Showing posts with label DoW. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DoW. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2011

EnviroSpin

Copyright © 2011 C. R. Edmunds
www.onestillfree.com June 24, 2011

Spin is a term used to describe a process of twisting strands of fiber together to form thread, yarn, rope and such. It is also used to describe twisting information in a way so as to create a new description of reality, a new thread of thought so to speak. At its darkest, spin is a way of manipulating the thought of others as a means to an end that the others might not agree with if they were told the same story with all the facts unspun.

Let me give you a couple examples of this thing I call envirospin, taken from a pair of news releases put out just today by Wild Earth Guardians and Defenders of Wildlife. Both of them basically are some quick spinning of facts to “prove” that environmentalists aren’t to blame for the massive catastrophic wildfires now occurring around the US.

WEG’s envirospin is in the form of a kind of sleight of hand in their news release, “Lack of Logging Isn’t To Blame in Massive Forest Fires”. Here we have the statement that there have been “few lawsuits challenging sensible fuel reduction on the national forests in the last decade”. On the surface that’s of course true – but only because a) all the suing was done before the last decade, b) the definition of “sensible” fuel reduction is defined by the environmental groups themselves, and c) this decade’s “few lawsuits” doesn’t include all the habitat litigation that has the same effect, since endangered species lawsuits stop work in the forest just as effectively as logging lawsuits do.

Few lawsuits maybe, but to make sure everyone toes the line, the various environmental groups send a representative to every planning meeting to make sure that all understand the threat. It’s kind of like the mob sending a hit man to your restaurant for lunch to remind you how risky it would be to not pay your protection. So yes, not so many lawsuits about logging these days if you believe the envirospin – but that doesn’t mean that the lack of logging isn’t to blame.

DoW ‘s email news release this morning, “Wildlife Alert”, is another envirospin magic trick. DoW says that humanity is the root problem, because people cause climate change (note that environmentalists don’t use “global warming” any more - too many freezing people are dubious of that concept). DoW snuck wildfires into the news release, hoping that no one would notice their clumping of “forest health” with all the other natural-type stuff like droughts, storms and floods. This unbelievable spin would have the reader believe that human management of forests, particularly environmentalist dictated management practices, is not a factor of catastrophic wildfire. Oh yeah, humans are the cause – envirospin tells us that humans are the source of everything bad – but environmentalist humans are not the problem in any way.

Envirospin is interesting in how similar it is to other serial criminal activity. The perpetrators get more and more confident and less and less circumspect. They figure no one can catch them out. They begin to believe they’re invulnerable.

Oh, I don’t think so.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

APWE CHALLENGES MEXICAN WOLF PETITION

AMERICANS FOR PRESERVATION OF WESTERN ENVIRONMENT, INC.
PO BOX 612
RESERVE NM 87830
Ed Wehrheim, Chair

Contact: Ed Wehrheim FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Phone 575.533.6687
Email: info@amprowest.org


APWE CHALLENGES MEXICAN WOLF PETITION
Group Asks Is Mexican Wolf Really Worth The Cost

RESERVE, N.M. On August 11, 2009, the Tucson-based environmental litigation group, Center For Biological Diversity (CBD), filed a petition with Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

“The petition calls for taking the Mexican wolf off of its current experimental, non-essential” status and putting it on fully endangered status,” said Ed Wehrheim, Chair of Americans for Preservation of Western Environment (APWE), a citizen-based New Mexico non-profit corporation. APWE was formed in 2008 in response to the outrage of New Mexico and Arizona residents and business owners over the callous disregard for the welfare and safety of human beings by the Mexican Wolf Program.

“CBD also wants a critical habitat designation for the wolves,” Wehrheim said. “This means expansion of the existing designated Mexican wolf area, closure of our trails and roads, denying human access, and hunting and grazing restrictions. In other words, our public lands will be closed to the public. ”

The 22 page petition (with additional 10 pages of citations) claims that the Mexican wolf’s historic range is not precisely known, and that wolves can live anywhere that hosts an adequate prey base of ungulates, yet also claims that these wolves occur in an unusual and unique ecological setting.

“The only unusual and unique setting for the Mexican wolves is that this is a low human population area, so CBD figures that the people don’t matter,” Wehrheim said. “Americans for Preservation of Western Environment intends to set CBD straight on that issue.”

APWE’s first annual meeting is being held in Reserve, NM on Saturday, October 10, 2009, at 10 a.m. at the Reserve Community Center. APWE’s board will present an accounting of its work on behalf of the people who live in the Mexican wolf recovery area over the past year, and talk about plans for future actions. Everyone is welcome to attend.

“It’s not as if humans weren’t here, as if humans don’t matter,” Wehrheim said. “We’re citizens, we have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, just like anyone else. We don’t intend to be run over by environmental litigation groups like CBD.”

"After ten years, more than $400,000 per wolf and untold damage to our communities, they’re trying to blame their own failure with the Mexican wolf program on us, the people who live here in the program area," Wehrheim said.


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Thursday, October 1, 2009

What's Truth Got To Do With It?

Defenders of Wildlife is using pity for three legged wolves to raise funds. They say in a "news" release: "Will you help us protect the Middle Fork wolves? Your tax-deductible donation today will help us."

Pay attention here folks! DoW is saying your deduction will help THEM, not the wolves. Those three legged wolves of the Middle Fork pack (that are not too lame to stop killing cattle)? One lost her leg because Fish & Wildlife Service amputated it after an elk kicked the wolf. The other probably was a FWS trapping, too. In fact, FWS has damaged a number of wolves in traps - and I bet you thought they used "have-a-hearts" when they trapped those wolves. Nope. Jaw traps. Your government in action.

Don't forget: The wolf program traps wolves routinely for all kinds of reasons - they just won't let the poor critters alone. They trap to vaccinate them, to change the batteries on their collars, and they trap them when they want to catch up the pups to raise them in captivity.

DoW would have you think that wolves need protecting from mean ranchers who hurt and trap them. But really, wolves need protection from the wolf program more than anything else.

And the public needs protecting from organizations like DoW, that take your money by appealing to your heartstrings. Not to be confused with presenting the facts.