I remember when Bush was working on a Forestry bill of some sort several years back and he explained how the clearing of under brush would greatly help in minimizing forest fires and deadly blazes.

I also remember several whack job environmentalist groups spouting how much they were against the bill (courtesy of the MSM).

To be fair ...

Glenn Beck on his show on Headline News the other night had on two guys who were noting how poor forest management, under pressure from enviro-groups, have not been cleaning out old fuels on the forest floors, and dead and diseased trees and such ... And how these groups have pressured state and local governments into forbidding folks from even managing their own properties in such preventative ways. 

But that IS Glenn Beck ... The lone voice of reason on CNN.

The rest of the TV media have been obsessed with pinning it on global warming ... and looking for a way to pin it on Bush, via the Iraq war.

Reading the above comments and thinking about how we allow bad decisions to be made in the name of supposedly "good" causes...

Why do we pander to these emotions when we know, from experience and factual information, that our very lives and fortunes are at risk, and that we have the tools to manage and reduce that risk? How have we allowed them to blackmail our feelings and force us to do things that make no sense? How do they gain so much traction on the fear and worry over such small things as "gnat-catchers" (whatever they are), when much larger things are put at such great risk? Are we stupid? How do they get so much buy-in to their agenda? What needs to be said to put it into proper perspective?

As the road of progress is laid down, something else is going to get displaced. That's a fact. Knowing that forest species reproduce as a result of fires, we can't build homes in the woods and expect them to NOT get burned - unless we specifically do something to change the environment.

So who will tell these environutjobs that we hear their concerns, understand the loss/consequences, and empathize, but that it's going to be handled rationally, so sit down and behave? If the community can't get them in check, can the banks who lend the mortgages? How about the insurance companies who pay out to rebuild?

As I think of all the misery this activism causes, I see them as obstructing the rational expectation for "life, liberty, and happiness". I wonder if some of this activism doesn't amount to treason... 

I think we're just too polite - out of common respect, we give them and their agenda too much leeway. No more Mr. Nice Guy! No more fantasy, feel-good legislation.

We should be more direct, truthful, and insistent that their concerns must have a "baseline" in the reality of the environment, culture, and society that already exists.

The following excerpts should shed some light on this situation:

Most people have a mistaken view of environmentalism. They see it as a movement whose goal is to protect the environment so that we, and future generations, may continue to enjoy it. Environmentalists might call for certain sacrifices--like stern priests calling upon us to do penance for our sins--but people take their word for it that those sacrifices will turn out to be for the good of "society." People feel virtuous in paying more for those organic blueberries and spending time washing out tin cans and nasty cloth diapers, because they see it as a sacrifice for the "greater good." And although "going green" may demand some cost and effort, it need not--on this view--be too burdensome nor demand personal hardships that are too great.

But in fact, the goal of environmentalism is not any alleged benefit to mankind; its goal is to preserve nature untouched--to prevent nature from being altered for human purposes. Observe that whenever there is a conflict between the goals of "preserving nature" and pursuing some actual human value, environmentalists always side with nature against man. If tapping Arctic oil reserves to supply our energy needs might affect the caribou, environmentalists demand that we leave vast tracts of Arctic tundra completely untouched. If a new freeway bypass will ease traffic congestion but might disturb the dwarf wedge mussel, environmentalists side with the mollusk against man. If a "wetland" is a breeding ground for disease-carrying insects, environmentalists fight to prevent it being drained no matter the toll of human suffering.

It is simply not true that environmentalism values human well being. It demands sacrifices, not for the sake of any human good, but for the sake of leaving nature untouched. It calls for sacrifice as an end in itself.

Though environmentalists will often claim to be opposed to merely "indiscriminate" or "excessive" consumption of natural resources, their ideology actually drives them to oppose any act of altering nature for human purposes. The environmentalist goal of "preserving nature" unavoidably conflicts with the requirements of human life: Man's basic means of survival is to reshape nature to serve his ends, to take the raw materials of his environment and use them to produce values. But this requires "touching" nature, not leaving it untouched. Even organic crops require land and water and energy; even hybrid cars are built of metal and plastic and glass, and use up fuel. All human activity, on whatever scale, violates the environmentalist injunction to "leave nature alone."

You can read the full article here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15867&news_iv_ctrl=1021  

If you're not outraged at the media, you haven't been paying attention.