Thunderbear 297

Well friends, you will recall that Edward Abbey was famously critical of the Western public lands cattle industry.

In a plucky speech to the cowboys and cowgirls of the University of Montana in 1985, Abbey said, "...Western cattlemen are nothing more than welfare parasites. They've been getting a free ride on the public lands for over a century, and I think its time we phased it out. First of all, we don't need the public lands beef industry. Even beef lovers don't need it. According to most government reports (Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service) only about 2 percent of our beef, our red meat comes from the public lands of the eleven Western states... Moreover, the cattle have done, and are doing, intolerable damage to our public lands -- our national forests, state lands, BLM administered lands, wildlife preserves, even some of our national parks and monuments. In Utah's Capitol Reef National Park, for example, grazing is still allowed. In fact, its even been extended for another ten years and Utah politicians are trying to make the arrangement permanent. They probably won't get away with it. But there we have at least one case where cattle are still tramping about in a National Park, transforming soil and grass into dust and weeds.

Overgrazing is much too weak a term. Most of the public lands of the West, and especially, the Southwest, are what you might call "cow burnt". Almost anywhere and everywhere you go in the American West, you find hordes of these ugly, clumsy, bawling, stinking, fly-covered, shit smeared, disease spreading brutes. They are a pest and a plague. They pollute our springs, and streams and rivers. They infest our canyons, valleys, meadows, and forests. They graze off the native bluestem and grama and bunch grasses, leaving behind jungles of prickly pear. They trample down the native forbs, shrubs and cacti. They spread the exotic cheat grass, the Russian thistle and the crested wheatgrass. WEEDS!"

And so on and so forth. It can be safely said that Abbey did not like cattle, cattlemen or cowboys.

Abbey's talk was given in 1985. What is the current situation at Capitol Reef National Park, grazing wise?

Well, neighbors, we begin to see the flickering candlelight at the end of the tunnel. There are only 2 permitees left in Capitol Reef. That would be approximately 163 cows on the 85,000-acre Hartnet Permit and 85 cows on the 15,000-acre Sandy 3 Permit. These permits will terminate forever when their owners do. When will that be? Well, friends, that sort of depends on the Lord. As Mormons don't drink or smoke, and as God likes Mormons better than he likes you, each permitee will live to be 102 years old. This means that grazing will be permitted for between 41 and 46 more years in Capitol Reef National Park.

Edward Abbey would probably say "Better late than never" and he would be right. It should be remembered that ranching was present before the park was established, and from a public relations standpoint, it is probably best that grazing be cordially phased out through attrition rather than angry confrontation, giving both sides time to prepare for a bovine free future.

You see, there is one public lands rancher that is not even a welfare rancher; that would be the bandit rancher, Cliven Bundy.

Mister Bundy has rather famously refused to pay even nominal grazing fees for his cattle now grazing illegally on Lake Mead National Recreation Area and has harbored a "militia" of heavily armed thugs to enforce his writ. He is now grandly talking about his 400,000 acre "property."

This is the biggest armed rebellion against the authority of the US government since those misguided boys down in Charleston fired at that federal fort. It empowers and encourages every fascist nutcase in the U.S, of which there are many.

Would it be nice if the Department of Justice did something; like arrest someone?

However, given the DOJ's track record so far, it seems that they may have to be embarrassed into taking action.

The Edward Abbey Memorial Rodeo would be a genial, good-natured form of "Monkey Wrenching". No one's property would be damaged and no one should get hurt.

There would be only one event in the Abbey Rodeo: no bull riding, calf roping, or steer wrestling stuff that upsets the Humane Society.

That one event would be "Cow placarding". The contestants would ride up to Mr. Bundy's illegal cattle in Lake Mead NRA and slap a cardboard placard on a cow. (A placard might read MY OWNER IS A DEADBEAT RACIST! In letters large enough to show up on television. The cows would not be harmed (The placards would be secured to the cow with gaffer's tape, a harmless adhesive).

Contestants would be graded on how many cows they placard in a given amount of time, say an hour.

Cow placarding is not as easy as it sounds. Bundy's cattle have not been "worked" in some time, meaning that they are semi-feral. It will take a skilled horseperson to placard a Bundy cow.

Our first thought would be volunteers from the affected Department and agencies: Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior, Jon Jarvis, head of the NPS and Neil Kornze, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, plus their deputies; a total of around 53 stalwarts to ride for the DOI and environmental justice.

Our second thought is that it would be much too dangerous; that Bundy's gang of thugs had expressed strong interest in killing federal officials, and concentrating these officials might prove too tempting a target.

So, it might be necessary to call out the Hollywood Militia to counter Bundy's Militia.

Yup! That's a group of Hollywood film stars that are active in environmental causes. Among others, there is Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and husband Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo De Caprio, Harrison Ford, Robert Redford, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and others

Robert Redford had sufficient environmental creds that he was quietly approached during the Clinton administration about the job of Director of the NPS. He just as quietly turned it down.

Harrison Ford apparently does not mind crossing swords with Senator Diane Feinstein, as he is spokesperson for RESTORE HETCH HETCHY. He is also vice chair of Conservation International.

Pitt and Jolie are in the enviable financial position of being able to purchase and finance national parks for third world countries; something that you and I have not got around to doing.

Now one of the common denominators of these film and television people is that they are all competent horse people. They either like horses and have some of their own, or their agent has strongly suggested that being able to ride is a good career investment

Not really. The "Hollywood Militia" would be followed wherever they go by television media who would report every move. Bundy may be greedy and evil, but he is not stupid. Firing on the "Hollywood Militia " would be counterproductive.

So would the "Hollywood Militia" be interested in embarrassing Mr. Bundy and forcing the Department of Justice to take action?

HAVE THE NATIONAL PARKS LOST THEIR WAY?

