What kind of 'Twee' would you be?

"No forest of any kind should be used to make toilet paper," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist and waste expert with the Natural Resource Defense Council.

These enviro-nuts are certifiable.

I'll make it simple...a tree is a crop. If you cut down a tree, you can plant one in its place. Hell, you can plant three in its place. There is nothing special about an "old growth" tree other than it being comparatively older than a non-"old growth" tree.

This may shock you...but I really don't care if I upset the habitat of the all important three-stripe hopping mouse in the process.

Sting...I mean Gordon Sumner...call your office...

CHILIBRE, Panama: The land where Marta Ortega de Wing raised hundreds of pigs until 10 years ago is being overtaken by galloping jungle - palms, lizards and ants.

Instead of farming, she now shops at the supermarket, and her grown children and grandchildren live in places like Panama City and New York.

Here, and in other tropical countries around the world, small holdings like Ortega de Wing's - and much larger swaths of farmland - are reverting back to nature, as people abandon their land and move to the cities in search of better livings.

These new "secondary" forests are emerging in Latin America, Asia and other tropical regions at such a fast pace that the trend has set off a serious debate about whether saving primeval rain forest - an iconic environmental cause - may be less urgent than once thought. By one estimate, for every half a hectare of rain forest cut down each year, more than 20 hectares, or 50 acres, of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster.

"There is far more forest here than there was 30 years ago," said Ortega de Wing, 64, who remembers fields of mango trees and banana plants.

Gosh...who would have guessed that the zealot rainforest-type environmentalist was full of mangos? Now...let's see...how do I purchase a couple hundred hectares of this forest and charge Exxon retro-actively for carbon credits?

New rug...

NOTTINGHAM – A bear that was part of a University of New Hampshire research project was shot and killed by police last month after attempting to enter a woman's home.

Now the researcher directing the project is questioning why state Fish and Game Department officials recommended killing the bear when he believes other methods were possible.

For the record, the bear knocked out a window and was attempting to enter the home when police arrived.

Pete Pekins, a professor of wildlife ecology at UNH's department of natural resources and the environment, is directing the bear research study.

The bear was collared in September in Lee and tracked as it moved through southern New Hampshire, going from as far west as Candia and as far east as Dover and Durham, Pekins said.

At the time of its capture in September the bear weighed 160 pounds though, like many humans this time of year, it has probably put on weight recently. It was captured using a favorite bear treat: jelly-filled doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts.

Originally Pekins wanted to catch several bears for the study, but was unable to and only had the single bear. He said the animal did not have to die.

"You could have just left the bear alone and it probably would have left," he said. "To believe that the bear would have broken into the house, I think that's highly debatable."

I do believe that a prerequisite to being a college professor is that you have to be unhinged without the least bit of a clue as to priorities or common sense. He believed that the bear that knocked out a window with its head would have just gone away...for the all knowing environmentalist professor believes it to be "highly debatable." For those keeping score at home...Professor Pekins would rather gamble on the life of a human than a bear. UNHINGED.

Also, Professor Pekins trapped and collared the bear the previous year by luring it with jelly doughnuts from "Dunkin Donuts." Anyone want to take a stab at the hypocrisy here...and why a bear might get the idea that there might be food in a man-made dwelling...perhaps more of those tasty doughnuts?

On a personal note...I spent a couple of years in the northern part of New Hampshire and saw bears on a regular basis. The first day I moved in (Near Judge Souter's spread) I was warned not to put up any bird feeders because they attracted the bears. The point is that if my goal was to collar bears, I would have more than one on the grid in over a year's study time. Professor Pekins is not only unhinged...he's incompetent to boot.

I know...let's ask Timothy Treadwell to weigh in.

.

Dueling Banjos II...

IN THIS CORNER:

There is an urgent need for action to protect kangaroos from a barbaric industry which slaughters them for meat and leather. Please do all you can to help Viva! end this shameful massacre.
---Sir Paul McCartney

AND, IN THIS CORNER:

SYDNEY: How many kangaroo steaks will Australians eat this holiday season? Not enough, according to a growing body of academics who say that giving up beef and lamb for kangaroo would reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions and ease pressure on a drought-stricken land.

Worry not. Even if they divorce each other...they are still brother and sister.

I knew that name..."Crooked Carol Browner"--Malkin

Michelle Malkin digs deeper...

My syndicated column today puts the screws on Clintonite Carol Browner, rumored to be Obama’s choice for energy czar. She’s not so fresh and so clean. And conservatives should raise their voices for, you know, real change.

I noted the "wonderful" Carol Browner back on November 19th when Byron York first suggested that she was going to head Energy and Environment.

Michelle gathers up the dregs and provides a solid piece. Here's the short version...Carol Browner is a political hack with the usual baggage...and it will be an agenda driven ride with her at the wheel.

Make it plastic, pal...BYOP

Toronto shoppers will start paying 5 cents for throwaway plastic shopping bags starting June 1, Toronto council has confirmed.

And despite a determined industry lobby to block the measure, councillors voted to ban the sale or distribution of bottled water immediately at City Hall and civic centres, where contracts permit, and by 2011 at other city-owned facilities such as arenas and theatres.

The final vote: 30 in favour of the bag and bottle measures, 13 against.

I will refuse to give the Environmental Fundamentalists the satisfaction should this baloney ever reach my neck of the woods. Toronto is just the latest to levy a bag tax (and that’s what it is). Ireland charges the equivalent of 15 cents per bag and gives the money to environmental boondoggle projects. England charges 10 pence per plastic bag.

In the United States, Seattle charges 20 cents for a plastic bag at grocery, drug and convenience stores. Not to be outdone, San Francisco banned plastic bags altogether. As of January 22, there was a push to tax plastic bags across the entire state of California.

FINE…knock yourself out…

Me? I’ll be purchasing 1,000 volume crates of standard plastic grocery bags (MB-T-24TK) at a whopping cost of 3 cents per unit over the internet (unless I decide to get real nasty and form a coalition to purchase them bulk at a lesser cost). Yeah, I'll be paying 3 cents a bag…but the money goes into a private corporation and not in the pocket of some benevolent do-gooder bullsh*t artist.