[azbackpackr]

I live in Eagar. I even know how to SPELL Eagar. I even know a lot of people whose last name is Eagar. I know the people there, and I know what they are like. I poke fun at them, for sure. But, on the other hand, they are mostly decent folks.

However, they are mostly very uneducated, and they use "environmentalist" as a scapegoat name for virtually everything that happens around there. Most of them don't even really know what an environmentalist is. They name-call shamelessly and constantly. I hear it every time I go to the grocery store, every time I go to the drugstore, at work, at the gas station, etc. They blame environmentalists for everything, point fingers, call names and are super judgmental, and yet they probably don't even KNOW any environmentalists. It just gets so tiresome after awhile.

I once took a biology class there in Eagar, at the local community college. At the beginning of the semester, my classmates all hated "environmentalists." The instructor, a very intelligent and patient woman, told them they probably meant "environmental extremists." By the end of the semester, every one of those people understood what she meant, understood the difference between extremists and people who are interested in scientific land and wildlife management, etc. By the end of the semester the students also understood evolution, amazingly enough. She was a very good teacher.

Education is very powerful.

[Trishness]

PLEASE PEOPLE.........let's stop sniping, pointing fingers and name calling (although this is your first amendment right)

#1 Is this wild fire a tragedy? YES..we all agree on that

#2 Is there something we can do in the future to prevent this? YES...we all agree on that too


Whether you are a "bunny hugger", "tree hugger", "extreme environmentalist", Democrat , Republican....WHATEVER.... let's concentrate on the situation at hand. 10,000 people displaced and not knowing what they are going back to...if their homes or ranches are destroyed. All those animals displaced as well......people's livelihoods disrupted. How would you deal with this situation? It doesn't matter what was done 100 years ago, 50 years ago.....hell....even 25 years ago.

It's SO easy to point a finger and blame this group or that group, the government, the NFS.......We need to be cohesive to get a positive result. So let's pull together to get Eastern Arizona communities out of the fire and into the light.

These are all the words I want to say

Trish

[te-wa]

i wanna play along too!

they are mostly very uneducated...They blame environmentalists for everything, point fingers, call names and are super judgmental, and yet they probably don't even KNOW any environmentalists.

so, are you saying they are fair and intellectually honest when it comes to other topics, like blaming our current president for the budget crisis? even tho they likley voted for the guy who put us in this mess, twice? hehe. ah, good times, Liz, good times.

[azbackpackr]

i wanna play along too!

they are mostly very uneducated...They blame environmentalists for everything, point fingers, call names and are super judgmental, and yet they probably don't even KNOW any environmentalists.

so, are you saying they are fair and intellectually honest when it comes to other topics, like blaming our current president for the budget crisis? even tho they likley voted for the guy who put us in this mess, twice? hehe. ah, good times, Liz, good times.

Mike you know how I like to start fights, and then bow out...

[chumley]

Interesting (and very long) article in the Arizona Republic today on forest management and the Wallow Fire. This thread is not the only one that has raised the "how did this happen?" side of the story.

I recommend reading the entire thing: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... anger.html

Here's a excerpt:

But what feeds the monster fires are the trees themselves. There are simply too many crowded too close together, a situation that scientists say was created in large part by a series of land-management decisions dating to the 1880s.

Livestock grazing stripped the forest floors of native grasses that helped maintain natural fire and slowed the proliferation of too many young trees. Loggers removed older trees critical for forest health, and scientists say the holes filled in too fast with young trees when lawsuits shut down the timber industry. Fire-suppression policies allowed the forests to grow even denser.

[Jim_H]

No news there, unless you only think about this when a "catastrophe" occurs. The typical response to when is what is needed. No amount of or or will help, it's just for me.

[chumley]

Jim I agree with you, but there are a lot of people who don't have the understanding of forest health that you do. As Elizabeth mentioned earlier in the thread, a little education can go a long way.

