Today's Stories

November 19, 2008

M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

November 18, 2008

Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley

George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?

Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State

Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales

John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico

Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script

Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime

Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?

Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con

Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?

November 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20

Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM

Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington

Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes

Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"

Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama

David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers

David Michael Green
Twelve Victories

Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?

Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble

November 14 / 16, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama

Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler

Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008

Moshe Adler
Keynes: China's Greatest Export?

Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?

Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism

Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"

Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!

Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border

Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration

Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez

Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State

Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times

Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People

Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?

Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con

Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics

Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times

Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot

Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy

Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter: the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March

Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis

Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber

David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"

Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It

November 13, 2008

Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole

Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?

Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy

Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime

Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology

Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three

Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products

Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun

Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate

Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us

Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?

November 12, 2008

Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska

Patrick Bond
Against Volcker

Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America

Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman

Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank

David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?

George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests

Susie Day
Heavy Weather

Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen

November 11, 2008

James G. Abourezk
How to Vote Against Your Own Interests

Allan J. Lichtman
What Obama Can Learn From FDR

Eric Toussaint
Financing the Bailout: a Holy Union for a Deuce of a Swindle

Ron Jacobs
Moving Beyond Hope: a Leftist Looks at the Near Future

Peter Montague
Green Coal?

Corporate Crime Reporter
BP's Big Spill on the North Slope

Laura Carlsen
Latin America Sends Obama a Piece of Its Mind

Col. Dan Smith
A New Unifying Paradigm?

Morton Skorodin
The Machine Grinds On

David Michael Green
My Michelle Moment

Charles R. Larson
Ask Your Doctor for a Free Sample

Website of the Day
Will Old Faithful Be Sucked Dry?

November 10, 2008

David Roediger
Obama's Victory and the Future of Race in the United States

Paul Craig Roberts
Conned Again?

Peter Lee
Obama's Man in Afghanistan

Corey D. B. Walker
And We Are Not Saved

Jeff Halper
A Bone in America's Throat

Bill Hatch
Look on the Bright Side, Dammit!

Andy Worthington
Guilty By Torture

Bill Quigley
Anger and Hope: Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse

Peter Morici
Paulson's Folly

Anthony Olszewski
The Advent of a New Black Politician

Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill

Cpt. Paul Watson
Farley Mowat's Last Book? Maybe Not

Website of the Day
Boondocks, Another Banned Episode

November 7 / 9, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief of Staff

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Fire

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Indian: the Many Faces of Sonal Shah

Tariq Ali
Great Expectations

Jean Bricmont
Our Obama Problem

John V. Whitbeck
Obama, Emanuel and Israel

Saul Landau
Politics Among the Ruins: Obama Faces an Economic Disaster

Peter Morici
Gone, Baby, Gone: Another 240,000 Jobs Lost

Lawrence Velvel
Obama and Afghanistan: the Return of Clintonia?

Karyn Strickler
Don't Govern From the Middle

Nativo V. Lopez
Banking on Obama with Open Eyes: Latinos and Obama

Christopher Fons
A Generational Moment: From Jackson to Obama

Alan Farago
Sarah Palin's Limited Engagement

David Yearsley
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Christopher Brauchli
Pardoning Industry: Bush's Latest Executive Orders

Samah Sabawi
Gaza's New Cemetery

Dave Lindorff
Getting the Change We've Earned

Deepak Tripathi
A Revolution to Remember

Beth Sherouse
In the Wake of Lost Initiatives: the Gay Glass is Half Empty

Patrick Irelan
La Belle Dame Sans Regrets: Back to Alaska

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Temple

Richard Rhames
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

J. Murray
White Cherokee Mythology

Lorenzo Wolff
Anthems for the Average Kid

Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill: Art Meets Realism in "The Exiles"

Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Fleming and Browne

Website of the Day
Take Who Takes You (For the New Big O)

November 6, 2008

Frank J. Menetrez
Now What?

John Chuckman
The Big Leap: From Hope to Change

P. Sainath
A Magic Moment (But Still Behind the Global Curve)

Joshua Frank
A Look Under the Hood of an Obama Administration

Edna Canetti
Come, Obama, Change My Life: a Plea from Israel

John Ross
Brad Will is Still Dead

Norman Solomon
Sorry Joe: a Mandate for Spreading the Wealth

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Morning After: Pakistan and Its New Bedfellow

Robert Weissman
Mordor Brightens: Obama's Challenge--and Our Own

Harvey Wasserman
A Blow to Nuclear Power in Chicago

Website of the Day
Pot Wins Big

November 5, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
Why McCain Lost

Chuck Spinney
How Obama Won

Ishmael Reed
Morning in Obamerica: the Promised Land?

