The following was written by a friend, Mike Hobbs, president of the Denver Chapter for Trout Unlimited. As someone who works closely on these issues, he brings a unique and much needed perspective to the issue of land use/ownership. He touches on a lot of important and, often overlooked, issues that are tied to the institutionalized theft of public lands.

Our unique national treasures are in peril. The US government spends more money than it takes in each day and has been doing so for the past 7 years. The shortfall is covered by printing bonds and selling them with the promise of risk free interest. The average savings rate of US citizens is hovering around zero, yet consumers are exhorted each day to spend and save the economy. Social Security is approximately 40% under funded in the coming 40 years. Medicare shortfalls are estimated at 3-4 trillion dollars ($3,500,000,000,000). These entitlement program deficits never appear in budget calculations. Congress has cut Forest Service funding relentlessly, and new user fees do not cover the gap. The baby boomer retirement wave has just begun and will not crest for another 10 years. Life expectancies continue to rise. Many members of younger generations have never been out of range of WIFI access and have no interest in the outdoors. This is evidenced by declining hunting and fishing license fees across the west.

Politicians studiously decline to acknowledge these issues and will not do so unless the public or the media demand it. This short term mentality spells the end for our public lands. The Pombo initiatives of 2005 were just the beginning. Assuming that congress will not stand by while the aged go without basic needs, there will soon be a critical demand to raise cash. Having exhausted the demand for US Treasuries by saturation and lowering interest rates, the US will be facing bankruptcy sometime in the next 20 years. There is only one painless way to solve this problem and that is to liquidate America’s greatest asset. Billionaires and sovereign wealth funds flush with free trade cash and calls on US Treasuries will line up to bid on property along the shore of Yellowstone Lake. Yosemite Valley will make a great location for an exclusive community featuring golf, fishing and sporting clays with incredible views. In short, the most beautiful places in our country will be owned by economic royalty and the public will be locked out. I think I hear Teddy Roosevelt groaning in his grave. As O’Reilly is so fond of saying, “Where am I going wrong here?”

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona, March 13, 2008 (ENS) - One of the great natural wonders of the world - the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River - is threatened by uranium exploration.Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the approval of up to 39 new uranium drilling sites within a few miles of Grand Canyon National Park.

In December, the Kaibab National Forest granted British firm Vane Minerals approval to conduct exploratory uranium drilling on national forest lands along the park’s southern boundary with no public hearing and no environmental review. It is the first of five such projects slated for the area.

I can’t imagine this happening. Still,

More than 2,000 uranium mining claims have been filed since 2003 in the Tusayan Ranger district alone, the majority of them within 10 miles of Grand Canyon National Park, says the Board of Supervisors.

Uranium contamination is the last thing the Colorado River needs. Uranium out of the ground is the last thing any of us need. Let’s ensure mining is blocked on Native land as well.

Sacramento: The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month.

As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide.

NEW DELHI, India, February 13, 2008 (ENS) India has lost more than half of its tiger population in the past five years, a new government tiger census shows. Crunching the numbers for its 2006-2007 census, the National Tiger Conservation Authority estimates the population at between 1,165 and 1,657 tigers.

At the last census in 2002, observers counted 3,642 tigers across India.

And meanwhile, this is going on as well: Poaching in Sumatra, now more than ever.

Save this picture, so you can explain to your grandchildren what a tiger was. Tell them, of course, to imagine it without a collar.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Climate campaigner Al Gore urged world policymakers on Thursday to change laws “not just light bulbs” in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action

I’m glad Al is realizing how useless these individual changes are and looking at the bigger picture. I would encourage him to think bigger though. Sure changing light bulbs is not enough, but neither is changing laws. Unless, I guess, they are BIG changes. BIG.

How does Bono show up everywhere like this? What kind of authority on global warming is he? Here he is again!

I usually don’t do this, but I wanted my response to this comment more widely considered. It seems like a lot of blogs out there have simply become battlefields for conflicting ideologies rather than a search for common ground. It doesn’t have to be that way.

A recent comment:
Don’t get me wrong, I am in favour of reducing pollution, conserving resources et cetera, but keep in mind that humanity is only responsible for a small fraction of CO2 production. Termites, as a species, produce more CO2 than humans. CO2 comprises less than one half of one tenth of one percent of the atmosphere. The most abundant and the most potent greenhouse gas is water vapour - H2O mole per mole has a higher enthalpy than CO2 - yet hydrogen fueled automobiles are touted as a solution for global warming.
Just look up at the sun to see the real cause of global warming. Envirnmental alarmists who think that humanity causes climate change and humanity can change the same are an example of pure hubris. Besides I am rather enjoying the milder winters here in Canada.

My response:
Well, I’m not going to waste my time trying to convince you otherwise, but I don’t want to write you off either.

Many people and corporations are making a lot of money on keeping this a debatable issue and, according to your comment, it sounds like they’re doing a damn good job. So we obviously disagree with each other there.

But the recent and overwhelming focus on climate change, as real and as scary as it is, has detracted from the other environmental problems that continue to exist.

You mentioned pollution and resource depletion. Those are two problems that have turned hundreds of miles of sea into dead zones. If you see fish as resources, note that 90 percent of the large fish in the sea are gone. Consider mineral depletion, soil erosion, the fact that every single stream in the US contains carcinogens (and cancer is now the leading cause of death), or that dioxin and other deadly chemicals are commonly found in women’s breast milk….

