Sunnucks forgot to mention that the name "Gallego" is from a Spanish word for "Celtic." This little detail may be irrelevant, but does relevance really matter in this context?

Nice try, Thucididies, but this particular mantra has been repeated over and over again. At best, it is only part of the problem. This might be true for the trees in the lowlands such as mesquites, but the trees in the areas we are talking about are largely dependent on precipitation. For the most part, these soils are too shallow to retain a significant amount of water. Otherwise, these lands would have been cleared for intensive farming decades ago. Beyond this, Republicans have been complaining about the state of forest management for years without understanding the complexity of the problem. They blame "radical enviros" even though in some cases, sound management has been neglected because of opposition from ranchers and small business, or because of lack of funding. The problem is hardly a simple one, and is ill suited to be properly addressed on Twitter.