Chris Floyd
A Prism for the New Paradigm: "What If Bush Did It?"

Binoy Kampmark
Obama's Victory: a Nation Divided

Michael Donnelly
The Rebooting of America, 2008

David Macaray
Who Should be Secretary of Labor?

Peter Morici
Obama's First Moves on the Economy

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
What Real Change Should Bring

William Willers
Will We be Forced to Sell Off the Public Lands?

Website of the Day
The Killing Fields of South Africa

November 4, 2008

Kathleen Christison
McCain, Obama and Khalidi

James Ridgeway
A New World?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Cleaning Out the Pentagon Pig Sty

Mike Whitney
Obama's Little Red Book

Conn Hallinan
A New Foreign Policy

Holly M. Barker
The Inequities of Climate Change and the Small Island Experience

Ashley Smith
Where is the Occupation of Iraq Heading?

Andy Worthington
Guilty Verdict Fails to Justify Gitmo Trials

Martha Rosenberg
AIG: Too Big to Play Fair

Stephen Martin
Breakdown of the Globalisation Agenda

Doug Lummis
Full Moon Over Okinawa

Carlos Fierro
An Anarchist View of Elections

Website of the Day
La Pequeña as Sarah Palin

November 3, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Friends Like These

John Kennedy O'Hara
Voter Lockdown: Prosecuting Voters

Peter Montague
Is Nuclear Power Green?

Steve Conn
Nader and the Youth Vote

Andrew Gebhardt
How Much Do the Differences Between Obama, McCain and Bush Really Matter?

Ron Jacobs
Bombing Syria: Borders are for Sissies

Ralph Nader
Between Hope and Reality: an Open Letter to Senator Obama

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Cleaning Up After Bush

Uri Avnery
Obama and the Order of the Optimists

Dave Lindorff
Studs and Me

Fred Gardner
Adieu, Rimonabant

DC Larson
You Are How You Vote

David Michael Green
McCain Finally Gets Tough

Val Strange
Hopeless Hoi Polloi or Step in the Right Direction?

Tuli Kupferberg /
Jeffrey Lewis
Wailing Wall Street:
Bring Spare Money!

Website of the Day
Pranking Palin (the Uncut Version)

October 31 , 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Change You Can See

Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Leroy Jackson: the Indian Wars Have Never Ended

Douglas Valentine
Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy: McCain's 14th Amendment Problem

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Great Bailout Fraud: Misrepresenting the Financial Crisis

Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski
Is the Global Economy a Mistake? an Interview with Paul Craig Roberts

Alan Maass
What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Spreading the Wealth?

William P. O’Connor
Reflections of an Average Joe

Patrick Irelan
Johnny's Tantrums: McCain the "Gook Hater"

Brian Cloughley
Out of Control: Memo From Islamabad

Mats Svensson
The Last Dance in Ramallah

Binoy Kampmark
Into Syria We Went

Steve Conn
The Future of Ted and Sarah

Alan Farago
The Division of Florida: the Politics of Growth

Morton Skorodin
The Bush-Obama-McCain Administration

Robert Bryce
Not McCain

Wajahat Ali
Dear John McCain, Please Stop...

David Yearsley
Palin's Flute, Obama's Voice

Dennis Loo
What to Do with Bush and Cheney?

Pam Martens
Why 2008 Feels Like 1932

Stephen Martin
Defense Strategies in Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Nothing for Something: the Doomed Rustic's Lament

Ramzy Baroud
A Third Palestinian Intifada

Missy Beattie
I'm Sick of Their Voices

Howard Lisnoff
Burning Reason: More From the Religious Right

Richard Neville
Pickled Heads: First the Revelation, Then the Revolution

Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassan
Bush Ultra Lite: Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem

Kim Nicolini
Max Payne: Vigilante Violence as Sex Story

Lorenzo Wolff
Dance to the Music--or Else!

Poets' Basement
Four Poems from the Japanese Trans. by Rexroth

Website of the Weekend
Art Against Empire

October 30, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
McCain's Women Problems

Vijay Prashad
Smearing Rashid Khalidi

Paul Craig Roberts
World Tires of Rule by Dollar

Glen Ford
Turning the Tide of Ethnic Cleansing in America's Cities

Stanley Heller
Wall Street Bonus Madness

William Loren Katz
"Kill Him!:" a Political Chronicle

Joshua Frank
Memo to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After the Election?