There have been 5 major world-wide periods of mass-extinction of species during the earth’s recorded existence. We are in the middle of the sixth one. 150 species are lost every day. The primary reason is simply loss of habitat.

Nobody can argue that we’re not behind much of, if not all of these things.

I’m not an alarmist, I’m a realist, one of many who would rather not live under the threat of apocalypse than maintain an abusive, exploitive lifestyle that is not only killing us but isn’t even making us any happier.

Instead of visiting blog sites and trying to cut me down on things we obviously don’t agree on, why don’t you consider the things we DO agree on. I’m tired of simply “respectfully disagreeing” with people and then never talking to them again. My point is, we don’t have to agree on global warming, but align yourself somewhere. We can build from there.

I remember the first time I heard about this. It sounded straight out of a science fiction novel. I can see it now. By the end of the book, the existence of human clones eliminates natural conception altogether and, ultimately, touching of any kind is made illegal.

But seriously, there has to be a logical explanation here; one that explains exactly how this could have happened. I mean a survey in 2005 by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that two-thirds of US consumers were “uncomfortable” with animal cloning; nearly half believed food from clones would be unsafe to eat.

(I’m a bit more than “uncomfortable” about it myself…)

“The FDA based their decision on an incomplete and flawed review that relies on studies supplied by cloning companies that want to force cloning technology on American consumers.”

Oh right, of course. Still, more questions persist. I mean, who are these cows, these pigs? Who are their parents? How will we view their lives? What are we to make of the notion that we have “cloned” life into this world, not actually to give it a life, but to exploit and kill it?

”Well as far as I know, there’s no difference between a cloned cow and a bred cow,” Regan said.

If you read between the lines of this ABC article, you would infer that this guy, farmer Frank Regan, was so inspired by the checks he received for his “four-time Iowa fair winner and top-quality milk producer,” that he immediately gave a bunch of money to a cloning company and PRESTO! Now he has three cows! Of course farmer Frank doesn’t see any difference between a cloned cow and a bred cow…they were never really cows to him in the first place.

Here are the major real-world problems with cloning animals for human consumption, as preached from under the concrete. Yes, malnutrition and poverty is a growing problem. But it’s not because of a lack of food. The problem lies in the way we use and distribute available food.

Most of the world’s food is already grown to feed livestock, the very livestock they’re cloning more of. Most of the water available goes to water fields of food for livestock.

Further, basic real-world economics tells us that when there is an abundance of food present, the population will continue to grow. The human population exploded with the advent of the agricultural revolution, which was the first time we were able to produce and store more food than we needed. The word “revolution” makes it all sound like it was some kind of event though. It’s as if it already happened. But we are still in the midst of the agricultural revolution. And soon we will see the end of it.

As the human population continues to grow, more and more farmland will be needed to feed all these animals for all these people (and to power their vehicles). If the whole world ate prime rib the way we do, there would be nothing left.

This is just another symptom of our culture’s death urge.

I didn’t mean for this post to come off like the film, Rosemary’s Baby or anything. You know, oddly upbeat and innocent in the beginning, then eerie and ponderous at the end? I mean, the film just left you hanging in that weirdness. We don’t get to see Rosemary’s Teenager do we? Wouldn’t it shatter someone to raise Satan’s baby, especially someone like Rosemary?!?

Maybe it would be a lot like a mother cow trying to raise a cloned replica of the cow in the cage next to her. Maybe not. I’m not a cow.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has opened high-level talks at the climate change conference in Bali with a call to action.
He said that if no action was taken, the world would face impacts such as drought, famine and rising sea levels.

Delegates are hoping to agree a “Bali roadmap” leading to further cuts in greenhouse gas emissions when the Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012.

The US and Canada are among countries opposed to further binding targets.

Why be opposed to binding targets?
a) to avoid accountability
b) to avoid responsibility
c) to admit anything is “binding” is to relinquishment a sense of control.
d) duh, the needs of the natural world are not as important as the needs of our economic system
e) all of the above

The Bush administration’s position, that technology, private investment and economic growth — rather than mandatory emissions cuts — will save the planet from global warming, is taking a beating this week at a U.N. climate change conference in Indonesia.

The conference in Bali is charged with launching negotiations that will eventually lead to an international accord to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

I don’t like this fashion trend one bit. I know it’s from Stephen Colbert’s absurd fear of bears on his show. I still don’t like it and I think Stephen Colbert is obnoxious most of the time.

Nonetheless, I’m troubled by the general fear of nature mindset that it perpetuates. I also think this fear justifies violence toward nonhuman animals.

Last week, a colleague of mine gave a presentation about the Writing Center to a Freshman Engineering class. She said the professor (or instructor, I don’t know) walked into class and released a Brown Recluse spider on the front desk. The students, of course, freaked out (apparently if you get bit, you might end up like this…you’re going to wish you didn’t look). He said, “this is a poisonous Brown Recluse spider, but don’t worry…”

And he smashed it.

I have no idea what this has to do with engineering. And though the students were freaked out, I don’t have to tell you that the spider obviously had a lot more to be scared of than any of them did.

I feel like I’m beginning to see more and more of this general contempt for nature everywhere I turn. This all makes me what to cite this great quote again.