of his commitment to science.

The B.L.M. has announced that it will implement the “WOPR” changes in forest management for the B.L.M. lands in Western Oregon. This despite a majority of public comments and an appeal from our Governor Ted Kulongoski opposing implementation of WOPR. The WOPR changes substantially increase logging and off road vehicle use and decrease streamside buffers and areas set aside for old growth and wildlife. They eliminate Adaptive Management Areas, areas committed to local involvement and experiments to develop a better forestry for tomorrow.


The WOPR proposals take us back to an outdated forestry that has left our forests in poor condition. Timber harvest in the narrowed streamside buffers will negatively impact our irrigation and drinking water. Climate change will mean less snow pack and less late season water for farmers and cities alike. The B.L.M. WOPR plan is certain to make conditions worse.

The WOPR REVISIONS IGNORE CLIMATE CHANGE.

Climate change was not considered in developing the WOPR plan.
How these forests are managed affects climate in substantial ways. The WOPR proposals impact a lot of land. They will result in larger CO2 emissions and less carbon sequestration. We can expect increased stream erosion and habitat disturbance. Forests are the lungs of the planet. We must, however, take care of the forests if the forests are to take care of us.

Climate change will increase the pressure on forest habitat. Hundreds of species of animals and plants will be impacted. For many of these, the choice will be to migrate or to die out. These B.L.M. forests are a key part of the migration corridors. It is at least foolish and probably negligent to ignore climate change when managing public forest land.

The WOPR REVISIONS ELIMINATE ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT AREAS.

Adaptive Management Areas (AMA’s) were created for experimentation to develop better forestry management practices. In my home, the Applegate valley of Southwest Oregon, the AMA is a success story. New techniques for thinning to enhance both fire safety and habitat are being tried. Uses are being found for the smaller diameter and non-timber products that the forests can provide. Cutting the big timber is a boom and bust economy. Sustainable forestry should provide a more stable type of employment.
Yes, there is more money in cutting the big trees now, but it makes more sense to manage the forests in a sustainable way.


Creating a sustainable forestry takes time, generations in fact, as trees mature slowly. The effects of our actions are not quickly seen. We have begun the effort to develop a sustainable forestry. This work should continue. Adaptive Management Areas are a good idea. They lead to the improvement of forest management.

WOPR simply drops the AMA’s and dedicates those lands to intensive timber production.


The WOPR REVISIONS TURN BOTANICALLY RICH AND FRAGILE SOILS INTO AN OFF ROAD VEHICLE PLAYGROUND.

The WOPR proposes several new large Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) emphasis areas in “my back yard” (the Siskiyou mountains, B.L.M. Medford, Oregon district) .

The Siskiyou area has outstanding biodiversity, steep hills and granitic soils. These fragile soils erode easily. Four wheelers and dirt bikes make ruts that become erosion channels. We get muddy creeks, plugging salmon habitat. We get invasive species. Expanded OHV use in a place like this is not compatible with other forest values. OHV users should have adequate places to ride, but this is the wrong place to turn into a giant playground off road vehicles.

Conclusion:

The Northwest Forest Plan was created in the 1990’s, after much public input and with much effort to balance competing interests. It has science behind it. President Bush, on his way out of town, is slipping through one more piece of bad science and ecological stupidity to increase the short term timber cut. If President elect Obama is going to honor his pledge to follow the science, these WOPR revisions will not be implemented.
Jonathan Spero

Vote By Mail

5 reasons why all states should adopt Vote-by-mail.

Another election, more stories of long lines and waiting to vote. Problems with voting machines and challenges to voters were perhaps less prevalent, or less critical, than in past years; but the problems, or their potential, remain. Each side had a small army of attorneys watching the many states and counties. There is a better way.
Oregon adopted 100% mail in (or drop off) voting years ago. I fail to Understand why the other states have not followed.

1. Vote by mail allows for more thorough consideration of candidates and issues.

In Oregon, the ballot includes Federal, State, County and City elections as well as tax measures and initiative petitions. While nearly everyone walks into a polling station knowing for whom they plan to vote for President, the same cannot be said for this myriad of more local candidates and issues. The result, especially when there is a line waiting to access the voting station, is hurried and less well thought out votes.

In Oregon, by contrast, we receive a State voters pamphlet (sometimes more of a book than a pamphlet), weeks before the election. This includes statements by all of the candidates, and detailed explanations, with for and against arguments, of the initiatives. When the ballot arrives in the mail, I can sit down with my pamphlet and consider each candidate and each initiative. Often I will mark the choices on which I am clear, and then seek further information on less clear choices. It may take 2 or more days to complete the ballot, but I have considered each candidate and each issue.

2. Vote by mail is less subject to fraud.

Signatures (on the outside of the outer envelope) are checked at the County Office before the ballots are opened. Oregon uses a double envelope system, wherein the voter signs on the outer envelope, which is compared to the signature on your voter registration card at the County Clerk’s office, and an inner envelope; protecting the privacy of the vote from even the poll workers. A few years ago, I signed my name sloppily on the ballot. I was contacted by the County Clerk’s office and asked to come in before my ballot would be opened.

Vote-by-mail leaves a paper trail available for possible vote recounts or other review.

I have heard the argument that by mail voters could be unduly influenced by family members or others. It is good that we ask other people who we respect for opinions on issues about which we are undecided. Should we let only campaign advertisers shape our priorities and opinions?
My family discusses candidates and issues. We may even try to convince each other of the merits of a certain candidate or initiative. This is how it should be. In the end, we each cast an independent, more informed vote, even if we end up voting against each other.

