Wilderness Society’s Aerial Investigation of CO Pine Beetle Kill

[Preliminary note: I took plenty of pictures along the way but am having difficulty uploading them to a site I can point to. When I get that taken care of, this post will include them.]

I attended “In Case You Missed It: America is in the Middle of a Drilling Boom and Energy Prices are Still High”, a talk given by a Wilderness Society economist yesterday in the Alliance Center, next to the Big Tent at the DNC in Denver, CO. I got plenty of good information from the talk, some of which I plan on blogging about in the future. I picked up a number of scientific papers issued by the Society that I will also use and distill in future posts. But this post will be about an opportunity that arose from my attendance at the talk.

Last night, I was approached by Suzanne Jones, Regional Director for the Wilderness Society, about the potential for a flight today over some roadless areas as well as areas that have been affected by the mountain pine beetle. The flight was provided by EcoFlight’s Bruce Gordon.  EcoFlight is a non-profit organization that takes elected officials, media and concerned citizens in the air to get a different vantage point of important environmental issues. Accompanying us were Something The Dog Said, Ian Welsh from firedoglake, and a KGNU cameraman. I’ll see if I can locate his video later.

This flight, and the discussion we had before it, changed my perception of the problem slightly. I, like many in the Western states, have held the view that the extent of the problem is out of control and we must do something about at least some of the dead trees. I still view the problem as out of control. It’s likely more out of control than it probably should be, due to human’s climate forcing. However, I don’t thing we should necessarily do much in terms of dealing with the dead trees now. More on that later.

I’ve covered some of the details on this problem before. I’ve covered some of the reactions that folks have proposed or have begun. A short summary: last year, over 500,000 additional acres of lodgepole pine forest fell to the beetles’ spread, bringing Colorado’s total to over 1.5 million acres of affected forest. Responses have been initiated at the local, state and federal levels. Local efforts have been the first to start, for many reasons. The federal effort is still lagging, mainly due to Republican obstructionism in the Senate as well as subpar maneuvering by Democrats in both houses.

The view from the air is quite different from on the ground. That comes off as an obvious statement, and I even knew it would be so before we took off. Once over the affected regions however, the magnitude of the problem was astonishing. The CSU/Forest Service map of affected areas I’ve pointed to before succinctly presents the problem and most closely resembles what I saw from the air today.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 8/26/08

Hurricane Gustav is located just off the southern coast of Haiti. It’s center is at 18.2N, 72.8W. He has maximum sustained winds of 90mph, making him a strong Category 1 hurricane. A little stronger and Gustav will be classified a Category 2 storm. Landfall will occur very shortly (and may already be occurring) over the southern peninsula of Haiti. Gustav is moving NW @ 10mph and has a minimum pressure of 981mb.

Gustav is forecasted to move back over the Caribbean west of Haiti and assume a more easterly motion within a day. A day and a half from now, Gustav could strengthen to a Category 2 storm as it moves west along Cuba’s southern coast. A slight northerly component of motion could come into play after Gustav moves past half of Cuba. Due to favorable environmental conditions, Gustav could strengthen further to a Category 3 storm, making it the 3rd storm to achieve major hurricane status so far this year.

Most of Haiti is under a hurricane warning. Jamaica has upgraded its watch to a hurricane watch. The southern portion of Cuba is also under a hurricane watch, and its this area that wilL likely feel the worst of Gustav’s winds and receive a lot of rain. Working in its favor is the speed at which Gustav is moving. Rain squalls will not sit for hours or days like they could over Florida with Tropical Storm Fay.

After the next day or so, Gustav is forecasted to stay south of Cuba and might move between it and the Yucutan peninsula and enter the Gulf of Mexico. Thereafter, there is major disagreement by the model solution as to Gustav’s path. Some have him moving more northward and approaching the Florida panhandle. Others keep Gustav moving through the Gulf and approaching Louisiana west of the Mississippi delta. The furthest solution west keeps Gustav out to sea through five days, on a likely path toward Texas somewhere. It should be noted that the location five days from now for this storm are highly error prone. We’ll just have to keep our attention on this potentially dangerous storm.