James McEnteer
The Year of Unreliable Witnesses

Felice Pace
The Big Change: Can "Civic Unreasonableness" Save the Earth?

Jonathan Cook
The Executions at Kafr Qassem

Reza Fiyouzat
Boycott the Elections!

Website of the Day
An Open Letter to Whole Foods

October 29, 2008

Arno J. Mayer
The US Empire will Survive Bush

Eric Toussaint
How the Food and Financial Crises are Interconnected

Matt Gonzalez
What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote?

Steven Conn
Obama and the Camp Followers

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Visit to a Father's Grave

Patrick Bond
Strauss-Kahn Strikes Again!

Ramzi Kysia
A Freedom Rider in Gaza City

Douglas Valentine
A Glimpse Inside the Head of Joe the Plumber

Stephen Martin
What America is Owed

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
Alternatives to Incarceration

Amee Chew
Support Obama, Vote McKinney?

Website of the Day
N-Word Chant Doesn't Phase Palin

October 28, 2008

James G. Abourezk
How to Bail Out the Taxpayers

Andy Worthington
The Empty Chair at Guantánamo

Gary Leupp
The Specter of the Sixties: Palin v. Ayers

Paul Craig Roberts
The End of the American Road

Mike Whitney
Meet the World's New Currency

Gregory V. Button
What the Next President Must Do to Save FEMA

Ralph Nader
Share the Sacrifices, Share the Benefits

P. Sainath
Haunted by Socialism

Martha Rosenberg
Melting Pot in Hell

Charles R. Larson
Palin/Wurzelbacher 2012!

Website of the Day
Why You Can't See Across the Grand Canyon

October 27, 2008

Michael Hudson
Scenes From the Global Class War

Barbara Rose Johnston
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?

John Dinges
Palling Around with Dictators: McCain and Pinochet

Mike Whitney
Chickenhawks and the Horrors of War

Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power

Alan Farago
Origins of the Fall

David Michael Green
Remind Me Again: Who Won the Cold War?

Andy Worthington
The Collapse of Omar Khadr's Guantánamo Trial

George Wuerthner
Is Ranching Sustainable? The Story of Bob the Rancher

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Obamanations of Barack

Website of the Day
Heartland of Darkness

October 24 / 26, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Waiting for the Curtain to Rise

Ishmael Reed
Boogiemen: How Lee Atwater Perfected the G.O.P.'s Appeal to Racism

Mike Whitney
Down for the Count

Don Santina
How Maria Fell: Death in the Central Valley

Scott Boehm
Manufacturing Sympathy: Palin, Special Needs and Identity Politics

Saul Landau
Faith-Based Surge: Whining About Winning in Iraq

Ron Jacobs
Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington

Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan the Un-Winnable

Linn Washington Jr.
The Great Vote Fraud Hoax

Nicole Colson
Mocking Our Rights: McCain's Disdain for Women's Health

Bernard Chazelle
The Humorology of Power

Brian Jones
Campaign by Codeword

Christopher Brauchli
Down the Drain with McCain's Vetters

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism

Val Strange
The Fraternity of John McCain: Scenes from North Carolina

Joe Mowrey
Name That Candidate: He Supports Petraeus, the Death Penalty, the Bailout, Nuclear Power, the Occupation...

Steve Early
SEIU Learns the Meaning of "No"

David Macaray
Patriotism and the Labor Movement

Allison Kilkenny
You Have the Right to Airport Harassment

Richard Rhames
Open Season

Jim Bell
Nuclear Power's Big Con

Kris De Welde
Domestic Violence and Financial Stress

Barry Clemson
John Wayne Syndrome

Adam Engel
Last Exit to Disneyland

Mark Scaramella
The World's Weirdest Pipe Organ?

Tuli Kupferberg
Nobody for President: the Original Version (Annotated)

Lorenzo Wolff
A Frustrated, Broken-Hearted Joy from Kidnapkin

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Swartzfager and Payne

Website of the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Dismantles the Surge

October 23, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
What Voter Fraud?

