Environmental Activism? Wilderness Concerns?

Scott,
First, let me express my appreciation for a very cogent arguement.

beezaur said:
Pat,

The guy's taxes rose before there were improvements. He was driven off his land to make room for others who would receive those services. I don't know where he ended up, but I am sure it was not 5 acres of forest, unless he left his job and the area.

But yes, understood about the necessity of taxes.
Click to expand...

Sad that he lost his place. 5 acres of woods is a dream of mine as well, and I will probably never realize it - or have much chance to use it if I did! Improvements are one of those basic changes to land use that unfortunately affect value, and therefore assessment. Sometimes it does work in your favor (addition increasing your home value), but it doesn't make the tax bill any easier to pay. I can definitely relate.

beezaur said:
The thing I was trying to get at is that, when people talk about what they are leaving for future generations, there are two huge parts to that: 1) a clean environment, and 2) a healthy society.

There are sometimes severe economic consequences to environmental policies (which often set unattainable goals). Economic effects of environmental policy get drown out by officials "making the hard decisions" or "doing the right thing" to save some tiny aspect of the environment at all costs. Usually thise costs are born by the little guy in the long run: the mom and pop outfit that can no longer afford the disposal fees for this or that; the on-site septic systems with their elaborate electronic control and expensive maintenance contracts. It is a million small economic pressures.
Click to expand...

There are certainly economic results from environmental laws, but I would dispute that the goals are often unatainable. Roads and houses continue to get built, and project costs have definitely gone up, but not a single one of my projects over the last ten years have been killed by environmental regulations. This is in an area where environmental regualtions are common, and three endangered species are present in the metropolitan areas. Some of my projects have been redesigned to reduce environmental effects, but others have been redesigned based on economic factors like the the price of steel. Both are just part of the process. Granted that my projects tend to be larger, and smaller developers can be disproportionately affected by some regulations. However, when the parcels become profitable to develop, they are generally developed, ESA or no ESA, wetlands or no wetlands.

Let's not forget that there are also ecomonic effects of environmental degradation. Consider the loss of the commercial Chinook fisheries in the northwest due to upstream development. The decline of the species is largely due to the loss of upstream spawning habitat in the recently developed (say 20-30 years) suburban areas. There is also the cost to recreational fisheries (which is a multimillion dollar business) and tourism. The loss of those commercial fishing jobs, recreational fees and sporting good sales, and tourism dollars has to be tallied as well.

beezaur said:
Environmentalists who are so concerned with what is left for future generations often have so little concern for the economic means and opportunities they will leave their children. The same applies to some developers. I have had to explain to more than one water systemowner with septic contamination that they are drinking their own waste products, and all I hear back is, "Doesn't make me sick. Why should I fix it"

This is what I see: one group screams science and pays no attention to money. The other screams about money and pays no attention to science. They are both wrong, and both groups actively lie to serve their own agendas.
Click to expand...

Sad and true, but I think it is most common at the political level rather than the practical. I have had the opportunity to work with excellent, concientious, developers, and many fine scientists. On the whole, the developers (at least the larger or more saavy ones) would prefer to get the permits out of the way fast so they can build, and the scientists are happy to show them how to avoid impacts and speed the process up. Working together isn't really that hard.

beezaur said:
At the end of the day, human beings need an environment that is clean and adequate for needs. They also need an adequate and strong economy.
Click to expand...

No arguement there!

beezaur said:
What is the religious group that goes around sweeping the path before them so they don't kill any bugs? Some environmentalists are headed that direction. It is not a sustainable philosophy. That kind of thinking will eventually destroy the society.

Scott
Click to expand...

Of course, the other side of the coin is a philospphy that we should just pave it all and let the future worry about itself. I would submit that neither philosophy is sustainable.

Pat
 
The problem with favoring the economy over the environment is that if the economy fails, we have hard times, they figure out a way to fix it and we go ahead. If the environment fails. End Game!
 
I don't mean to favor the economy over environmental issues. Sorry if I gave that impression.

Right now there are a few people here and there who have been denied access to their property (for example, a road abandonment to protect fish habitat), people literally forced off their land because the gvernment declares it a wildlife refuge, and things like that. The situation will get much worse.

I think ultimately you are forced to make an "us or them" decision about endangered species, etc.

