THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 167, September 1, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS MONTANA IN ECO-COLLAPSE?
By Dennis T. Avery
THE ENVIRONMENT: ARE MODERN SOCIETIES FAILING TO PREVENT ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION & BRINGING
ON THEIR OWN ECONOMIC & ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE? ARE MODERB SOCIETIES UNSUSTAINABLE? HOW
VALID ARE THE CLAIMS OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS, AS REGARDS GLOBAL WARMING & ITS IMPACT?
POLITICAL PROPAGANDA & IDEOLOGY VERSUS ECONOMIC & ENVIRONMENTAL REALITY -- THE FLAWED ANALYSIS OF THE
ADHERENTS OF POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM
FULL STORY:
Political environmentalist and eco-author Jared Diamond says humankind is committing “ecocide” – failing to recognize
environmental degradation before it is too late and bringing on its own collapse. Diamond says such societies as the
Mayans of Central America and the Vikings on the island of Greenland, likewise, brought about their own doom. He warns
that many modern societies are also headed for eco-doom -- including the State of Montana
The State of Montana? In collapse? Why?
Diamond claims key problems, including raging forest fires, unsustainable farming, and impending climate change.
Montana’s first problem, Diamond says, is that its vast forests are threatened by huge forest fires. It costs the U.S.
national government too much to thin the trees and take out the dead wood, which lightning ignites into massive flames.
The state’s timber industry has already declined 80 percent, the cause which, says Diamond, is that Montana can no
longer compete with tree-growers in warmer climates.
Debra Okonski, reporting for the Montana think-tank, the Political Economy Research Center (PERC), says the national
government has blocked Montana timber harvests, responding to the tree-huggers like Diamond. She says the state’s
private forest owners keep their trees thinned, their forest fuel loads low, and profitably sell timber.
Montana certainly won’t run out of trees in the middle of a global warming. Both warming and additional carbon dioxide
stimulate tree growth.
Diamond claims Montana’s farming will collapse due to soil erosion, fertilizer pollution, and spreading salt water seeps.
Fortunately, technology, is already resolving those problems. No-till farming uses herbicides, rather than plowing, to
control weeds, and cuts soil erosion by 65-95 percent. It similarly cuts fertilizer run-off from the fields.
No-till farming also doubles soil moisture. Montana’s no-till farmers no longer fallow half their nine million acres every
year, leaving them bare to searing winds and explosive raindrops. Ending fallow also helps prevent the downhill seepage
of salts from fallow fields — which Diamond says caused the salinity problem.
Global warming will reduce the snowmelt for irrigation, says Diamond. Meanwhile, Egypt has bioengineered a new wheat
variety that needs only one irrigation per season, instead of eight — because of a gene borrowed from barley. The new
drought-proof wheat, farmed with no-till, will help Montana to stay in the wheat business.
Diamond goes on to lament “rich people” buying land in Montana for second homes. However, he vacations there
himself, noting that recreation is one of the booming industries of the Twenty-first century. If Montana manages its
forests and wildlands well, it ought to harvest more and more dollars from skiers, hunters, fisherman, and a wide variety
of vacationers. This is collapse?
Diamond believes the Modern Warming is being caused by human-emitted carbon dioxide. The planet is certainly
warming, but the microfossils in seabed sediments tell us the Earth has had 600 moderate, natural warmings in the last
million years. Solar-created beryllium isotopes in the sediments link the warming to changes in the sun’s irradiance.
The Modern Warming may favor some shifts in Montana’s tree species. After the last Ice Age, the warming climate
triggered a rapid spread of lodgepole pine in Montana and Douglas fir across the Pacific Northwest. But that’s
adaptation, not collapse.
Jared Diamond is overstating our environmental problems, and ignoring strategies and technologies that make modern
societies more sustainable. That’s not information; it is propaganda and alarmism.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and is the Director of the Institute's Center for
Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org). Formerly he was a senior analyst for the United States
Department of State. He is the co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the forthcoming book Unstoppable
Global Warming: Every 1500 Years, to be published in October, 2006, by Rowman & Littlefield. Readers may write Avery
at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email: cgfi@rica.net
Return to Top of Page
Go to the WEBSITE INDEX
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume VIII, 2006
Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights
Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage
CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION
This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics,
civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political
philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs,
International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests,
Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy
INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues