Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act

MONTANA, Feb 18 2009 (Neo Natura) - Undaunted by many years of failure, backers of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) have had it introduced once more into the 111th Congress.

And once more, the massive legislation is being billed as a jobs program, which should get more traction in the face of the current economic meltdown and rapidly rising unemployment.

“NREPA creates 2300 badly needed jobs now by employing people to restore over a million acres of old clearcuts and remove old logging roads, Michael Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and one of the primary ball-carriers for the bill, said in today’s press release. “NREPA also would formally designate as wilderness all 24 million acres of inventoried roadless areas in the Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington.”

"Many of America’s most precious natural resources and wildlife are found in the Northern Rockies,” said Maloney. “NREPA would help protect those resources by drawing wilderness boundaries according to science, not politics. NREPA would also help reduce global warming by protecting the corridors through which vulnerable wildlife can migrate to cooler areas.”

“I am proud to cosponsor this legislation to protect the Northern Rocky Mountains, one of America’s great natural areas,” added Grijalva, who recently lost out to Colorado’s Ken Salazar to be Secretary of the Interior. “A bold plan is needed to preserve and protect what remains of the Lewis and Clark legacy, and this bill would do just that.”

One of the points of criticism of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) is confusion over what lands are really covered by the massive proposal. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, one of the main architects and ball carriers of NREPA, has addressed that point by posting a detailed list of roadless lands affected by the bill.

Specifically, NREPA would:

• Designate as wilderness 24 million acres of ecosystems and watersheds in the Northern Rockies;
  
• Connect natural, biological corridors, ensuring the continued existence of native plants and animals and mitigating the effects of global warming;
  
• Restore habitat that has been severely damaged from roads that were built, creating more than 2,300 jobs and leading to a more sustainable economic base in the region;

• Keep water available for ranchers and farmers downstream until it is most needed; and
  
• Eliminate subsidized development in the designated wilderness areas, saving taxpayers $245 million over a 10-year period.

As with past introduction of NREPA no U.S. Senator or Representative from Idaho, Montana or Wyoming has offiically supported the bill.

The Costs of Clean Coal

MONTANA, Feb 06 (Neo Natura) - Steve Running, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and University of Montana professor, isn’t a big fan of what’s termed “clean coal,” which is touted as being environmentally friendly by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

While it’s technically possible to capture the carbon dioxide emitted by coal-fired plants and sequester the gas underground, the cost and energy involved to do so is “so overwhelming it doesn’t end up as being logical,” Running said on Tuesday. He came to the Queen City this week to lecture on the effects of climate change to Montana.

Running knows that not everyone believes the Earth’s climate is warming, and people point to blizzards on the East Coast and record cold temperatures as proof. But as a scientist, he’s studied the data and firmly believes that humans are significantly contributing to global warming.

“I think there are some well-funded professional deniers who are following the tobacco and cancer lobbies’ model, in a broad sense,” Running said. “They continue to say that in the broad sense, all the data isn’t in. But in reality it is in and no climate scientist comes to any different conclusion. The world is warming up.”

Climate scientists spent 40 years developing models and theorizing whether shorter, warmer winters were due to different earth orbits, sun spots or even a wobbling axis, Running said.

“But no model can recreate the acceleration of global temperatures without including greenhouse gases,” such as carbon dioxide, Running said. “We’re using our atmosphere as a free garbage can.”

Capturing those greenhouse gases and injecting them underground just moves the problem around, he added. Montana’s Legislature is looking at creating rules on carbon sequestration, and during Schweitzer’s State of the State address last week, the governor said sequestration is vital for coal development in Montana.

“I think we’ll end up ultimately with a better solution,” Running said.

But whether the world does that before it reaches the tipping point is the big question.

“We won’t know that we’ve hit the tipping point until we look backward,” Running said.

He does note that it took 100 million years for plants to decompose underground into fossil fuels like gas and coal, but we’re digging it up in only 100 years n an acceleration speed of about 1 million.

“That simple statement says that can’t work for very long,” Running said. “We haven’t moved very far in coming up with solutions in the past 10 years, but I’m hopeful that will change soon. It has to.”

The easiest first step, he added, is to embrace a variety of energy efficient opportunities, like electric cars or simply walking or riding bikes to work.

“In Europe, everything they do reduces their energy consumption,” Running said. “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to ride a train around town?”

Montanans are getting a front-row seat to the impacts of a warmer world, with shorter winters, hotter summers and a beetle epidemic that’s killing all of the lodgepole pines in the forests. Running theorized that in the future, the lodgepoles could be replaced by cactus and sagebrush, and Montana could start to look like Utah.

“Not that there’s anything bad about Utah,” he said, laughing.