Blindly choosing "them" all the time is not the way to go, IMO. You have to weigh the outcomes and determine the looser. Some species will be driven to extinction. That is a sad, and I believe unavoidable, consequence of human existance. Quite simply, we dominate the surface of the planet, and will as long as we are able. It is the circle of life as has always existed, and we are just as much a part of it as any other organism that has dominated the planet in the past. Billions of years ago a sea of microbes changed the atmosphere profoundly and permanently by introducing oxygen. We cannot expect to not leave our mark as well.

I believe that to save all presently known species from extinction and to leave the climate intact as it was, is impossible; and that any nation which sets out to do so will destroy itself in the process.

You don't want to poison yourself, obviously, but there is more that needs to be considered than only what is good for the environment.

Scott
 
Three "scientists" got together on a panel and agreed that there was a "high confidence" that the Northern Hemisphere had warmed by 6/10 of a degree? The earth atmosphere is a dynamic thing, cyclical, and computer modeling has hardly been able to pin it down. Yes, man's activities have an effect on our environment. But junk science just confuses the issues. And "feel-good" initiatives like the Key-ohtow treaty do nothing but cost money and eat resources. Ever see a breakdown of the fuel, paper, and other resource consumption caused directly by that dog-and-pony show?

I agree wholeheartedly with conservation, governmental, business and personal responsibility to the environment, but a lot of "environmental awareness" movements become hideouts for profiteering, and eco-terrrorism. And in a lot of instances are used as a hammer by underdeveloped nations to put developed nations at a disadvantage economically. Sorta like affirmitive action policies in the workplace.

There are no cut-and-dried answers to the environment questions. And may not be for a long time, if ever.

Codger
 
This won't help much, but science in the press isn't very reliable.

For one thing the science that does get reported is reported by people without sophisticated training in the sciences. They get a lot of stuff wrong.

Second, most news organizations have heavy political and/or philosphical agendas. They spin things to look one way or another.

Third, there are an awful lot of "second tier" people being passed off as researchers who aren't. What they do is "research" work that has been done by the real scientists and distill it to support their agendas.

So for the average Joe, it is almost impossible to know who to believe. The truth of the issue is lost in a sea of yammering.

The one good place to get reliable and true information is the scientific journals. Not all the scientists agree on the very cutting edge of knowledge, but there is tremendous agreement on core issues. The down side is that the journals are pretty difficult to read unless you have had the luxury of some formal scientific training.

The climate picture that is developing in the reputable journals is alarming. Not only are humans having a profound affect, but the effect is worse than previously thought.

The fallacy engaged in by some is that this automatically means we should protect all aspects of the environment at all costs. In my opinion, we should do what is best for mankind first. This hardly means disregarding the environment -- we require a healthy environment. However some seem to forget that we also require a healthy economy, something which does not involve screwing over your countrymen for the fish de jour.

Now, having finished my luch break, I will get back to destroying habitat with my 17-hp, gas-guzzling power mower. :)

Scott

P.S. Actually I am mowing fire breaks today.
 
Hmmm.

On a personal level a bunch of us here locally got together and kept shining light on a project to build a new airport that would have ruined my land and developed all the open land in my area. The gov't group pushing it was cooking the books on the cost benefit analysis and we finally got the FAA to run their own which killed the project.

We got a rogue logging job stopped here not by going to forestry, which is in the pocket of industry, but the DOT who kept the logging trucks from going over a bridge that wasn't rated for that weight.

Like Tom I think the biggest concern is population. While we have managed to "keep it in our pants" here in the US, we are subsidizing every other countries unsustainable reproduction by allowing them to come here, which will eventually render our country overdeveloped too.

I think it is somwhat misleading to label environmentalists tree huggers and elitists. One of my best pals headed up a conservation organization, and he owned a sawmill. However he saw logging on gov't lands as a giveaway of taxpayers resources which undercut the price private landowners could get for the timber they owned. I also know a good deal of hard core environmentalists who are hunters fisherman and farmers. They are not against hunting or fishing but want sustainabiltiy.
 
Hey Guys..

beezaur writes..

"For one thing the science that does get reported is reported by people without sophisticated training in the sciences. They get a lot of stuff wrong."

It's the same way gun crime is reported in the news..

It's always an : "AK-47" "Assault Weapon" or "A Chrome 45"

Most don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but still report it..
It's like reporters saying "Quote/Unquote" you can't "Unquote" anything..This coming from people who should or do have degrees in English.

ttyle

Eric....
 
