Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: thierrylegros396 on December 06, 2017, 03:22:03 am
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I'm sad for all people who are walking and shooting in the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
Clearly I don't wanna to create a political debate, because US is not the only Country threatened by shrinkage of the protected zones.
Quarry extensions are everywhere: Canada, France, even Trappist Monks water is threatened in Leffe Abbey, Belgium.
Not to mention Brazil and other southern America's countries, and especially Africa where most of the precious metal are located.
We need to react strongly, because we have only one earth.
Please act now, and join protection associations.
Thierry
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There needs to be a balance struck. As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do. There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.
Kent in SD
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The problem is that much of the world is still ruled by the almighty dollar where short-term gain is the priority; yet, one cannot put a price on "nature for nature's sake", so "nature" will always lose.
Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests.
Note: this isn't politics speaking, it's simple human greed and the more bombastic one demonstrates this selfishness, the more they get their way. Some children learn very quickly how they can manipulate situations with tantrums and lies, and the long-term outcome is rarely, if ever, beneficial to the family, or, in this case, the nation. Shame, really.
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Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests.
I call "bullshit."
Kent in SD
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You are free to call it whatever you'd like... it still has alot of validity based on the historical record of short term greed winning out over the greater good for the earth AND its inhabitants.... human AND non.
Every once in a while, the greater good wins out and lo and behold.. people manage to still make a living from sharing the beauty of a natural area thru environmental tourism.
Costa Rica is a prime example of eco tourism winning out over greed.
Once an area is ripped up for its minerals, it will never return to the natural state it was before.
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Hey, Kent. Have you ever been there?
Show us some pictures.
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As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do. There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.
No, protection is needed in Utah! If it weren't for the environmental movement of the 70's we wouldn't have these amazing natural areas that people all over the world want to see. Yes, the government is needed to protect our natural heritage. Heyduke Lives!!
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I call "bullshit."
Kent in SD
Still waiting, Kent.
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http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/04/five-american-indian-tribes-furious-over-trump-shrinking-bears-ears-sue-the-president/
Zinke is just a tool. Sad.
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Still waiting, Kent.
Sorry you had to wait. I actually have a job and have to work. Yes, I've been all over Utah. I was just out in the northern section in July. I used to go out to Utah and AZ a lot in the late 1980s & 1990s when my uncle & aunt lived in a tiny town called Green River (not to be confused with Green River WY). I took plenty of photos, mostly with my Bronica ETRS, but none survived when my basement flooded in 2002. Parts were very nice, but there was a LOT of monotonous barren land too. I'm all for sectioning off any areas that have paleo Indian structures & artifacts and the more scenic part, but the entire area? Ah, no. A balance needs to be struck here. There doesn't seem to be any immediate threat to any of these areas either. As for oil & gas, plenty of that up north of me in North Dakota. It has a fairly small footprint. It brought increased railroad traffic so I've been up there more often than in the past. (I like trains. :) ) It also brought a lot of good paying jobs to what was a poor rural area. Everything has its pluses and minuses and needs to be looked at objectively. The trains and oil pumps brought me some new interesting photo subjects along with the more traditional prairie churches and abandoned farms. A major plus is that gas is quickly replacing coal as the preferred source of energy for power stations. This alone seems to account for decreasing CO2 production in the U.S., and that's a good thing. Basically, I'm for local people/voters deciding how to use land. They live there and have the biggest stake in it. I really tire of hearing relatively well off people from somewhere on the coast trying to keep people in rural areas from enjoying the same prosperity they do, or interfere with their recreation and enjoyment of their home land.
I will add that I think the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest (along with those in southeast Asia) is a major problem facing the world. Forests are probably our best bet for carbon sequestration. But here's the dilemma: does a comparatively rich 1st World guy like me have the right to tell desperately poor 3rd world people they have to live in abject poverty so I'll have a pretty place to go photo every few decades? We need to come up with a way for them to use the land in such a way that they benefit too. Anything less would be arrogance.
Kent in SD
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http://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2017/12/04/five-american-indian-tribes-furious-over-trump-shrinking-bears-ears-sue-the-president/
It's been my observation over the past quarter century that there are some Indian groups will whine no matter what you do. (Hey, I'm being honest here.) Were there no other groups of people living in Utah who are in favor the changes? Did the media report their point of view, HMMM?
Kent in SD
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Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder. For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor. So, welcome to Lula Kent. And after your "I call "bullshit."", your subsequent posts are thoughtful.
To the OP's topic of protection of public lands: I have hiked, camped and photographed the northern Arizona and southern Utah national monuments for the past two decades. I have particularly followed the path of Bears Ears NM over the past several years. A reasonable summary is this: Utah politicians have forever been unhappy with the fact that a good portion of Utah is not private, it's federal land (meaning it belongs to all Americans). Presidents cannot proclaim national monuments of private or state land, only of federal land.....so their "over reach" is over their own land. So who to "listen to" about land use planning/protection/exploitation? Nationally there were some several million comments (98%) in favor of protecting Bears Ears that Zinke ignored. Utah voters were mostly 50/50 depending on the poll language. Locally, the nearest community, Bluff, was very supportive of Bears Ears; In nearby Monticello (site of the notorious pot hunting ring arrest) the federal government is the devil; five adjacent native American tribes are suing the Trump administration for its attempt to downsize the monument by 85%. In the end, the two Utah senators, congressional delegation and the state governor are the rabid opposition to the national monuments.....and currently this is what Trump and Zinke are pandering to.
