Media Resources: In The News

Molloy suspends oil and gas leases, cites lack of climate-change analysis

March 19, 2010 - Excerpts:   A federal judge in Missoula has approved a first-of-its-kind settlement requiring the government to suspend 38,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Montana so it can gauge how oilfield activities contribute to climate change. more

Alaskans Fear for Their Way of Life

March 17, 2010 - Excerpts: Like a lot of people in Alaska, Don Hernandez has always fed his family with deer he shoots and fish he catches in the Tongass National Forest. He says his way of life is threatened by a plan to give the American Indian-owned Sealaska title to 85,000 acres of National Forest land. Sealaska wants to log 75,000 acres, including areas of large-tree old-growth forest surrounding Hernandez's hometown of Point Baker. more

A Great State of Carbon Caches

March 16, 2010 - Excerpts: So the Wilderness Society report is no big surprise to Mark Harmon, an Oregon State University professor of forest ecology, who has been studying carbon storage in forests for decades. If anything, the results might underestimate the amount of carbon stored because the current science is better at estimating what’s held in live trees, than what’s in a forest’s soils and dead wood, which also store carbon, he said. more

New oil shale rules: Fair to industry or fuel for another speculative boom?

March 13, 2010 - Excerpts: The change received widespread industry support. But it is raising concerns that it could create an unwarranted incentive for producing an unproven fuel and contribute to the kind of speculative behavior that led to the last oil shale boom and bust in western Colorado in the 1980s. “There is a potential of cooking of books for a fuel that already has a pretty checkered past,” said Chase Huntley, energy policy adviser for the Wilderness Society. more

Coal power or brain power? It's time to get smart about our energy future

March 4, 2010 - Excerpt: "This mining technique literally clear cuts the range, blows off the tops of mountains with massive ammonium nitrate and fuel-oil blasts, and topples the rocks and waste into valleys and streams. In the past three decades, an estimated 500 mountains have been destroyed by this mining technique; more than 1,200 miles of streams have been jammed with mining waste and fill, and scores of historic communities have been depopulated, left in ruin and saddled with unsparing poverty. Relying on heavy machinery and explosives, mountaintop removal operations have also stripped the region of needed jobs and any possibility of a diversified economy." more

A Green Economy: How the Environment and Economy Go Hand-in-Hand

March 3, 2010 - Excerpt: The world today faces two main problems: the economy and the environment. Some would suggest these 2 issues go hand-in-hand. Many have different ideas on how to deal with them. However, very few can agree on what should be done about them. Recently, I was sent a rather interesting video that gives some interesting ideas on how to deal with these very problems. more

Meetings announced for proposed Alaska refuge road

March 2, 2010 - Excerpts: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans "scoping" meetings in Alaska and Washington, D.C., this month to collect testimony on issues to consider related to a land exchange and possible road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. more

Northern Region's top forester discusses challenges agency faces

March 1, 2010 - Excerpts: "If you look back at the founding principles of having a system of public lands, a lot of it had to do with securing supplies of water," Weldon said. "That's an underlying service the national forests can play, and we're putting more emphasis on it. It's a transition in our culture we've been in for two, almost three decades." more

President Reagan's model on addressing climate change

February 26, 2010 - Excerpts: In the 1980s, scientists were sounding the alarm about ozone depletion. Just as today, there were skeptics claiming that the problem was not real. Thankfully, President Ronald Reagan ignored those skeptics -- some of whom were in his own administration. He acted on the science, which was far less solid than current knowledge about climate change, and pushed through the Montreal Protocol treaty, which began to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. more

Blog sends green message to U. of Georgia

February 24, 2010 - Excerpts: Seven UGA students are attempting to influence their fellow students' environmental concerns, teaming with The Wilderness Society to develop a blog that will help spread the organization's conservationist message. The site - "Wilderness U - Georgia," at wildernessugeorgia.wordpress.com - launched Tuesday and will attempt to engage students from UGA and other college campuses in the state on a variety of green issues. more