Anything to get the public's attention, right? "Don't bother me with facts, I'm a TV personality not a reporter!" :)

Pat
 
Global warming was the top story on NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams declared that there is no longer a debate over this issue.

I guess that settles it. :D
 
Actually, whether it's true or not makes no difference to me. I'm glad that the calling for people to start caring for the environment has gone main stream. That is, main stream beyond recycling. Heck who knows, maybe it will find it's way into the corporate world and manufacturing will actually look into the effects their newly planned product will actually have on our environment from concept to disposal and will decide not to produce it because of the long range affects to the planet. Maybe they'll even find a new laundry detergent that doesn't mutate the genetic code of fish.
 
Guyon said:
A little off-topic here, but I figured that the "Wilderness" forum might be a decent place for any subsequent conversation on this front...

Of late, the environment has been an even more important issue to me, perhaps because I now have a son, and I worry more about the world my generation will leave to his. Every time I see a strip mall replace what used to be woodlands/wetlands (every day it seems), I am disturbed. Every time I see 8 a.m. traffic, usually with one person per vehicle, I am reminded of our pervasive dependence on fossil fuels. Every time I go hunting or fishing lately, I wonder how many more generations those forms of recreation will last.

Just got back from a tour of the U.K., and while I don't agree with a fair deal of social policy there, I was impressed with how environmental concerns are much more front-and-center than in the States.

Just curious how many of us here devote time, donate money, spend money, or vote with regard to environmental concerns? How many of us have tried to do more to minimize individual consumption and "carbon footprints"? How many of us think about environmental issues on a daily basis? I would suspect such matters would be of importance to Wilderness enthusiasts, but I'd like to hear some of your views.
Click to expand...



I can understand how the UK might be more concerned about the environment since they have very little environment to work with.

Most states in the US are larger than the UK, and we have 50. I think that if most Americans realized just how much open wilderness we have in this country, they would be shocked, and angered at the way some environmentalist have try their dead leveled best to portray it otherwise.

Fact one: there are more trees and forest in America now, than at the time of the War of Northern Aggression. ;)

fact two: Most of the population is east of the Mississippi River. Most of the west is still wide open, and un used.

I more worried about runaway Environmental laws. Case in point, I just paid $600 to have my car AC repaired. ($100 a pound for Freon) thanks to the Clean air act. NO. I'm not for dirty air, just for common sense.
 
ranger88 said:
. . .fact two: Most of the population is east of the Mississippi River.
Click to expand...

That was certainly true at the time of the Southern Rebellion (:p ) but has not been true since the Census of 1980. As of the 2000 Census, the center of U.S. population was 2.8 mi. east of Edgar Springs, Missouri.

And lots of the "wide open" West is outright desert, very arid, or very vertical. Same is true of the deserts and mountains of Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia - pretty much wide-open. It will not provide a substitute for what we're paving over in the East.

As for area in "forest," it is up compared to a date of nearly maximum farm tillage. However, that number fails to take into account the destruction of old growth forest and its replacment with second-growth after clear-cutting or overgrowth of abandoned farm land -- and after much of the topsoil headed for the oceans. Also, the acres in wetlands are way down - and would be worse but for Ducks Unlimited. :thumbup:

Further, concern ought to look beyond the U.S. - for example to the destruction of forest in South America -- 1000's of acres a day -- due to "slash and burn techniques. The "burn" releases the carbon into the air, and, exposed to tropical rains, the thin soils wash away in a couple of years. This leaves fairly untillable clay with little organic content that bakes in the sun. The forest -- an oxygen factory that binds up carbon -- does not recover, even after decades.

We are in a long-term warming trend that has gone on for 1000's of years -- long before the Hummer "graced" our roads. We -- homo sap - are apparently making it some worse. Whether our "contribution" is material remains to be seen. We may know for sure when its too late, or we could do what is reasonable to help now. We don't cause earthquakes, but we require certain building standards in quake-prone areas. Sure, that's a restriction of liberty -- as is any society.

The odd yahoo aside, today's recreational hunters seem to be to be more conservation-minded than most urban folks. They recongnize that preserving habitat preserves their sport(s).
 
Thomas Linton said:
However, that number fails to take into account the destruction of old growth forest and its replacment with second-growth after clear-cutting or overgrowth of abandoned farm land -- and after much of the topsoil headed for the oceans.
Click to expand...

