JW, RE: 'Healthy Forests' -

I think the Bush initiative comes out of a shift in thinking among foresters in the US. Time was when they thought that preserving a forest meant just that - preserving trees and preventing all forest fires to the extent possible.

Lately they have changed their minds about forest fires, seeing them as part of a natural process of thinning and regeneration.

The problem is that the interested parties aren't limited to environmentalists and foresters. Joe Public also comes into it, including loggers living in those areas.

They ask a perfectly reasonable question: If natural thinning by fire is a good thing, why can't men thin - and create jobs and useful timber in so doing? This is the thought behind 'Healthy Forests'.

In the political poker game I take your bid of 'evil anti-Gaia Republicans' and raise you one 'evil opressors of the Working Man'!

Joerg,

I think it even works better than government programs - at least some of the time. Partially because the people on the ground are closer to the problem and partially because there is often labor and materials contributed as part of the effort.

An example is Habitat for Humanity and related programs. Some of my relatives organize a yearly 'repair' outing with young volunteers from the church. They raise funds, drive to a poor town somewhere, and do repairs on poor people's houses. Usually houses of poor single mothers or old people. There is quite a bit of this kind of thing and I think it works better than having the government put it out for bid and pay private contractors do it. Cheaper and often better work, plus the kids get experience in the building trades.

I found a [url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/the_real_inconvenient_truth.html/]interesting op-ed[/url] on what the real problem is with global warming. It's economic and social. The answer is real engineering, not social 'engineering' and national quotas for carbon emissions a la Kyoto.

I suspect that the carbon-emission problem will be solved a little at a time rather than in big chunks.

The ideal solutions to seek are what I would call 'market-clearing' solutions - things which are superior in most or all respects to what they replace. A perfect example is energy-saver light bulb. I'm using one to write by. It gives me a rating of 60 watts for a power draw of 11 watts, lasts several times as long as an ordinary bulb, and costs only a little more than a pair of the oldstyle incandescent bulbs. What's not to like? Market-clearing.

The impetus behind a lot of this green thinking are high oil prices. Companies make much of their 'green thinking' for PR purposes but what really drives their logic is a combination of ROI and good public relations. The oil price spike has lasted long enough to be incorperated into capital spending plans.

One might think that this impetus will disappear when oil prices fall again but that is not strictly true. The investments will have been made by then and will continue to be used, and some things (such as the energy-saving light bulbs) make almost as much sense with oil at $10 a barrel as at $70. The bulbs generate less heat - a boon during the summer.

Replacing lightbulbs is an inconvenience and/or a labor cost. Better to do it less often than more - particularly with the !"£$£%^&* bayonet-style UK light bulbs! Much chintzier and apt to break than US-style screw-in bulbs!