In the Summer, 2015 issue of PEER REVIEW, Jeff says "We at PEER never anticipated having to repeatedly sue the NPS during the Obama years for shirking its conservation mandate by allowing swamp buggies to carve up wild lands of Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve, or power companies to erect a corridor of 200 foot tall transmission towers across some of the most scenic portions of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and the Appalachian Scenic Trail."

Now neighbors, somehow, one rather doubts that PEER was shocked, shocked, at having to sue.

If you or I complain about something in a park, we are guaranteed an electronic form letter from someone purporting to be the park Superintendent, promising that the matter will be looked into before the next glacial epoch and thanking us for our interest in the park.

Ah! But a lawsuit! Now THAT is an attention getter! Are the PEER lawsuits justified?

"No!" snarled one federal land manager: "Only about maybe 5% of PEER lawsuits have any justification whatsoever!" (However, if your name happens to be Teresa Chambers, and a vengeful Bush Administration fired you from your position as Chief of the Park Police, and you got your job back with PEER's help, you might be grateful for that .)

As for the put upon superintendent of Delaware Water gap NRA, the LAST thing he wanted would be a 200-foot transmission tower in his park, but it is unlikely he had much choice in the matter. The reason Power companies are called Power Companies is that they are extremely powerful, have lots of political clout and can blackmail the public by "suggesting" curtailment of services if their demands for environmental devastation are not met. Works every time!

PEER REVIEW lists yet another way that the National Parks may have lost their way:

"In recent years, the NPS allowed a long time practice to slip into disuse. Previously, every major park performed an analysis of external threats to park resources, often in the area buffering the park. Now there is no such exercise, let alone planning to mitigate these threats.

The iconic wolf packs in Alaska's Denali National are a case in point. The wolves of Denali are one of the world's most viewed populations in part because they can be seen inside one of the planet's few remaining intact functioning ecosystems.

Yet due to state sanctioned trapping and hunting surrounding the park, the number of surviving wolves has plummeted to the lowest level on record. Today fewer than 5% of the nearly half million tourists who wanted to see wolves in the wild were able to do so. "

Senator Lisa Murkowski and retired governor Sarah Palin would undoubtedly say "THAT'S TOO DAMN BAD! BUY A BETTER PAIR OF BINOCULARS!

Generally speaking, Republicans are not sensitive to external threats to the parks.

On the other hand, it would seem that the NPS should be interested in outside threats to the parks, if for no reason than idle curiosity. It would seem to be counterproductive not to list these threats.

Therefore, THUNDERBEAR came to the conclusion that PEER may have exaggerated NPS lack of interest in external threats to the parks, so, "If in doubt, ask a ranger."

That's exactly we did. I had already planned a summer camping trip to Colorado and Utah. The reason for the trip, aside from the unbeatable scenery, was to check out the effect mass advertising on park visitation. We had an excellent laboratory experiment in progress: The State Tourism Board of Utah had spent a hefty 5 million dollars world wide to advertise the national parks of Utah. The publicity boards of Colorado and Arizona had not targeted the national parks of their states, so would there be a spectacular increase in foreign tourism in Utah as a result of the advertising campaign as compared to the adjoining states?

Since we were already visiting these parks, I could ask if it was true, as PEER claimed it was, that the parks were no longer listing external threats to the park. If the park WAS still collecting data on external threats, could I have a list of these threats?

A month before setting out on our tour, I sent an e mail to each superintendent telling them of our interest in threats to the park and PEER'S claim that external threats data were no longer being collected.

Since summer is the very busy time for the parks, we did not seek an audience with the various park superintendents, but suggested that the Park Public Affairs officer (PAO) might provide a briefing. If that proved too difficult due to lack of staff, perhaps a summary of external threats to the park could be left at the Visitor Center desk for me to collect.

Not exactly. Robert Burns could have had the NPS in mind when he wrote his famous poem on "The best laid plans of mice and men."

Then, there was a curious e-mail from James Doyle. Mr. Doyle is Chief Public Affairs of the entire National Park Service and he was wondering what, exactly, I was up to, and suggested that my e-mails were causing "confusion" among the Southwestern parks as to how to proceed in this matter, and suggested that I call him immediately.

I counter suggested that we meet in DC for pizza. Alas! Mr. Doyle is not a pizza person.

One superintendent was suspicious: He asked me to prove that PEER claimed what it claimed. So I sent him a copy of PEER REVIEW.

"Thanks for sending a copy of the PEER letter.
After consulting with our regional office, I've decided to decline your interview request for comment on this matter as the PEER letter refers to all NPS units and not this park individually. NPS comments regarding service wide matters are referred to the regional and Washington Offices.
Thank you

Superintendent X"

"Mr. Ryan,
I want you to know that I received your request and have been advised by our regional office to ask you to make a formal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request.
We realize that you plan to visit our park on Sunday, August 16, and we look forward to your visit. As with all visitors to this park, my staff will do their very best to answer any questions you have about the park resources, visitor services, etc. I will NOT prepare an informational packet for you and I have asked my staff not to engage in discussions about external threat analysis plans or planning.
If you have questions about how to make a FOIA request, please don't hesitate to contact me at the phone numbers listed below

Superintendent Y"

We decided not to announce our August 16 visit lest we be dropped through a trap door into the crocodile pit.

Obviously, External Threats to the Park is a sensitive item, so we will discuss them further next issue with the Washington Office and PEER.

THE SAFETY MESSAGE: GUN SAFETY

Is this important? Damn straight, neighbors! As uniformed federal employees, you have now replaced the Jews as the number one bogeyman of the armed crazies of America. Congratulations! (The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy has been retired in favor of Park Rangers Aiding and Abetting Blue helmeted United Nations troops setting up bases in our public lands.)

Now you might say that you are apolitical; that you don't involve yourself in controversy or politics, real or imagined.

