Posted on 12/27/2001 1:32:35 PM PST by snopercod
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:48 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
CARSON CITY, Nev. -- A drive into the Sierra Nevada can seem like a retreat from time, a return to landscapes unmolested by the 20th century...blahblahblah...
The 74-year-old retired federal wildlife biologist hiked, bushwhacked and occasionally helicoptered his way to dozens of mountain spots recorded in photographs taken in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He hunted for the same peaks and boulders, the same vantage points. And when he found them, he took another photo. In a just-published book, Gruell matches the new and old images, showing how much the landscapes have changed. In scene after scene, the contemporary photographs document dense forest and lush growth. Their historical twins show leaner country in which the trees were fewer, the ground more open, the meadows more abundant....
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Some species are rare and local. Propagation can be tricky and their ability to resist introduced cultivars is poor(particularly against varieties selected for forage). Some introduced species have pre-emergent properties. It isn't easy. Some interesting work is being done in the sheep industry, teaching the sheep to graze specific species.
The loss of "open space" really hit me when I went back to my boyhood home in suburban NY. The field where we used to play sandlot baseball 35 years ago had 8" diameter trees growing on it!
Driving around New England many areas of former farmland are now second growth forest. Those famous postcard vistas of Vermont are disappearing. All you can see from many "scenic" roads is a wall of trees on either side. There are no more views to be had...
It can be seperated as an issue from the population issue, which even if it is loathed by conservatives is in fact a problem.
However, the problem will be solved without man's help. Nature has a way of cleaning house. She will again and it will be extremely unpleasant just as was the Plague.
Hardin has a brilliant chapter on usury and in fact proves to my satisfaction that economics really is a zero sum game when you factor in the natural resources taken and used in the manufacture of products.
This is another unpleasant fact that I find libertarians and free market proponents (of which I am one) are loathe to examine.
Noting that these problems exist are tantamount to actual solutions being discovered. Some want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that of virtually all of the economic theories ever posited, none mention the actual cost in natural resources to produce goods. So they poo-poo the zero-sum economic theories. I suppose that is partly because most "zero-summers" are for strict controls.
That's sort of knee-jerk in my opinion and has no place in the debate.
Together with civic regulation? To control is to own without payment. That is no solution and it is not privatization.
It can be seperated as an issue from the population issue, which even if it is loathed by conservatives is in fact a problem.
I doubt that anyone knows what global carrying capacity really is. I have seen analyses that vary from 500 million to 40 billion.
However, the problem will be solved without man's help. Nature has a way of cleaning house. She will again and it will be extremely unpleasant just as was the Plague.
I have no love for self-fulfilling prophesies. The people who advance Hardin's ideas are deliberately setting the world up for such plagues.
Hardin has a brilliant chapter on usury and in fact proves to my satisfaction that economics really is a zero sum game when you factor in the natural resources taken and used in the manufacture of products.
Better read my book. I doubt that you would be satisfied with Hardin's explanation thereafter. He doesn't know and neither does anybody else. I would gladly debate the issue, but this is the wrong thread.
This is another unpleasant fact that I find libertarians and free market proponents (of which I am one) are loathe to examine.
By no means is this established as a "fact," although there are LOTS of people who want to believe it because it justifies their actions.
Noting that these problems exist are tantamount to actual solutions being discovered. Some want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that of virtually all of the economic theories ever posited, none mention the actual cost in natural resources to produce goods. So they poo-poo the zero-sum economic theories. I suppose that is partly because most "zero-summers" are for strict controls.
My theory not only takes it into account, it relies upon and motivates continuously improving measurements to account it.
Not by any stretch. It's a new approach and therefore requires a new category. I hope people read the book and see the reason behind all of it. Everything has value that if recognized will eliminate these continuous confrontations between owners and users. City planners should be required to keep the book in their library, and maybe even refer to it from time to time.
I think the majority of "environmentalists" are well-meaning "useful fools", who think that by joining the Sierra Club et.al they are acting morally to protect the environment.
It can objectively be proven otherwise.
Sounds like you've read Carry_Okie's book.
I'm in North Carolina, and my property was clear-cut about sixty years ago. It came back just fine, although I am in the process of weeding out the "trash" trees, like Virginia Pines (locally called Jack Pines).
Private stewardship of the forest is a great concept, invented - BTW - not far from where I live by the Biltmore family. It's now called "Pisgah National Forest" AKA "The Cradle of Forestry".
Why is the bark beetle uncontrolled, you may ask? Because the Sierra Club fought and won a three-year battle with the Forest Service that wanted to spray the trees and kill the beetles. The courts believed the Sierra Club's argument "that the beetles are part of nature's plan to save the trees." Is that incredible, or what?
Next summer, please be sure to watch the huge forest fires that will devastate the west. It will make previous fire seasons look like backyard barbecues. This is one of my most accurate predictions and it will happen. Thank the Sierra Club as you watch the fires on TV. It will be a hot, black tree trunk the tree huggers will hug.
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