That's a problem here on my land. It is overgrown hillside farm. While I got a lot of good size timber on the 85 acres we own, in many areas the topsoil is so thin from where it was farmed in the 30's that once a tree gets a certain size, down it goes because the topsoil is not thick enough to hold the tree up:thumbdn:

Compared to 20 years ago I see some WAY better logging jobs now than then, but still there's a lot of small outfits that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground as far as crossing creeks, cutting roads, and controlling runoff.
 
Thomas Linton said:
That was certainly true at the time of the Southern Rebellion (:p ) but has not been true since the Census of 1980. As of the 2000 Census, the center of U.S. population was 2.8 mi. east of Edgar Springs, Missouri.

And lots of the "wide open" West is outright desert, very arid, or very vertical. Same is true of the deserts and mountains of Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia - pretty much wide-open. It will not provide a substitute for what we're paving over in the East.

As for area in "forest," it is up compared to a date of nearly maximum farm tillage. However, that number fails to take into account the destruction of old growth forest and its replacment with second-growth after clear-cutting or overgrowth of abandoned farm land -- and after much of the topsoil headed for the oceans. Also, the acres in wetlands are way down - and would be worse but for Ducks Unlimited. :thumbup:

Further, concern ought to look beyond the U.S. - for example to the destruction of forest in South America -- 1000's of acres a day -- due to "slash and burn techniques. The "burn" releases the carbon into the air, and, exposed to tropical rains, the thin soils wash away in a couple of years. This leaves fairly untillable clay with little organic content that bakes in the sun. The forest -- an oxygen factory that binds up carbon -- does not recover, even after decades.

We are in a long-term warming trend that has gone on for 1000's of years -- long before the Hummer "graced" our roads. We -- homo sap - are apparently making it some worse. Whether our "contribution" is material remains to be seen. We may know for sure when its too late, or we could do what is reasonable to help now. We don't cause earthquakes, but we require certain building standards in quake-prone areas. Sure, that's a restriction of liberty -- as is any society.

The odd yahoo aside, today's recreational hunters seem to be to be more conservation-minded than most urban folks. They recongnize that preserving habitat preserves their sport(s).
Click to expand...


Let me clarify my statement. Population my not have been the best choice of words. What I ment was that most of the urbanization, and suburbanization is still east of the Mississippi, but I know that the west is growing in population. Thanks to the huge increase in illegal ALIEN traffic across the southern boarder that has gone unchecked for decades.

Also. 1000 acres a day? do you know how many men and machines it would take to cut down 1000 acres of thick south american jungle in a day? Always question statistics that Political groups throw out for uninformed public consumption. Demand that they prove it. If the rain forrests were being lost by 1000 acres a day, it would have all been gone by now, or close to it.

Don't misunderstand my points here. I consider myself to be an enviromentalist too. But I don't believe trees have souls, or that animals have rights, or that the earth is my mother, and has a spirit named guya. ;)
 
Hey Guys....

Ranger88 writes:

" or that animals have rights"

The only rights animals have is to be Smuthered in Onions, Garlic and BBQ sauce...

ttyle

Eric...
 
hollowdweller said:
Hmmm.

I think it is somwhat misleading to label environmentalists tree huggers and elitists. One of my best pals headed up a conservation organization, and he owned a sawmill. However he saw logging on gov't lands as a giveaway of taxpayers resources which undercut the price private landowners could get for the timber they owned. I also know a good deal of hard core environmentalists who are hunters fisherman and farmers. They are not against hunting or fishing but want sustainabiltiy.
Click to expand...

What you are calling environmentalists I would call conservationists.
 
Normark said:
Hey Guys....

Ranger88 writes:

" or that animals have rights"

The only rights animals have is to be Smuthered in Onions, Garlic and BBQ sauce...

ttyle

Eric...
Click to expand...



Don't misunderstand. I love our little forrest friends. I file the barbs of my fish hooks so as not to cause the fish any unnessasary pain before I gut him and roll him in corn meal. But seriously, We cannot afford human rights to that which is not human. Case in point: police dogs. In most states they are considered police officers, they have badges, and if you harm one of those blood thirsty hell hounds, you will be charged with assualting a police officer. Well... BS!!! It's just a dog.

Man, we're really off topic. :eek: Where's the moving van? I think I hear it coming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top