Doesn't matter! To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy: "Just because you are not interested in bigoted, armed fanatics does not mean that bigoted, armed fanatics are not interested in you."

Consider this scenario: You are on your way back to the Park after having delivered your talk "Our Furry and Scaly Friends of XYZ National Park" to Miss Kelly's third grade class. You pull up at the only stoplight in town. Your truck says ' NATIONAL PARK SERVICE". A primer gray pickup truck pulls up beside you. You find yourself staring down the cavernous barrel of a 12 gauge. "YOU NEED TO DIE, YOU GUN GRABBIN' FEDERAL SOB! " snarls the proprietor of the 12 gauge.

Unlikely? Nope! Happened to a couple of BLM guys not too long ago. Fortunately, the "boys" were "jest funnin" with the Feds and did not pull the trigger.

In the wake of the latest massacre in Oregon, the President earnestly (and predictably) suggested gun control. He would be wrong.

There are an estimated 350 million guns in America. They are not going away anytime soon. The average life of a firearm stored in a dry place is 100 years.

This means that a Colt .45 purchased for protection during the Texas border troubles of 1915 and hidden, loaded and forgotten, in a roll top desk in Alpine, Texas will still be viable when it is discovered by a curious six year old boy in 2016.

Semantics is the study of how words or phrases affect understanding and motives. It goes far beyond a simple dictionary definition.

Like most liberals, President Obama has a tin ear when it comes to the phrase "gun control".

You see, semantically, "Control" is a hard, cold, prickly word. It does not mean regulated use, it means elimination. When we speak of "flood control" or "Mosquito control", we are not talking about having the occasional interesting flood for old time sake or the maintenance of a breeding population of mosquitos because, well, they're God's creatures too! No, we are aiming at elimination.

Now the members of the National Rifle Association may be misinformed and reactionary, but they are not stupid, they know very well what "gun control" means.

"Safety" on the other hand, is semantically a happy, prudent, Boy Scout sort of a word, without the harsh connotation of "Control".

So, when talking to gun people, always use the term "gun safety", never "gun control". "Gun Safety" worked very well for the socialist Bernie Sanders, who won the grudging endorsement of the NRA and a Senate seat. Everybody wants to be safe; nobody wants to be controlled.

Gun people also object to being lectured to by people who know very little about guns other than they don't like them. As working class Republicans, they are also nettled by thinly veiled class warfare in which they are derided as ignorant, violent hicks who should listen to their Ivy League betters. They choose not to, as did the Anarchist naturalist Edward Abbey, who was a life member of the NRA.

Now you might say, "Who the hell cares? I don't talk to gun nuts and I don't intend to start now!"

You may not have the choice. The NRA may be coming to a park next to you; maybe your park.

Consider the October 2015 issue of AMERICA'S FIRST FREEDOM "The Official Journal of the National Rifle Association". (The NRA has always been a bit miffed that the Founding Fathers did not make the right to bear arms the First Amendment rather than the Second. It can be irrefutably pointed out that if you lose a debate in a First Amendment argument, you can always shoot your opponent, SO THERE!

In the October issue, there is the usual rant about the erosion of American freedom from the Executive Vice President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre. Wayne is hawking a "Challenge Coin" for $24 to prevent the election of the Dread Hillary. One side of the coin says "NRA STAND AND FIGHT"; the other side shows the White House with the slogan TAKE IT BACK and NEVER AGAIN! Along with a quotation from George Washington "The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves". (Irony has never been the strong suite of the NRA)

The cover depicts shattering glass and a large bullet hole through a sign saying "GUN FREE ZONE. The title of the cover story is "Let's End the Charade of Gun-Free Zones" by Marshall Lewis.

Readers will recall that there was a time when operational firearms were banned in the parks. Generally speaking, that ban was not enforced, unless someone was doing something really stupid with a firearm. (Your editor recalls coming upon presumably fully functioning pistols under the driver's seat during searches for petrified wood at Petrified Forest National Park; as long as they didn't have wood, we didn't bother them)

Recent interpretations of Supreme Court rulings allow a park patron to carry an operational firearm into the park. However, according to NPS regulations the park patron may not bring his weapon into the park visitor center or Admin Offices. This policy is announced by the presence on the Visitor Center door of a diagram of a generic pistol with a red bar through it; the international sign that something is a No-No.

In addition, there is a text warning that weapons are forbidden in the park visitor center and offices.

The author of "Let's End the Charade of Gun-Free Zones" thinks this is a bad idea.

Mr. Lewis points out that criminals, psychopaths, and terrorists are famously uncooperative when it comes to obeying the law. Indeed, the regulation assures that the murderer will have a roomful of helpless, unarmed victims to slaughter at will.

Mr. Lewis goes on to point out a number of instances (Seven in all) in which mass murder was averted by the presence of an armed citizen. (The NRA is correct in reminding us that more dead criminals are killed by armed citizens than by police. This is true because the armed citizen is often the intended victim and thus, unlike the cop, is present at the scene.

However, there is a safety issue for anyone trying to intervene in a shooting situation in a National Park Visitor Center.

Unlike classrooms or movie theatres, the park visitor center (museum if you will) usually adjoins the park administrative offices. This means an almost instantaneous armed response. Now the staff has trained for an active shooter incident in the visitor center, but they would understandably prefer to have one target. If they have two (The other being the NRA boy scout) they might choose to err on the side of caution and take out both targets.

This would be a very good argument against any change in the "No firearms in the visitor center" policy.

THE THUNDERBEAR PROJECT AND THE NUEVO COLORADO

At about the same time, SIERRA magazine, voice of the somewhat alarmist Sierra Club, announced without comment, that there were now one billion of "them" loose upon the earth.

Now who are "them", the dread one billion? Moslems? No. Mexican Migrants? Nope. Mormons? No. The one billion "them" that we share the planet with, are not even human, they are automobiles.