Todd Chretien
Why I'm Not Voting for Obama

John Ross
No Child Left Behind, Mexican-Style

Peter Morici
Strategies to End the Crisis

Mats Svensson
Short Film Clips at a Checkpoint

Marlene Martin
Don't Let Them Execute an Innocent Man

Robert Jensen /
Pat Youngblood
Looking Beyond the Election and Beyond Elections

Margaret Kimberley
Rightwing Obama Love

Deepak Tripathi
Post-Bush Scenarios

David Morris
Why Joe the Plumber is a Socialist (And You Are, Too)

Website of the Day
Voting While Black in North Carolina

October 22, 2008

Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians

Heather Gray
Raising Hell in the South: the Legacy of J. L. Chestnut, Jr.

Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain

Ralph Nader
The Song Remains the Same: Convergence and Avoidance in the Presidential Election

DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider

David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth

Larry Everest
9/11 and the Imperial Adventure in Afghanistan

Robert Fantina
Anything to Win

Martha Rosenberg
The Financier's Playbook

Stephen Martin
Giving It Up to the Combine

Website of the Day
Brokers with Hands on Their Faces

October 21, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Wealth's Apostles

Paul Craig Roberts
How Inflation Works: Why I Can't Buy an Old Ferrari

Corey D. B. Walker
Empire and White Supremacy

Steve Breyman
How to "Win" in Afghanistan

Eric Toussaint
The Economic Crisis and Latin America: Time to Delink

Wajahat Ali
Boo Radley Comes Out to Play: the Emerging Muslim-American Electorate

Robert Weitzel
Wasting a Vote for Lincoln's Radical Ideal (Or Why I'm Voting for Nader)

Brendan Cooney
Palinoscopy: an Exploration of Why Liberals are So Obsessed with Sarah Palin

Dave Lindorff
Cuba's Oil Reserves: a Game-Changer?

Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing
When You're a Black Candidate There's No Such Thing as a Safe Lead

Patrick B. Barr
Socialist, Socialist, SOCIALIST!

Omar Barghouti
The Boycott and Palestinian Groups: Countering the Critics

Website of the Day
How to Dismantle a US War Plane (and Get Away With It)

October 20, 2008

Michael Hudson
The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout

Anthony DiMaggio
The Scandal That Never Was: ACORN, Rightwing Media and Election "Fraud"

Tariq Ali
Zardari Bans My Books

Uri Avnery
Is Akko Burning?

Bill Quigley
Hammered by the Swedes

Ben Rosenfeld
The Politics of St. Joe, Martyr to a Lie

David Michael Green
Payback's a Bitch: McCain on the Ash Heap

William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage

Chris Genovali
Drill, Baby, Drill (Wink, Wink)

Stephen Martin
The Last Man in America

Howard Lisnoff
Bad News for War Resisters

David Yearsley
Organ Meat

Website of the Day
Our Brother is Sick: the Steve Ferguson Cancer Fund

October 17 / 19, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Blow Ups and Bombers

Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Hanford: a Trip to America's Most Toxic Place

Pam Martens
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout

Paul Craig Roberts
Government of Thieves

Mike Whtney
No More Investment Banks

Michael D. Yates
Bowling Alley Blues: Racism Dies Hard in Johnstown, PA

Suzanne Smith
The Energy-War Connection: McCain Said It, Why Don't We?

Carl Boggs
Prosecuting Bush

Ralph Nader
Closing the Courthouse Doors

Fidel Castro
The Global Crash

Dave Marsh
The Great Levi Stubbs

Saul Landau
Denial, the Election Musical Comedy

Jo Guldi
The Floods of Heaven

Kevin Zeese
Now the Cost of War Really Matters

Larry Everest
Afghanistan, Not a Good War Gone Bad

Steve Early
Stop, in the Name of Joe!

David Macaray
Hey, Joe

Ben Terrall
When Ike Hit Haiti

Missy Beattie
Palin and God's Children

Don Monkerud
American Exceptionalism

Helen Redmond
Health Care Now's Big Con

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision: Canals and Dams to Bail Out Big Ag

Wajahat Ali
Bush Gets Stoned

Farzana Versey
The White Tiger's Stripes and Gripes

Vladimir Frolov
Medvedev to Obama: We Come Not to Bury America, But to Buy It

Kim Nicolini
Frozen River: At Last, a Great Movie That's Neither Hip Nor Cool

Poets Basement
Gibbons, Corsale, Davis and Fleming

Website of the Day
The Real Sarah Palin?

