Once again, the leftists let their love of Mother Earth overwhelm their common sense.
You may recall some years back that the Clinton administration instituted the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that protected some 58 million acres of unspoiled forest land from development. That rule, to no-one’s great surprise, was rolled back this past May by the Bush administration.
That action spurred Washington’s very own Jay Inslee and a group of House members to put forth the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which would codify into law the Clinton-era rule. The action also spurred a coalition of four State Attorneys General and 20 environmental groups to file suit, seeking to uphold the rule.
Today, all these supporters of the environment scored a victory when federal Judge Elizabeth Laporte upheld the Roadless Rule, throwing out the Bush administration’s plan to re-allow development in those areas.
To the eco-socialist left, the wilderness is a museum for which looking is good, touching is bad.
Their lines of “We need to save these areas in pristine condition for future generations” leads me to believe that they won’t let them utilize them either.
I seem to remember seeing news reports this week on wildfires in California, where these “Roadless Area Conservation” ideas first began. One item mentioned too infrequently is that the inaccessibility of the areas under the flame is making stopping the fires a problem.
Hmm, maybe if there were roads into and out of these areas, fighting the fires wouldn’t be so difficult and fewer trees, wildlife and land would be burned.
But thinking like that apparently isn’t “Eco-Friendly”, or so I’m told. Mostly because it folds their logic into origami.
A simple paved blacktop has little impact on the enviroment….unlike another Starbucks or Trader Joes or whatever eco-friendly place the eco-friendly go to shop in.
And that is part of what rubs rawest, DF, we’re not even talking blacktop. These people don’t want a single lane, emergency access, dirt trail put anywhere in any of the protected acres.
Sounds like a combination of the “leave only footprints, take only pictures” and anti-civilization bunch of eco-nuts. I can understand the sentiments of the first group, and they can be reasoned with when you talk about preservation & conservation, but the anti-civilization/anti-human individuals & groups, no chance of reasoning with them, and I think their type could best serve the enviroment by being nutrients for its flora and fauna.
As an off-road rider I was well aware of their intent, which was to de-classify old rights-of-way in order to prevent access and in preparation for establishing the land as Wilderness, p8utting it off-limits forever in a limbo where only specially permitted hikers can acces it.
One of the targeted aims further down the road was to create people-less wildlife corridors so that creatures could roam freely from Mexico to Canada in wide swaths uninhabited by man.
Try working for the state of Washington, in the regulatory program that issues logging permits on state and private lands! Did it for 17 years and these environmentalist types try to demand no impact of any kind, anywhere … made my job a daily nightmare. And their “concerns” have to be considered before issuance! Finally got tired of having to be nice to them on the phone while flipping them off (too bad they couldn’t see me), and I quit the BS.
Now I can be as blunt as I please about it and I am.