3. Vote by mail is less costly.

It is cheaper to mail out ballots than to operate polling stations. The State saves money. It is cheaper to put a stamp on a ballot envelope than to drive to the polling station. Voters save money and fuel.

4. Vote by mail is more reliable.

Problems caused by uninformed poll workers or by citizens going to the wrong voting place are eliminated. Problems with long lines and with failing voting machines are eliminated. At a polling station, if there is question as to my eligibility, I may not get to vote. At best, I cast a provisional ballot that may or may not be counted.
With vote-by-mail, If I do not receive a ballot in the mail along with everyone else, I can call or go to the County Clerk, get it straightened out, and am able cast my vote.

5. Vote by mail is easier.

I vote when I want to and take as long as I want to, and from the comfort of my living room.


At first, Oregon used Vote-by-mail only for off year and off season votes. The system worked so well that vote by mail was expanded to all elections and polling stations were eliminated. It is a better way to run an election.
All states should consider eliminating polling stations and using vote-by-mail. It works.

-Jonathan Spero November 2008

On Free Trade

What is wrong with protecting ourselves?

A discussion on free trade.

I keep hearing that we must not allow our current fiscal crises to slow the march to globalization. We are warned not to “allow protectionism to rear it’s ugly head”. Maybe I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that the global order is at the heart of many of our worst problems, and that protectionism means protecting our own.

Secure food availability is lost in the free trade world order.

Basic to globalization is that goods should be produced where they can be produced most cheaply or efficiently. So called “more efficient” agriculture is often simply greater access to expensive machinery, irrigation and off-site synthetic inputs. Without these expensive inputs food can still be produced. It is just going to be a little bit slower. The entire agricultural sector of many nations is put at risk because someone somewhere can produce the product more cheaply. Once those inefficient farmers are gone, the people in these many nations become dependent on commodity markets just to eat. In a global trade era, volatility in food markets is another word for hunger.

Rich nations lose with free trade (workers at any rate).

Jobs move away to where labor is cheapest and regulations are most lax. Wages race to the bottom.

Most of our medicines are now made in China. Only a small fraction are inspected. Are we really better off ?

Poor nations fare even worse.

You might think that if rich nations lose, poor nations stand to gain from globalized trade. They can offer themselves for pitiful wages and thereby get a foot on a rung of the economic ladder. The truth is, the residents of poorer nation suffer greater harm than do those of us from more prosperous places.

The poor man’s alternative to a market economy has historically been a subsistence economy. This means people live with what the land and the family or tribe can provide. Care for the young and old is family responsibility; local foods are grown and stored. Subsistence economies have sustained humans and other mammals for millions of years.

Subsistence cultures collapse under pressure from global markets and cheap imports. The market economy becomes the only game in town. You have to have money. Family support systems collapse as the young and healthy must leave to earn that money.

Rural residents left in place could feed themselves and contribute to the food security of their countrymen. Now they are forced to the city slums in search of work. Ancient knowledge is not passed on. The fields go untended. Cultures that have sustained themselves for millennia are lost in a generation. When the money runs out, people go hungry.

The environment loses with free trade.

Goods are produced where pollution of the land, air and water is least restricted. This means goods are made with the least concern for pollution – externalized costs don’t count. Goods are shipped around the world, consuming fuel.

Our food quality is worse under free trade. For the farmer, there is no incentive to produce the “best” quality food when yours is being mixed with everyone else’s, and paid out at the same price.

We hear frequency of recalls of imported foods tested and found not to be safe, yet we inspect only about 1% of food imports.

National Security loses with free trade.

These millions of product shipments to the U.S. are mostly not inspected and not without risk. The sheer volume of containers coming into our ports increases the likelihood that those who wish to cause us harm will slip in weapons or radioactive or bio-toxic substances along with the legitimate trade goods.

There are pesticides used elsewhere, that are banned here because they cause cancer or other harm. We get the pesticides back in our imported food. (There are substances banned in Europe and elsewhere that are allowed here as well. The U.S. Government seems to require overwhelming evidence of toxicity before it will disallow a poison, but that is the subject for another discussion).

Societies relying on free trade in order to eat or for other basic necessities can never be secure in their food supply. Food secure people are less likely to support extremism or attack other countries.

The alternative to global trade is to encourage Local Production wherever possible.

Local Production provides protection from economic downturn and from war or natural disaster. Encouraging local production of basics by all societies makes every nation in the world more stable. Necessary products should be produced in many, not few, places. Self reliance of communities and nations benefits everyone. Each nation should strive to provide necessities for its own people.

Buying locally produced items keeps local people employed, and keeps money circulating within a community or nation. It is good for us. Policy ought to encourage behavior that is beneficial to the group. Individual self interest should align, as much as possible, with community self interest. To place cheaper import products along side American made goods on our store shelves creates perverse incentives. “Buy American”, under free trade rules, is a cruel joke.

Voluntary trade agreements are compatible with local production.

Agreements between willing partners make sense. We cannot make everything, and there is nothing wrong with trading for what we cannot produce. Nations should be free to choose what tariffs or import restrictions they wish to create, and what markets they wish to open up to foreign goods. Trade has its place; but trade has disadvantages that are sometimes hidden. These include job losses, pollution, loss of independence and risk of tainted products. It may also include wars. The rush to unrestricted global access to markets creates more harm than benefit. This is true for most people in this country and likewise for most people around the world.

Yes, I am a protectionist. I want to protect our society, our food, our jobs, our earth. Globalization harms each of these. How is it that so many people have been convinced we cannot stop and should indeed facilitate this expansion of global markets at the expense of our own, and everyone else’s own, security and well being?


- Jonathan Spero