Andy Kerr

Conservationist, Writer, Analyst, Operative, Agitator, Strategist, Tactitian, Schmoozer, Raconteur

Administration

Will Trump Dump National Monuments?

in , , , , , , ,

President Trump signed an executive order on April 26, 2017, that directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review sixty-two of the last three presidents’ national monument proclamations, dating back to 1996. The review will result in a final report in four months that “shall include recommendations, Presidential actions, legislative proposals, or other actions consistent with law.”

The administration is interested in either totally abolishing, reducing in size, and/or weakening the protections for national monuments. Those prerogatives belong to Congress. If Trump tries, he’ll get a multitude of tweets saying, “See you in court!”

Read More

Reigniting the Pacific Northwest Timber Wars by Logging More Old Growth: Bring It On, President Trump!

in , , , , , , , ,

At 61 and with acrophobia, I’m no use in climbing old trees to defend them from the chainsaw. But a younger generation of activists will sit, en masse, in those threatened old-growth trees, in front of bulldozers, and/or in appropriate offices. And if it comes to that, I’m happy to get arrested in offices of the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Republican Party, the timber industry, or elected officials.

Bring it on, President Trump. Bring it on, Big Timber. Bring it on, Rep. Walden. Go ahead, make my day: reignite the Pacific Northwest timber wars.

Let the battle be joined, as nothing less is at stake than the lands and forests we leave to future generations.

Read More

The November 2016 Election: Processing the Five Stages, Then Moving On

in , ,

There are those days where one is reminded, by a proverbial kick in the gut, that life is not fair. Such was the day of the general election of November 2016.

I take solace in the fact that this was not an election about public lands or climate change. Nonetheless, the consequences to public lands and climate change will likely be grave....

The ultimate backstop for public lands and climate change is the American electorate. I am confident that most care about public lands and enough care about climate change so that we can persevere and—in the end—be victorious on both

Read More

Keep It in the Ground

in , , , ,
Keep It in the Ground

Fundamentally, we need to dramatically reduce—and then reverse—fossil-fuel carbon emissions into the atmosphere. In short, we need to keep it in the ground.

Keeping it in the ground means discouraging or prohibiting new fossil fuel development and production anywhere. It means no new infrastructure such as pipelines, roads, and refineries. It means divestment of stocks in fossil-fuel companies, taxing fossil fuel use at or above the social cost of carbon (SC-CO2), and more. No single silver bullet will achieve the necessity of keeping all fossil fuels safely in the ground. Rather it will be numerous courses of action—silver buckshot if you will—that will prevent the end of life on Earth as we have known and enjoyed it.

Read More