November 19, 2008

Context and Perspective About Western Forest Ecology

The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction

By GEORGE WUERTHNER

In the November 17th Science Section of the New York Times there was an article by Jim Robbins about the current pine beetle event occurring in the West.

There was a lot of good factual information in the piece about pine beetles and their basic ecology, and on the whole, Robbins did a good job of describing some of the concerns that people have about the beetle situation. Nevertheless, the tone and implied message conveyed an overly pessimistic and negative picture of beetles as well as wildfires. It was not so much that it had a lot of false statements as much as the way it was written. Taken together the various quotes, and background in the article leaves one with the perception that somehow beetles, as well as wildfires are “out of control” in the West's ecosystems.

What is lacking is perspective and context. As a writer myself I recognize that space limitations often affect the detail that can be contained in an article. Sometimes you can’t list all the exceptions, nuance, and provide the full context for a piece. Robbins got a lot of ecological information in his piece, and in that regard he did a good job.

However, it seems to me that the real “news” here isn’t that we are having large outbreaks of beetles, but that such events are probably quite normal when looked at from an ecological temporal and spatial perspective. Those who are asserting these are the largest outbreaks in history are only going back a relatively short time—perhaps the past 50-100 years for the context and perspective. At least some beetle researchers I’ve talked with believe the current infestation (infestation is pejorative and not a good word to use here, but I can think of nothing more suitable) is not that out of the ordinary when compared to other large events from the more distance past.

We are seeing unprecedented drought and much warmer temperatures as Robbins noted in the article. But what he did not do is connect the dots. Such droughts mean that our forests are overstocked for current conditions, and the beetles as well as wildfires are doing us all a great favor by thinning them at no cost. Instead of portraying this natural thinning process as a problem, a more ecologically informed perspective might suggest that the beetles are creating forests that are more in balance with available moisture, and other nutrients.

Now the global warming that is occurring may be unnatural--due to human caused climate change--but that is the problem, not the response of the beetles, fires, and forest to that climate change.

Large beetle outbreaks and wildfires in particular, rather than being “destructive” as insinuated in the article are the major ecological influences upon these types of forest ecosystems. The real “news” is that what people think about forests and wildfires is not accurate.

For instance, dead trees do not necessarily increase fire risk, and in fact, green trees might burn better under severe drought conditions. And dead trees provide many ecological benefits—which were not even mentioned in the piece to balance the doom and gloom. This kind of information is really the “news” especially for the Science Section of the New York Times.

The piece also mentions fire suppression as one of the factors that has led to even aged stands of lodgepole vulnerable to pine beetle attack. (Pine beetle typically only attack larger trees so trees growing back from recent burns are not susceptible to attack) Rather than fire suppression contributing to these large beetle events, what is more likely occurring is a significant proportion of lodgepole pine stands in the West created by past large fires and/or beetle outbreaks a century or more ago are now the proper size and age to support sustained beetle population growth. As Robbins does note correctly when they reach this size, and are stressed by drought, they are less able to extrude beetles attempting to lay eggs in the tree’s cambium layer.

One of the reasons that fire suppression is unlikely to have had much effect upon the region’s lodgepole forest vulnerability to beetles has to do with the typical fire regime of this species. Lodgepole pine typically burns infrequently at relatively long intervals between fires, and generally in stand replacement blazes.

Significant fires in lodgepole pine only occur when there is severe drought--conditions as we are experiencing now. So the idea that past fire suppression reduced fires in these kinds of forests is unlikely or at best probably has had little influence on total fires and acreage burned today. Lodgepole forests don’t burn simply because there are dead trees—whether those trees are a consequence of past fires or beetle attack. It takes specific climatic conditions to sustain a fire.

There is a widespread misuse of the Southwest ponderosa pine model fire regime which is too often indiscriminately to all forests. While Southwest ponderosa pine forests are characterized by frequent low intensity fires that may have been altered by fire suppression, this generalization should not be applied to other forest types like lodgepole pine which naturally have much longer fire intervals. Fire suppression simply hasn’t been effective long enough to alter the fire intervals in lodgepole forests.

The other factors listed in Robbin’s piece--drought and warm winters--are the main reasons for this particular spectacular beetle outbreak. And these are largely factors controlled by climate--likely human induced global warming-- rather than fire suppression.

Another factor that was not really addressed in the piece was the current condition of our forests is largely a reflection of either past fires and/or past beetle outbreaks. In other words, the extensive geographic extent of lodgepole of the proper age to make them vulnerable to beetles is a consequence of past events that created large stands of even aged pine.