That's right, according to the Sierra Club; here are now one billion cars in the world.

They are gaining on us. We have been evolving for some 3 million years and have taken that long to reach seven billion. The automobile has been evolving only 129 since Bertha Benz drove her husband's invention into History in 1886. You do the math.

First of all, it means that for the first time in history, the entire human race can get in a car and go for a ride, all at the same time. (Yes, you can get seven people in a car, if two of them are babes in arms.)

Is this important? No, but it is an interesting factoid and it provides food for thought

Interesting question! Clearly, the Sierra Club does not approve of automobiles. According to that organization, for long or intermediate distances, people should take the train (The Sierra Club's premier favorite!); for shorter distances, people should use municipal buses, the subway, or (best of all!) bicycles.

Bicycles are Virtue Machines, allowing their users to bask in the fact that they are cheap (relatively) using comparatively few natural resources to produce, do not pollute (except in profanities exchanged between their riders and motorists) and burn calories, reducing weight and adding to cardiovascular efficiency.

There are a few drawbacks to bicycling, namely God, or if you prefer, Nature, in the form of torrential rain, gale force winds, Judgment day lightning strikes, and/or 105 degree temperatures with 60% humidity.

In addition to God, there is the human problem. Collisions between cars and bicyclists are life changing events and usually not for the motorist. In addition, there is the undeniable popularity of bicycles----among thieves. Bicycle theft is much more common than automobile theft; admittedly partially because bicycle theft does not raise the ire and indignation of the FBI that automobile theft does.

Then there is matter of logistics. A dedicated cyclist can haul an amazing number of grocery bags on his/her bike, but five bags of cement, fertilizer, or a mattress tends to complicate things. While it is true that a Vietnamese could carry 500 pounds of mortar shells on his Chinese bicycle, think how many more pounds of rice, sweet potatoes, pigs, chickens and grandmothers that same Vietnamese can carry in his family automobile.

Finally of course, there is speed of automotive travel. One could say that it is not the speed of the journey, but the wisdom and spirituality acquired during journey that is important. You could say that, but most Chinese don't seem to buy it.

China now has the second largest number of cars in the world, some 78 million or 6.75 passengers per car. The champion car owners are (surprise!) we Americans, with some 240 million cars or 1.3 passengers per car. The UC-Davis Institute of Transportation expects the world will have 2 billion cars by the year 2050. In order to fuel these cars we are going to have to produce 120 million barrels of oil a day, up from the 87 million produced daily today. Can it be done without burning out the planet? Hopefully, yes.

However, the one billion automobiles (and gaining!) is just the tip of the iceberg. There is more, much more. The automobile is regarded as the universal symbol of entrance into the middle class (The US is exceptional in the sense that the poor as well as rich and middle class often have one or more cars).

The Chinese middle class, some 300 million, is now the largest middle class in the world, surpassing that of the United States, and will probably surpass the entire population of the United States in less than a decade.

The Indian middle class, 160 million out of a population of around a billion, also aspires to automobile ownership and other appurtenances of middle class life. (At present, the number one dowry item in Indian wedding negotiations is an air conditioning unit. India, like hell, gets hot)

Middle Class lifestyle is politely defined as "The International Living Standard." (That sounds much better than "We White Folks' Standard of Living") That is, a house or apartment with indoor plumbing, weather proof, and climate control (heating and/or cooling in at least one room: Access to electricity, clean water, medical care, and education beyond the primary level as well as the possibility of owning an automobile (As middle class life is about choices rather than grim necessity, members may choose to forego automobile ownership for other goals or goods. As middle class life is increasingly about choices, one of its features is disposable time and disposable income. That is, a person does not have to work more than one 8 hour a day job (though both partners may work and thus combine income) and thus have some spare time and disposable income to participate in what the British called "The amenities of life", that is recreation, sport, travel, hobbies and interest in the environment and Nature, such as National Parks and visits to same

The above sort of describes the life style of the average person in Scandinavia and the rest of Western Europe as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and to a distressingly decreasing extent, the United States.

Now the nay sayers claim that this is impossible, as according to one pessimist "If everybody on this planet sought the same life style as Americans or Europeans, we would] need three planets".

Fortunately, this is not true. This supposedly wise little jingle, repeated over and over by "environmentalists" and their organizations is appallingly cruel and mean-spirited, right up there with the "Let them eat cake" alleged response of Queen Marie Antoinette or the Conservative British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli's claim that "The good things in life are for the few, the very few."

The vast bulk of the world's population will insist on a Scandinavian middle class life style very much like you, the reader enjoys (It is entirely possible that THUNDERBEAR has readers among Romney's one percent, but somehow I doubt it.)

We will not need three or more planets, we will need only the one we have to live quite comfortably, as long as we are wise and make good use of the hand that Nature has dealt us.

Areas with low populations like Alaska and Wyoming tend to produce people like Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney; the challenges that face us require the concentrated thinking of billions of educated minds; something that Texas and Alaska don't have.

The entire human race of some seven billion plus could fit into metropolitan Hong Kong. Granted, it would be standing room only and it would be difficult to get a pizza delivered.

You are correct. We can't and we won't. Mainly due to the explosive growth of the world's middle class. When a nation becomes middle class, the birth rate drops precipitously, sometimes below the replacement rate as in Italy, Russia, Japan and (surprise!) Mexico. This can cause problems but they can be solved.

"Then it will not be necessary to hang the Pope or convert him to Unitarianism in order to reduce population and save the world?"

You forgot about global warming. To sequester carbon, provide a renewable fuel source for our automobiles (Remember! 2 billion by 2050!) And provide food and fiber for ourselves we will have to reforest and afforest the planet. To do this we must find an affordable way to desalinize seawater and provide the energy to pump or otherwise transport that water to where it is needed.