[azbackpackr]

Maybe beating a dead horse for you, Jim, since you have a degree in forestry. But there are a LOT of people in this state, including those who inhabit Eagar and other White Mtn. towns who could stand to study that article carefully. It does point the finger at lawsuits against the timber industry, which the right-wingers will jump on like flies on honey, but it starts out by also pointing the finger at cattle grazing and the logging of large old-growth trees. PLUS, the obvious, too much fire suppression.

I could add, allowing millionaires to build log mansions in Greer should never have happened. They should have put zoning in place to prevent it. They are ugly, a blight on the landscape, and use far too many resources (water, electricity, etc.) I have NO sympathy for people who lost million dollar "cabins" in Greer. I DO have sympathy for someone who lost an un-ostentacious, unpretentious small cabin they actually LIVED in, though. There are people like that in those hills, especially around Alpine. There are even a few folks like that in Greer.

[Jim_H]

I highly doubt that people who are truly ignorant will study such an article. But that isn't the problem. We react, that's the problem. How much will the Wallow cost? How much could that money have done to thin and burn? Even if it was just hand crews cutting, piling and burning, that could have been a lot of land. Various parties blame each other, but we are to blame. We should stand in the mirror and scream and yell at ourselves.

[azbackpackr]

Ok. Here goes...

[sidhayes]

I understand now; the rich are piggy, maybe evil, while the "poor" are rightous, caring, intelligent.

[Jim_H]

Ah, the internet....

[Moovyoaz]

I understand now; the rich are piggy, maybe evil, while the "poor" are rightous, caring, intelligent.

That point of view usually depends on whether you're "rich" or "poor"; did you look in the mirror?

It's hard to be open minded about what you think you know is true; sometimes it's not.
Then again, being too open minded sometimes means you're either confused, don't know or don't care.
Personally I thought I was confused...but now I'm not sure!

[Al_HikesAZ]

Taking Te-Wa's advise on this one. (sort of)

Te-Wa is a very wise man - most of the time. What was his advice on this one? I missed it. I follow all of his advice on beer.

[te-wa]

hehe, Al. that was a note to myself.
"if te-wa doesnt like what te-wa sees, te-wa can click the 'back button'"
yep. thats all. nothing to see here..

beer advice: Old monkey shine by nimbus goes great with smoked salmon and oily pasta. yes!

[Al_HikesAZ]

Personally I thought I was confused...but now I'm not sure!

I hear you. I think When I'm rich & famous, I hope I'm not mean and nasty to the little folks. Like I am now. (paraphrasing Jack Handey)

[jeffmacewen]

I dedicate this fire to the bunnyhuggers and anti-logging lobbies that have pressured politicians into allowing the national forests to fuel up with overgrowth over the last 20 to 30 years. How do you think those burrowing owls and other critters you thought you were protecting are doing in their new crispy habitat?

Wow! What an incredibly misguided diatribe. Thank you, sincerely, for the honest laugh!!

[Rob del Desierto]

We can go down the chain of causality forever. It is like NGS. A lot of people from out of town (and in town) hate it. It is big, ugly, and spews nasty stuff into the air. You can trace the origin of the NGS directly to the Sierra Club's actions at Echo Park stopping the BOR in the 1950's. Many "environmentalists" don't like to hear that their sucessful campaigns to stop dams forced the creation of a coal fired plant instead...

ETA: I guess my point is that you can draw whatever conclusions you want to support if you go back far enough on anything and want to point a finger.

[jeffmacewen]

ETA: I guess my point is that you can draw whatever conclusions you want to support if you go back far enough on anything and want to point a finger.

Absolutely!

[chumley]

While it is useful to study history so as not to repeat past mistakes, I'd be more interested in what the solution is for protecting the remaining forests from catastrophic fire given the current state that they are in. I just don't think that we (collective "we" includes citizens, government, special interests) are going to agree on a solution, nevermind finding the resources necessary to implement any solution.

So, in the next 20 years, I'd expect the remainder of Arizona's ponderosa forests to burn. The swath from Flagstaff to Heber is next.