every year to degrade and destroy Colorado鈥檚 landscape by bankrolling industrial logging of tens of thousands of acres annually. The project would be done under the scientifically debunked and counterproductive guise of 鈥渨ildfire prevention.鈥� Prop 137 is the new thalidomide.
For those who don鈥檛 know the history of the infamous drug, thalidomide was foisted on an unsuspecting public in the 1950s by the pharmaceutical industry as a mild sedative and later — tragically 鈥� to mask nausea in pregnant mothers.
Despite repeated early warnings by whistleblowers — nearly all of whom were ignored, censored, and/or publicly defamed 鈥� the drug was sold to a worldwide public who soon discovered its horrific harms vastly overshadowed its minimal uses.
In the case of thalidomide, these harms were catastrophic birth defects in babies born to pregnant mothers on the drug, including: severely deformed or missing arms, legs, hands, and feet; eye problems including blindness; missing or malformed ears, ear canals, and hearing impairment; facial paralysis; organ defects; neurodevelopmental conditions; and severe chronic pain and mobility issues lasting a lifetime.
When it comes to 鈥渇uel reduction鈥� logging under the pretext of protecting communities and — absurdly 鈥� nature itself from natural wildfire, harms are ecological in the form of forest clearing and removal, erasure of wildlife habitat, soil compaction and erosion, watershed despoilation, air pollution, and local and global climate impacts.
But, also, adding injury to injury, the consensus of peer-reviewed science shows that wildfire-pretext logging will do next to nothing to protect communities or reduce high-severity wildfire (an essential and historic process across all Colorado鈥檚 forests). Science and simple observation proves it will dry out and heat up forests while opening them to wind. Yes, the truth is, such logging will only increase the likelihood of fires igniting and rapidly spreading embers and flames to communities, endangering homes and lives such as mine, and the safety of firefighters such as my father.
Don鈥檛 believe me? Even studies funded by the U.S. Forest Service — which carries out 鈥渇uel reduction鈥� on federal lands 鈥� have found that 鈥渇uel treatments are not designed to prevent or stop fires but to moderate fire behavior when fire inevitably returns,鈥� yet, crucially, 鈥渁re unlikely to mitigate fire severity during extreme weather,鈥� the only time fires seriously threaten communities.
And this, buried in another Forest Service聽study, 鈥淩educed canopy bulk density can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread in thinned forests.鈥�
Just like Big Pharma did with thalidomide, the $1.8 billion budget land management nonprofit behind Prop 137, The Nature Conservancy (as exposed by , is working with companies that could profit hugely from forest thalidomide through public lands logging contracts and corporate foundation grants while distracting the public from proven ways to address real — if often exaggerated 鈥� community threats from wildfire.
Prop 137鈥檚 nonprofit, corporate, agency, and politician sponsors and promoters even testified against and effectively killed a statehouse bill this spring that would鈥檝e routed a percentage of their precious logging money toward home hardening grants for low-income, elderly, and disabled Coloradans to actually protect property and lives.
Aside from ignoring the obvious ecological impacts of clearcutting, mature and old-growth tree logging, and logging across Roadless Areas, Endangered Species Habitat, and old-growth forest, 137 pushers deceived the public while collecting signatures by claiming such industrial logging can ever, in any way, 鈥減revent wildfire鈥� (not even the staunchly pro-logging U.S. Forest Service, Colorado State Forest Service, County Parks and Open Space, or Colorado Forest Restoration Institute would make such an impossible claim).
While thalidomide is widely considered 鈥渢he worst man-made medical disaster in history,鈥� if its backers can trick enough voters to pass Prop 137 so tens of thousands of annual acres of our state鈥檚 iconic forests are denuded and wildfires rip through communities just the same — or even more quickly 鈥� wildfire pretext logging may one day be considered the worst man-made ecological and public safety disaster in Colorado history.
Josh聽Schlossberg lives in rural Boulder County adjacent to public lands.
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