Fortunately, God has planned ahead for our welfare. (Thanks, God!) He has wisely kept two fifths of the land area of the planet unavailable for (most) human use until now. We call these reserve lands "deserts" as they are inhabited only by wandering nomads and the ghost of Edward Abbey.

Although it is currently expanding, the Sahara is the youngest desert in the world, barely 3,000 years old. England's Stonehenge is probably older. In the (now) bone-dry Hoggar Mountain range in the center of the Sahara, there are beautifully done pictographs of giraffes, gazelles and hippotami. Clearly something is missing; that "something" is, of course, water. It will be our job to provide it.

Because it would be that moral equivalent of war, something we have been looking for since 1906.

In 1906, Great Britain launched HMS Dreadnaught. At that time, it was the most powerful warship ever built. It could sink any other warship afloat. It was completely revolutionary. Naturally, every other ambitious country wanted one just like it. 1906 was the start of the Arms Race that has continued to this day.

1906 was also the year that the philosopher Henry James launched his essay "The Moral Equivalent of War."

Do not be alarmed. It is a short essay and it is not pompously academic. Indeed, it is quietly humorous, (If you like THUNDERBEAR, you will probably like "The Moral Equivalent of War"; Goggle it up.)

In his essay, James argues that since war is so appealing to the human species, particularly young males, that a "Struggle Against Nature" be substituted for a "Struggle Against Our Own Species." That is, War.

Did anyone listen? Well, yes, sort of. Czar Nicholas of Russia could see the implications of the Dreadnaught and the machine gun. He arranged the world's very first disarmament conference, which met at The Hague in 1907. These conferences were to meet every seven years. If you do the math, the next one was scheduled for 1914, when attention-getting events intervened.

Well, the 100th anniversary of the essay rolled around in 2006, making less stir than when it was first published in 1906.

Interesting question! It is not that the idea of War has grown more popular (though we tend to be in a continual state of some kind of conflict) it's just that the idea of a "Struggle against Nature" is believed to be unnatural, and thus wicked.

Generations of boys and girls are taught by well-meaning teachers that Mother Nature is on our side; that She is Benign, that She is not evil like MONSANTO and DOW.

No, (it only seems that way; what with earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, disease, and other tantrums.) Actually, Mother Nature is supremely neutral; humans just get in the way.

So, are we implying that MONSANTO, DOW, and BRITISH PETROLEUM are benign, that they are better than Mother Nature?

No, but you can sue them, fine them, and put their officials in jail; something you can't do with Mother Nature.

Somewhere out in Deep Space, there is a quarter mile wide asteroid with our name on it, speeding toward us at 26,000 miles an hour, dead on target. That's the bad news.

The good news is that we will be able to do what the dinosaurs could not do; nudge the asteroid into a benign near miss (Sorry about that, God! Just doing your will while you were taking a well deserved Celestial nap.)

We will do more than asteroid nudging. We are now in the Anthropogenic Era, in which we join wind, water, and the shifting tectonic plates in shaping the face of the planet.

"But is it wise to reforest the Sahara Desert" you ask fearfully, "What about global warming?"

Wise of you to ask, neighbor! That's part of being a responsible Anthropogenic in the 21st century.

There is the possibility that a forested Sahara Desert and Middle East would make for a warmer earth.

You see, the polar ice caps (now famously disappearing) AND the desert areas of the world tend to reflect the sun's rays back into space. That is the Albedo Effect. Many scientists believe that if you remove the ice caps and the deserts, you will be in for a hot time in the old town tonight.

Other scientists are not so sure. Some would say that the transpiration of trillions of trees would have a distinctly cooling effect on the atmosphere. Clearly, we had better model this before proceeding on a world changing scale.

As it turns out, there is a vast aquifer of fresh water under the Sahara Desert. It is fossil or relict water from the last glacial age. Libya's Muammar Gaddafi planned to develop what he called a "Man Made River" and turn his desert state into the Garden of Eden before he met his end in a drainage pipe.

Now is the "Man Made River" a good idea? Probably not, unless you can figure a way to recharge the aquifer. The key word is "fossil". Once the water is gone, it is gone for good. Optimists (those who worked for Colonel Gaddafi) say the aquifer would last a comfortable 1,000 years; pessimists (Those who work for the United Nations) suggest 40-60 years is more like it. We smug Yanks will eventually get an object lesson on what happens when we mine the last of the fossil water from the Oglala Aquifer under the Midwest.

That leaves us with desalinization or desal. That is, we take out the salt that God absentmindedly put in seawater.

Republicans, as is well known, do not like to be inconvenienced, not even by God.

So, when the wealthy Southern California town of Santa Barbara found that the city reservoir was drying up due to God's drought, they decided to bypass God and make their own water by drafting from the neighboring Pacific Ocean and desalinizing the seawater by a process known as reverse osmosis.

The process which consists of forcing sea water through a series of semi-permeable membranes confined in a tube with pressure applied by pumps run by electricity.

The process, while expensive, is not prohibitively so. That is, it is cost effective in arid areas to supply drinking water (but not cheap enough to supply irrigation water).

However, drinking water (and maybe a little left over to water ornamentals) was all the Santa Barbarians desired. So, millions of dollars later, Santa Barbara had a state of the art desal plant that would make Santa Barbara independent of both God and the Colorado River.

It rained. And it rained. So much so that the City Fathers decided that the drought was over and there was no need to make expensive potable water from the ocean when there was a ridiculously cheap supply now available in Santa Barbara's newly filled reservoir, Lake Cachuma. So, the Santa Barbarians sold their multi-million dollar desal plant to one of the Arab emirates.

Yes, the Great California Mega drought: Right on schedule. Time to start over, desal-wise.