***

Aside from Gustav, there are three areas of disturbed weather in the Atlantic. One is well northeast of Hispanola and shouldn’t develop into anything significant. The second is northeast of the Leeward Islands and has a 20-50% chance of development in the next day or so. The third is in the region around the Cape Verde Islands and also has a 20-50% chance of development. September is historically an active part of the hurricane season. We are likely to see more storms develop as we head into it.

Random Goodies

Global politics in 30 seconds. (h/t sufimarie)

***

Mark Udall continues to lead corrupt Republican candidate Bob Schaffer.  Schaffer’s campaign manager Dick Wadhams lives in an alternate universe.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 8/25/08

Tropical Storm Fay has weakened to a Tropical Depression and hasn’t moved to the northwest much over the past couple of days. She continues to pull warm, moist Gulf air over the southeast which is generating continual rain bands over Alabama and Georgia.

The focus now shifts to what was Invest-94, now Tropical Depression Seven, which garnered that status at 11A EDT. TD7 has become better organized over the past 24 hours, with the beginnings of outflow evident in satellite imagery and a more balanced look in all quadrants. The more impressive convection is currently constrained to the northern half of the depression.

Model forecasts have TD7 moving northwesterly through the Caribbean, crossing over the southern peninsula of Haiti in 36 hours, then over the eastern coast of Cuba in 48-60 hours. Thereafter, a gradual turn to the WNW could occur, keeping the storm moving along the northern coast of Cuba through the five-day period.

Within the next 12 hours or so, TD7 is expected to gain Tropical Storm strength. The name of the next storm is Gustav.

***

[Update 12:25P MDT]:

Topical Storm Gustav has officially formed in the Atlantic. He has maximum sustained winds of 60mph and is moving NW @ 14mph. Additionally, Gustav is now expected to reach hurricane strength in the next 24 hours. The south and west coasts of Haiti now have a Hurricane Warning issued. The west and north coasts of Haiti have a Hurricane Watch. Landfall over the western portion of Haiti is expected near the middle of the day tomorrow.

***

[Update 7:00P MDT]:

Tropical Storm’s Gustav’s track forecast has been updated. Instead of hugging the northern Cuban coast, Gustav is now officially expected to make landfall on Cuba’s southeastern coast and then move northwest across the island. The exact locations in the fourth and fifth days should not be viewed as absolutely certain, of course. Interestingly, the individual model solutions maintain a bizarre curve away from Cuba in the 2+ day range. And it’s not just one outlier, most of the solutions I’m seeing display this.

***

[Update 10:00P MDT]:

Tropical Storm Gustav’s official track forecast continues to edge to the south, as the individual model runs maintain their prediction of curvature of his future motion.  At this point in time, the official forecast calls for Gustav to still hit the western tip of Haiti’s southern peninsula as a hurricane, then strike the western tip of southern Cuba before reemerging over the Caribbean very shortly after his second landfall.  Overall, this could be good news for U.S. citizens.  The initial forecast had Gustav coming close to Florida’s southern coast, not what residents of that state need after dealing with the ridiculous amounts of rainfall from Tropical Storm Fay.

The hurricane warning remains in effect for Haiti, a hurricane watch is in effect for the northern portion of that country.  A tropical storm watch is now in effect for Jamaica.  As Gustav strengthens, tropical storm force winds will likely be found quite a distance from his center.

If Gustav makes it across Cuba in one piece, it looks right now as though he’ll enter the Gulf of Mexico in about five days’ time.  Anything can happen after that: the entire Gulf coast will have to monitor this storm as it can strike anywhere at any strength.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 8/22/08

Tropical Storm Fay is still very slowly making her way back across Florida.  After reemerging over the Atlantic, steering currents guided her back toward the west over norther Florida.  I’m starting with her vitals:

Location of center is 29.7N, 82.9Wl maximum sustained winds down to 45mph; moving W @ 3mph; minimum pressure of 997mb.

