The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the second of four Public Lands Blog posts that examine the government mishandling of the Bundys, the Bundys’ legal troubles, the Bundys’ legal troublemaking, and the opportunities for the conservation community to apply political jujitsu on Bundy et al. to advance the conservation of America’s public lands.

The Bundy band represents both an existential threat and an existential opportunity for America’s public lands. This is the first of four Public Lands Blog posts that examine the government mishandling of the Bundys, the Bundys’ legal troubles, the Bundys’ legal troublemaking, and the opportunities for the conservation community to apply political jujitsu on the Bundy gang to advance the conservation of America’s public lands.

There might be far more or far less oil and gas offshore Oregon and Washington than the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has estimated (see last weeks Public Lands Blog post). In any case, we really cannot afford to find out, as the only prudent course is to Keep It in the Ground and out of the atmosphere. This means all fossil fuels, offshore and onshore.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) estimates there is an even chance that 0.4 billion barrels of oil and 2.28 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that are technically exploitable might be discovered under the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Oregon and Washington. At 2017 rates of consumption, this amount of oil and gas would fuel the United States for twenty and thirty-one days respectively, meaning the United States would convert to a carbon-free economy a month later than we otherwise will.

If one is going to live in or near a forest, one assumes a higher risk of fire. The best way to minimize that risk is to seriously and continually create and maintain defensible space. It’s not cheap. If it were, it would have been done already.

Soon after a wildfire, forests undergo a remarkable transformation. Large dead and remaining live trees, native plants, and seed sources act as “biological legacies” that “lifeboat” a forest from new growth to old growth over a period of decades to centuries. Biological legacies provide habitat for scores of pollinators, songbirds and woodpeckers, small mammals, and big game species that readily populate burn areas, including many species that thrive in them.