This time, San Diego and a number of other Southern California cities joined Santa Barbara in the quest for desalinization. Now the Holy Grail of desalinization is water cheap enough to use for irrigation. So far, we are not quite there. The cost of maintaining pressure in the desal system is a bit too high (Saudi Arabia, in its quest for food independence does irrigate with desal water, but it would be much cheaper to simply import grain. Israel also uses some desal water for certain high value specialty crops, but generally speaking, desal water is just too expensive for normal irrigation, let alone desert Agroforestry. In addition, much of the electricity required would be generated by wicked fossil fuels, contributing to Global Warming and thus defeating a significant portion of the Project.

Fortunately, God is on our side. (You knew that He wouldn't abandon us, His favorite evolutionary project!)

It is true that He created the world's deserts as sort of planetary spare parts or reserve lands for use when we became wise enough to use them, but He also included a way to unmake deserts.

Rather ingeniously, (He is, after all, God) the Deity created depressions, that is, areas below sea level, around most of the world's major deserts. These depressions are (usually) conveniently located not too far from the sea itself. All that is necessary is that you bore tunnels from the coast to the edge of the depression at a very slight angle to insure pressure, to the depression, install a few miles of semi-permeable membrane, and let God's gravity do the work. You can, if you like, generate massive amounts of clean hydropower as the pure water leaves the tunnel and falls into the collecting reservoir in the Depression.

Let's look at the Sahara World Forest for example. It will require artificial rivers of desalinized fresh water roughly equivalent to the average daily flow of the Congo River.

The most famous of the African depressions is the Qattara Depression, 436 feet below sea level, 190 miles long and 84 miles wide. It is located in Western Egypt and a mouthwateringly close (34 miles of tunneling) from the Mediterranean Sea.

Interestingly enough, the Qattara Depression had attracted the attention of President Dwight D Eisenhower. Ike had graduated from West Point with an engineering degree and engineers love big projects. Eisenhower had the gobsmackingly spectacular idea of (A) making peace with the Soviet Union and (B) taking the now surplus Soviet and American atom bombs and burying them in a straight line between the Mediterranean Sea and the edge of the Qattara Depression and, well, setting them off. This would result in a quick, inexpensive canal that would channel seawater into hydropower turbines that would supply cheap electricity to Egypt for the foreseeable future. (To keep Israel from getting jealous, Ike proposed doing the same thing for Israel; a string of buried surplus Atom bombs across Israel from the Mediterranean coast to the edge of the Dead Sea, a better than a 1,000 foot drop, the Earth's deepest Depression.

This was called "Operation Plowshare" (You remember the biblical "beating swords into plowshares" and was part of the "Atoms For Peace" program. In a rare show of agreement, the Egyptians and Israelis agreed that this was one of the strangest ideas that they had ever encountered, and "Operation Plowshares" was shelved, presumably forever.

The Thunderbear Project or "Sahara World Forest" is decidedly not as spectacular or as explosive as "Operation Plowshares" as it consists mainly of a series of desalinization tunnels that will make use of the Qattara and other depressions surrounding the Sahara Desert.

The Qattara Depression should produce enough fresh water to irrigate an agroforest covering Egypt and Northern Sudan as well as Chad.

The Afar Depression, at 509 feet below sea level and shared by Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti will produce enough water for an agroforest covering the plains of Ethiopia as well as Eritrea, Somalia, as well as little Djibouti.

Libya's Sabkhat Ghuzayyil depression, at 154 feet below sea level should provide enough water for that country's agroforest, as well as Chad augmented by water from the Qattara Depression.

Algeria, 4/5th desert and three times the size of Texas, is blessed with the 130 foot deep Chott Meihr Depression that should handle its agroforestry needs.

Morocco's 180 foot deep Sebkhat Tah Depression is only 11 miles from the Atlantic, which makes tunneling a piece of rhubarb pie. This will supply the water for the agroforests of the Western Sahara, Mauritania and Northern Mali.

Just about every harebrained Middle Eastern reclamation project has somebody digging a canal or tunnel from the Mediterranean to the edge of the Dead Sea escarpment for the purpose of generating oodles of electricity.

The problem with that scenario is that you miss out making oodles of pure water.

While it is true that the Dead Sea is below sea level, it is also true that most of the Jordan River Valley, including the Sea of Galilee is also below sea level. So we will take our desal tunnels up near the northern border of Israel. This will allow us to produce pure water as well as electricity, keeping the Jordan River at near flood stage year around. This will satisfy all of Israel's water requirements as well as the agroforestry requirement of the Kingdom of Jordan, with enough left over to irrigate a small portion of the Arabian Desert.

Unfortunately, God did not provide below sea level depressions in the Arabian Peninsula itself, so at least for the immediate future, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, and the Gulf Emirates will not enjoy the benefits of agroforestry.

The Gobi Desert is a cold desert, but does have a great future in temperate agroforestry such as apples, apricots, pears, peaches and persimmons as well as biodiesel crops such as cottonwood and other poplars. Irrigating the Gobi will bring an end to the ghastly dust storms that make life in Beijing and much of Northern China miserable. The Turpan Depression, at 505 feet, the third deepest depression on Earth, will make all this possible.

The only problem is that it is some 1200 miles from the Yellow Sea to the Turpan.

Would it be possible to dig a tunnel 1200 miles long? Would it be possible to dig 20 tunnels 1200 miles long? The answer is "Yes" on both counts.

It would be prohibitively expensive, true; but this is China, inhabited by the Han, The People, who are famously intelligent and industrious. This is the country of the Great Wall and The Grand Canal.

The Grand Canal? In the year 603 AD The Emperor Yang decided it would be nice to have a canal connecting China's two great river systems: The Yangtze in the South and the Yellow River in the North. It is a distance of 1,104 miles between the two rivers. Emperor Yang asked for 3 million volunteers. He got them. Then as now, one does not dispute the Emperor or the Party. The Grand Canal was completed in 609 AD. It is still functioning today.