It’s that slow movement that is killing Floridians.  Rains have had the chance to inundate a wide area from Fay’s center.  Places this morning have reported over 30″ of rain since Fay showed up.  Recordings of over 10″ of rain are common.  With the slow movement of the storm, it’s a shame she didn’t move further north before being pushed back to the west.  Georgia and South Carolina are still experiencing exceptional drought conditions.  Any of the rain over Florida would have really helped out other locations in the southeast.

It looks like Fay could reemerge over the Gulf of Mexico again before making yet another landfall over part of the Florida panhandle that juts south a ways.  In fact, some model forecasts are indicating Fay could move back over water after that landfall, only to make yet another landfall near Alabama.  Yet other model solutions indicate Fay could make that last landfall over Louisiana.  Regardless of how many times Fay moves back over water and land, she should continue to slowly decrease in strength through the remainder of her life.  Now, that degradation could plateau for a while, but I don’t see how Fay regains strength unless her track is altered significantly.  At this point, Fay has had an interesting week-plus of life.  The final rainfall totals will be impressive, to be sure.

Inflation Numbers Worsen & McCain Wasn’t Tortured

July’s Producer Price Index, a measure of inflation before it reaches consumers, jumped to the highest level since 1981. The index measured inflation at 9.8% in the last year. Oh, and overpaid economists forecasted it to rise at a much slower pace. They’re certainly earning their money, aren’t they? Meanwhile, the rest of us continue to get screwed while policy makers hold out on acting until the end of Bush’s term, waiting to blame the economic malaise on a Democratic President. I can imagine the amount of screaming we would all hear if double digit inflation came about under President Clinton.

Natural gas prices shot up 8.8%. Which pretty much refutes Republican plans to push down gas prices by opening up more drilling sites. After all, the Roan Plateau was opened to additional gas drills. If prices don’t start going down this month, we’ll know that opening up more drilling areas doesn’t reduce fuel prices, won’t we. If only Democrats in Congress weren’t so afraid of their shadows, the offshore drilling plan Republicans are whining about wouldn’t even be on the table.

***

Heh. Neoconservatives and their allies should be sweating this a little: was John McCain tortured or not? See, John has run many campaigns discussing the events that happened to him after he became a POW. According to definitions set forth by neoconservatives like Dick Cheney, John Yoo, David Addington, George Tenet and others, McCain gave his interrogators intelligence after humane techniques of information gathering were applied to him. No war crime was committed on McCain or the other POWs, according to Boy George’s “administration”. Isn’t that quite the pickle? By the way, McCain approved the use of the same techniques used on him on CIA terror suspects. Nice.

Bob Schaffer’s Insane Economic Policy

Bob Schaffer wants the U.S. economy to implode. That’s the only reasonable lesson that could be drawn from the following: “Schaffer criticized Congress’ decision to bail out Bear Stearns, which once was one of the largest investment banking, securities trading and brokage firms in the world.” He wanted the “free-market” to magically take care of everything. I’d like magical unicorns to spit out hundred dollar bills, but that isn’t going to happen either. The “free-market” allowed Stearns and the other mortgage lenders to purposefully issue loans to people without credit or ability to pay. Now, even folks with better ability to repay their loans are being forced to face foreclosure, at a higher rate than the sub-prime crisis by the way. No, the “free-market” has proven itself quite unable to control itself. Republicans like Bob Schaffer want government to butt out of regulations but then beg for assistance when high-risk plans fail.

Those days should end. If a huge house like Bear Stearns or Fannie Mae can’t keep themselves on the up-and-up, if they package crappy financial packages together in order to squeeze out every possible penny for their shareholders and homeowners are left holding on to worthless property or are foreclosed upon as a result, and if they go crawling to the government for another taxpayer-funded bailout, they should become the property of the people until such time as a private entity wants to pay to run the corporation again. It’s immoral that as citizens, we keep getting stuck with the tab to fix the mistakes of the compulsively greedy.

Had the corporations been left to the whims of those folks, as Bob Schaffer wanted, our economy wouldn’t be looking at minimizing a recession. It would be hurtling face first into a depression. The collapse of American financial institutions like Stearns and others would have caused a domino effect, resulting in an unheard of disaster.