There is data to suggest that previous beetle outbreaks every bit as large as and/or larger than the current one have repeatedly swept pine in the West. Put into that kind of perspective, the current events do not seem so extraordinary.

The problem is that we humans have such a short temporal viewpoint on ecological change. Events like large wildfires and beetle outbreaks that occur periodically, but only every century or two "seem" large because we are not witness to them but once every generation or two. That is why the Yellowstone fires seemed extraordinary to the country even though research has demonstrated that large blazes, often much larger than those in 1988, occurred in Yellowstone’s forests in centuries past.

Furthermore, just as a hundred year flood does a lot of the real hydrological work of a river in terms of channel morphology changes, these large fires and outbreaks of beetles are the major ecological force in their respective ecosystems. In other words, the small fires and outbreaks that occur on a more frequent basis really don't matter because they don't amount to a hill of beans. It's the occasional, but rather uncommon large events that are the real driver of ecosystems. This perspective was regrettably missing from the article.

Third, the idea that dead lodgepole increases fire risk is also more nuanced than presented. In most of lodgepole pine forests it is too wet to burn most of the time--regardless of the fuels that are present. That is why lodgepole forests tend to burn on long intervals—because conditions that make them dry enough to burn readily do not occur frequently. Just because you have a lot of dead trees, doesn't mean you will have a large fire or the fire risk is higher in those particular forest types.

Beyond that point, the overall fire hazard changes through time, and it is not as neat as presented in the article. Immediately following the attack and the red needle stage, flammability goes up. But what is the likelihood that there will be an ignition and that it will be wet enough for these trees to burn during that short period of several years. Well it turns out it is a very small probability.

Probability is an important factor in these discussions. The fact that you have a lot of red needles out there doesn't translate into higher fire risk unless the other factors that contribute to large blazes like wind, drought, low humidity, and ignition are also present. Getting all these factors together on the same piece of land at the same time that the forest is dominated by red needles is extremely rare--which is why lodgepole pine forests do not burn very often.

But after the needles drop, and small branches break off the trees, the flammability goes down for several decades--so even with drought, wind, etc. the probability of fire actually goes down over that which might occur if the trees were green and alive. In reality, a standing dead tree is not likely to burn except under very severe fire conditions.

Under severe drought conditions, green trees are more flammable than dead trees (where the small branches and needles are gone) because they have flammable resins. Thus under extreme drought conditions, your green forests are more likely to burn than a sea of dead trees at this stage.

The bulk of trees killed by fire or beetles do not fall over for several decades. Even then, what increases flammability aren’t so much the dead trees, but the rapid growth of young trees that take advantage of the opening in the forest canopy and reduction in competition. Since it is fine fuels that sustains fire, not large snags, it is the young trees, grass, shrubs, etc. that rapidly fill up the ground and can carry a fire that leads to greater flammability.

Big logs, as most of us probably know from trying to make campfires, are not easily ignited . If you don’t have a lot of “kindling” under the logs, ignition from a match, spark or any other source, won’t get the log to burn. The larger the log, the more preheating require to get it up to the burning point and keep it there. You need a lot of fine fuels and small branches to carry and sustain a fire. It is the rapid growth of smaller trees, etc. that provides this small fuels, which can heat the larger logs to the ignition point and help to sustain the flames.

Fourth, the article unfortunately had a lot of dire stuff about mudslides, floods, etc. which may or may not follow a fire, but even if it does, even these events must be put into perspective. Research shows these kinds of natural events are relatively rare. And at least in some places, research has shown that the bigger and most severe burns actually have contributed to higher biodiversity, more fish, etc. than lightly burned areas. In other words, contrary to popular perception, severe wildfires might not be “bad” from a biodiversity and ecological perspective—even for things we care about like the quality of the trout fishing.

Another problem with the piece was the use of pejorative language. In my book Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy I discuss at length about how language helps to promote the idea that wildfires are "bad" by using words like "catastrophic", “disaster”, “damaged”, and other adjectives used to describe wildfires. Such terms are really pejorative word since large fires are not deadly to the landscape or ecosystems as implied.

As mentioned at the beginning, most of the factual content of the article was accurate, but still the author weaved together a report that presented an ecologically inaccurate portrait of the situation. Context and perspective are critical to our collective understanding of ecological events, and without such information, we react with poor policy choices.

George Wuerthner is editor of Wildfire.

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