A 500,000 square mile Gobi agroforest would be a great prize. It would guarantee food security for China as well as furnish enough biodiesel for cars and trucks as to make China independent of outside sources. It would be expensive, but it would be worth it in the long run.

Moving on to the desert continent of Australia, we find a similar situation; vast tracts of seemingly endless desert and a depression a considerable distance inland (though not as daunting as the Gobi problem).

The Lake Eyre Depression is located in the State of South Australia about 217 miles inland from the sea.

Unfortunately, the Lake Eyre Depression is only 46 feet below sea level. This is sufficient to supply pressure for reverse osmosis, but not deep enough for hydroelectric power. Very probably the seawater would be brought in by canal with tunneling used only through a low range of hills and where the osmotic membrane needed to be enclosed.

Still, supplying a green agroforest to what was once called "The dead heart of Australia" would be a worthy goal.

As most folks realize, the Colorado River is over-committed. That is, there are more demands made on the Colorado River and its tributaries than it can supply, even in "wet years.

Therefore, we must augment the flow of the Colorado with the "Nuevo Colorado", an artificial river composed of desalinized seawater.

Again, we look for the nearest below level depression in California. It is the Salton Sea 131 miles inland from the Pacific and 234 feet below sea level. As in the case of the other Depressions, it will not be necessary to tunnel to the lowest part of the depression (Indeed, that would defeat the hydroelectric portion of the project.)

The tunnels for the Nuevo Colorado project would begin some distance from the Salton Sea itself, opposite the town of Desert Shores. Normally, no desal water would flow into the Salton Sea. However, one of the beneficial side effects of Nuevo Colorado would be the salvation of the Salton Sea. From time to time, raw sea water could be run through one of the tunnels to maintain the Salton Sea at the optimum level. For fish, wildlife (migratory birds) and recreation, and above all, to keep the basin of the Salton Sea covered with water to prevent poisonous dust storms which would ravage Southern California should the Salton Sea dry up; a very likely possibility at present.

The tunnel would cross under mainly public lands, including Anza Borrego State Park. Care must be taken not to interfere with the plumbing of Borrego Springs or other natural springs within that park. Other than that caveat, the tunnel will have no discernable impact on surface features. Vibrations will be felt in the immediate area of the tunneling face and private property owners will have to be compensated for any inconvenience.

The tunnel will reach the sea after traversing under the US Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton. The tunnel will extend out to sea for a short distance to avoid storm surge damage to the intake facilities.

The tunneling process itself should be routine, with one notable exception; the tunnel route will cross several known earthquake faults, including the famed San Andreas Fault. This challenge can be met with flexible gaskets at the point of slippage when a fault is encountered. With an allowance of more than twice the historical fault movement danger to the tunnel can be reduced to the vanishing point. (Naturally, the tunnel intake would close at the intake at the first rumble of an earthquake and as a fail-safe measure; there would be an additional gate at the Salton Sea exit.)

A note about tunneling: At one time, tunnel digging was pretty basic. You needed only four things; a pickax, a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and an Irishman.

Times have changed. There are now a number of international companies entirely devoted to the building of giant mechanical gophers to bore through mountain ranges or under seabeds.

Presently, the world's largest tunnel boring machine is Hitachi's "Bertha", capable of boring a tunnel 57 feet wide at the cutting head. Naturally, the completed tunnel has to be lined with concrete to prevent erosion, so we will have to subtract 2 feet to arrive at a working tunnel diameter of 55 feet (A considerable amount of the "spoil" that is, the excavated rock, will be chewed up and digested by "Bertha" and used as aggregate to be mixed with cement to form the concrete tunnel lining as "Bertha" ambles through the rock formations.

Well now, I wouldn't say that. At this writing, "Bertha" is stuck under the city of Seattle and cannot go forward. Unfortunately, most tunnel boring machines do not have a reverse gear. (Their optimistic motto is "forward and ever onward") and "Bertha" is no exception. Fortunately for Seattle, "Bertha" is still under warranty, so the Hitachi Corporation will disassemble it in place and see what's holding up progress.

Now the average flow of God's Colorado River is roughly 22,500 cubic feet per seconds. How many tunnels will we have to dig to equal or exceed the flow of that river?

However, there would be advantages. The Nuevo Colorado would be a steady flow (The Pacific Ocean being a pretty big reservoir.) There would be no "good" years or "bad" years. Every year would be "good" and the snowpack in the Rockies would be mainly of interest to skiers. Moreover, the desal water from the Nuevo Colorado would be far more potable than the original Colorado, laced as it is with silt, salt and agricultural chemical runoff.

The water of the Old Colorado, on the other hand is contaminated with silt and heavy metals (Arsenic, lead, selenium, boron, mercury, and other playmates). It is the silt that we really have to worry about. All dams are doomed. Sooner or later, they all fill with silt. What is the useful life of Glen Canyon dam and its reservoir, Lake Powell?

The late Marc Reisner's apocalypic CADILLAC DESERT suggested that Lake Powell could be operationally useless due to silt in 55 years.

The more level headed Bureau of Reclamation says around 700 years is more like it.

Although the Old Colorado River would still be available for irrigation and hydropower, there would now be a surplus of water and it may be feasible to allow the Old Colorado to resume its flow into the Gulf of California, restoring life to the Colorado Delta.

"Ah, but what will do with all that sea salt?" The President of the Sierra Club will demand triumphantly.

The obvious solution is to dump it back into the ocean. However in high concentrations, salt is poisonous to sea life, so you have to carefully dilute it before putting it back in the sea. This is expensive.

Why not sell the salt? The problem is economy of scale. You see, the relatively small desal plants of San Diego and Santa Barbara will produce salt, but not in huge, commercial quantities.

However, the Nuevo Colorado desal plant will have economy of scale, A gallon of seawater contains 4.5 ounces of salt. That adds up.