Morsels like this illustrate why Republicans are losing so many races across the country and why that trend will continue through this November.  When presented with a problem their policies have created, what do Republicans do?  They tell everybody their crappy policies are the solutions!  More people are seeing the writing on the wall: real solutions require honest approaches.  Democrats will provide that.  Republicans like Schaffer have proven they won’t.

Atlantic Tropical Weather Update 8/21/08

Tropical Storm Fay continues to wreck havoc across Florida.  She made landfall two days ago on the west coast, then slowly made her way across the state before re-emerging over the Atlantic off Florida’s east coast late last night.  Upwards of 2 feet of rain have fallen in many places with more forecasted to fall before Fay exits the region.  I knew Fay would be a soaker, but I didn’t expect it dump quite this much.  Here are her vitals:

She is located at 29.4N, 81.0W; maximum sustained winds of 60mph; moving WNW @ 2mph; minimum pressure of 993mb.

She isn’t expected to gain hurricane strength before making yet another landfall, which is close to happening right now.  Fay is forecasted to move across northern Florida throughout the next couple of days.  After that, she is likely to move just north of west around Alabama or Mississippi.  As she does so, she should devolve into a Tropical Depression.  The continued threat will be from torrential rains coming from a system that isn’t moving very fast.

***

Separately, the disturbance known as I-94 continues to make its way across the Atlantic.  As I thought, the system has stayed further south than the first model solutions indicated.  It’s located at approximately 12.5N, 48W.  At this point, model forecasts have it taking a similar path that Fay did, potentially passing over Puerto Rico and/or Hispanola in 4-5 days.  According to current solutions, it could do so further north than Fay, moving past the islands’ north shores.  Thereafter, the Bahamas could be in I-94′s way.  Given the lack of precision from model solutions a couple of days ago, the exact motion of the system could vary considerably from these forecasts.  Additionally, the intensity forecasts indicate that I-94 could develop quickly into a hurricane.  Given the warm waters and relatively low shear environment, this intensity forecast could happen, but isn’t very likely either.  I-94 bears watching due to its relative closeness to the land, however.

McCain’s Bad Water Policy, Bob Schaffer’s Oil Problems, Marilyn Musgrave’s Oil Problems

Does John McCain want Arizona and California to have more access to Colorado River water, leaving other western states without?  He’ll have to contend with millions of Colorado voters to get anywhere near such a policy.  My hunch is Coloradans won’t like the idea too much.

***

Bob Schaffer, perpetually trailing Rep. Mark Udall in polling throughout the cycle, continues to desperately search for anything that might decrease Udall’s chances.  The latest charge: Udall wants to increase the gas tax by 50 cents per gallon.  It’s untrue, of course, but when you’re behind, you attack your opponent.

Bob Schaffer had the gall to tell reporters after their 2nd debate that oil corporations have a small margin of profit.  Raise your hand if you think they should get a larger margin becuase Schaffer is arguing that $11.68 billion in just three months is too small.

Mark Udall, in contrast, wants to stop the corporate welfare going to Exxon and others and instead provide money for renewable energy ventures so we can end our dependence on fossil fuels.  Which is only one reason why Udall continues to hold a lead in the Colorado Senate race.

***

Marilyn Musgrave thinks her record and efforts to lower the price of gas for families in Colorado should help get her reelected this year.  That’s a novel approach because since her first election, gas prices have increased from $1.50 per gallon to over $4.00 per gallon this year.  What exactly has she down to lower prices?  Billions of dollars in corporate welfare to oil corporations didn’t work.  Invading and occupying a major oil supplier didn’t work.  Voting against every pro-renewable energy bill and amendment didn’t work.  Enough already, Marilyn.  You haven’t represented your constituents for years.  It’s time for Betsy Markey.

McCain’s Mansions

John McCain’s Mansions.  You think a guy that owns 10 houses and flies around the country on his wife’s personal jet has any idea what folks in the middle and lower classes have to do to make it nowadays?  Neither do I.  The choice this November couldn’t be clearer.