"Umm, isn't there a finite number of Orthodox Jewish housewives?" you ask doubtfully.

Fortunately, we have such a market in the burgeoning field of photovoltaic cells.

Photovoltaic cells are the key to renewable solar energy. You have all seen them in shiny blue array on somebody's rooftop. Most photovoltaic cells are made in Red China (Boo! Hiss!) Because the shrewd Chinese have managed to corner the world's supply of the heavy metal cadmium, whose derivative, cadmium chloride, is an essential ingredient in the most efficient solar cells.

Cadmium goes for around $300 a kilo. Trouble is, in addition to the high price, Cadmium, like most heavy metals, is poisonous as Hell. This is mainly of interest only to the Chinese workers as the Chinese government has long since learned that classic 19th century, Dickensian capitalism is slicker than snot on a door knob when it comes to getting the job done. The Chinese government can tell their American middlemen (if they ask) that there are a whole bunch of environmental regs regarding the handling of cadmium and its derivatives. The problem is that the photovoltaic workers are paid by the piece not by the hour. So, if the lads choose to shortcut the safety measures, well, it's the worker's choice! Chinese democracy and American business in action! You can't beat it with a stick!

Very recently there was a breakthrough in solar cell technology. It was discovered that Magnesium Chloride got the same photovoltaic results as Cadmium Chloride. Moreover, Magnesium Chloride has the advantage of not being poisonous and selling for a thrifty $1.00 a Kilo (as opposed to Cadmium's $300 a kilo)

What is the source of Magnesium Chloride? Yup! You guessed it! Sea Salt. It will probably be cost effective to site a solar cell factory next to the desal plant. Indeed, the production of low cost solar panels is very important to the success of the Thunderbear Project in Southern California and elsewhere as we must pump desal water to where it is needed. This will require electricity and lots of it.

Fortunately, with every house and building in Southern California outfitted with photovoltaic shingles and siding, plus promising new developments in battery storage systems, there should be enough surplus electricity to power the pumps to distribute the desal water throughout Southern California.

In addition, to solar cells, there is the normal market for salt. Unlike say, Colorado River silt, salt has value. It sells for around 36 to 40 dollars a ton, shooting up to $160 a ton depending on demand.

Does this mean that Joshua tree National Monument and Mohave Desert National Preserve are doomed to become Eucalyptus plantations for the production of biodiesel?

Not at all, there will be some increase in agroforestry such as water intensive almonds, but mainly the desal water of the Nuevo Colorado will go for maintaining the traditional winter vegetable crops of the Imperial Valley. The desert reserves will be preserved as deserts.

You see, Southern California is unique among the desert and depression areas of the world in that it has millions of people. They do not wish to dry up and blow away and they do vote.

According to the United Nations, Planet Earth has 3 trillion trees, with the number declining. We will need an additional 8 trillion to pull off The Thunderbear Project To sequester carbon dioxide, stop global warming, provide biodiesel for the upcoming 2 billion automobiles, and an additional food source for the human population.

"But is there enough surplus sea water available to irrigate two fifths of the world's land area?" You ask worriedly.

Unfortunately, due to global warming, we will have more than enough seawater to go around.

"Then the Thunderbear Project will save us by lowering the sea level?" You ask hopefully.

No. The main way to lower sea level is to freeze the water into glaciers As long as water is in its liquid state, it will be in dynamic play as lakes, rivers, clouds, rain and so on. In addition to water stored in glaciers, a significant amount of water can be stored underground by replenishing the planet's aquifers, but irrigating the planet should not significantly lower the sea level. We must still preserve the glaciers and we can do that by sequestering carbon dioxide in the 11 trillion trees International Forest.

Yes, it will occupy the war making potential of every country on earth. On the other hand, you could consider the alternative of a hundred foot sea rise.

Yes, there are several. Aside from eliminating War (Which is very popular, at least among the male half of the population) there is a distinct chance that irrigating the Sahara desert and turning it into a forest might change weather patterns enough so that the Atlantic hurricane season would be destroyed.

It would be if you were a builder or contractor. Hurricane damage recovery is a multi-million dollar annual business in the Caribbean and the Southeastern United States.

Yes, there would be the moral and mystical aspect of destroying desert ecosystems and replacing them with man made forests.

Since the time of Jesus Christ and continuing through the Desert Fathers and Mohammed and the Sufis, down through Charles De Foucault, Antoine Sainte Exupery, Wilfred Theisinger and Edward Abbey, men have sought inspiration and wisdom in the desert wilderness.

As Aldo Leopold once remarked about changing ecosystems "The first principle of the art of tinkering is to save all the parts."

Therefore, before embarking on any world changing plans, it behooves us to do a close inventory on all the deserts of the world to see what is unique and what needs to be preserved, both from a biological and geological standpoint and from a spiritual and mystical prospective. (The preserved desert ecosystems must be large enough so that it is unlikely that mystics would run into each other).

THE EDWARD ABBEY MEMORIAL RODEO

HAVE THE NATIONAL PARKS LOST THEIR WAY?

THE SAFETY MESSAGE: GUN SAFETY

THE THUNDERBEAR PROJECT AND THE NUEVO COLORADO

Return HOME

© Copyright 2015 by P. J. Ryan, all rights reserved.
PJ Ryan can be reached at:
thunderbear123@gmail.com.

THE EDWARD ABBEY MEMORIAL RODEO

HAVE THE NATIONAL PARKS LOST THEIR WAY?

THE SAFETY MESSAGE: GUN SAFETY

THE THUNDERBEAR PROJECT AND THE NUEVO COLORADO

Return HOME

© Copyright 2015 by P. J. Ryan, all rights reserved. PJ Ryan can be reached at: thunderbear123@gmail.com.

© Copyright 2015 by P. J. Ryan, all rights reserved.
PJ Ryan can be reached at:
thunderbear123@gmail.com.