Too often opponents and proponents of national monument proclamations claim all sorts of adverse consequences. I encourage people to look up and read the actual proclamation language. Typically, ranchers can still ranch, jeepers can still jeep, hunters can still hunt, most all existing uses can continue. But no, it's not likely that a big coal mine, uranium mine, oil field, resort, can be developed; and its not likely that the state can dictate what happens (it's our land not theirs).
Mike Coffey
Prescott Arizona
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"Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder. For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor."
Well said, Mike.
Miles
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Luminous Landscape has an unique forum....due to the awesome civility of Michael Reichmann, its founder. For more than a decade I can recall Michael discussing a (political) world event in a quintessential Canadian manner....direct, adult, with humility....and without the increasingly rancorous discourse affecting his southern neighbor. So, welcome to Lula Kent. And after your "I call "bullshit."", your subsequent posts are thoughtful.
Specifically, what I was objecting to was: "Natural areas will continue to be threatened as long as short-term, small-minded thinking prevails and lets face it, conservatives have those qualities in spades. "For the greater good" never enters their minds because it is all about satisfying their own "needs" (selfish wants, actually), even when those "needs" are in direct conflict with the national interests." Politicians are politicians, and pretty much every one of them will sell you out for a campaign contribution. There is a long historical record of this. Utah is one of the most conservative states in the country, and yet a recent (and probably reliable) poll showed 64% of voters there did not favor the local politicians' push for state control of BLM and other federal lands. Same polled showed Utah voters were against the sale of state & federal land to private buyers. So, the politicians backed off. Too often discussions are seen through a polarizing filter in recent years. I fault the media for most of this, and politicians as well. Citizens become easier to manipulate when they are pushed into a stereotypical group and discouraged from thinking analytically, on their own. I do think scenic areas should be protected, and also any paleo Indian sites. (Mesa Verde is one of my favorite places!) However, I just have to question why 1.3M acres needs to be involved. I will mention a possible bias: I am a landowner, with one square mile of Missouri farmland.
Kent in SD
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According to The Salt Lake Tribune "While a slight majority of Utahns believes the new 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument is too big, they oppose by a 2-to-1 margin breaking the bigger and more-established Grand Staircase-Escalante into smaller monuments."
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There needs to be a balance struck. As for land in Utah, I'm all for the local people who live and vote there deciding what to do. There has been a lot of government overreach in the past decade or so.
As good a default starting condition as any but not necessarily useful in general. Think of the simple example of someone upstream doing something to a river that affects everyone downstream.
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Huff Post, Pilliga (http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/11/28/what-lies-beneath-the-battle-over-water-gas-and-the-pilliga-our-vast-pristine-inland-wonderland_a_23240735/?utm_hp_ref=au-homepage).
Australia is the driest continent in the world, protecting our water must be our highest priority. So yes there must be protected zones.
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Australia is the driest continent in the world, protecting our water must be our highest priority. So yes there must be protected zones.
Unfortunately Australia, like most countries, has a government which is comprised of politicians. These people have no real interest in anything other than getting elected at the next election. We have had a long, long period of really bad government from both sides.
The people who built big infrastructure projects like the Snowy Mountains Scheme have been replaced by weak or easily corrupted people who spend their term dancing around making decisions on pretty much anything for fear of offending someone.
If you fly from Sydney to Adelaide then you can see the one border that I know of that you can see from 30,000 feet. It is the border of Victoria and South Australia. Victoria is green and South Australia is brown, because Victoria gets first shot at the water.
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If you fly from Sydney to Adelaide then you can see the one border that I know of that you can see from 30,000 feet. It is the border of Victoria and South Australia. Victoria is green and South Australia is brown, because Victoria gets first shot at the water.
I literally just did this flight there Friday before last and back last Friday. It's not like that.
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I literally just did this flight there Friday before last and back last Friday. It's not like that.
Yes, I was there on 24th November myself and yes, the hills are alive with green, but that is not typical.
There has been a lot of rain and it has also been very cold.
Apparently if it does not go above 24.7 C by last Saturday it will be the coldest first nine days of summer in 108 years.
Not like Adelaide at all normally.
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In my memory, it's never been so cold for the Adelaide test match (which is why I was there). The water issues exist between Qld, NSW, Vic, and SA. There's currently a review going on as I understand it. It's mostly become more of an issue because of population growth, and the old arrangements no longer suit.
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In my memory, it's never been so cold for the Adelaide test match (which is why I was there). The water issues exist between Qld, NSW, Vic, and SA. There's currently a review going on as I understand it. It's mostly become more of an issue because of population growth, and the old arrangements no longer suit.
Watched some news about the M. Macron in Africa. It was reported that the locals objected to suggestions that always occur about the population growth in Africa being ridiculously high, leading to starvation, wars and migration that affects everybody else... truth is great as long as it suits. Sadly enough, no need to think of Africa: think Europe for the same problem of over-breeding even if on a lower level. Some governments even increase social allowance payments the more kids people have; wasn't that a French thing at one time? Nice idea: make those with few or no kids pay for those with too many. Collects faithful votes! What constitutes too many? The number at which you can't afford to support them by your own efforts would be a nice place to start.
Still wondering why those barren, roasting desert countries are not turned into solar panel power souces. Yes, some already have a lot of that going on, but I believe that looked at, on an international scale, they could provide clean, alternative and exportable sources to international requirements without killing off the planet in the meantime. It would also provide work. If electric cars ever become the norm, gonna need it!
Wonder why anybody wants a driverless car? Always thought that the driving was a huge part of the buzz of ownership.
Rob
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Population growth is not what it used to be: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth (https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth). See his other talks too.
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A new dedicated satellite for airpollution Tromponi just has send its first data and what for me really stands out is bad quality of the air south of Brazils large city Manuas in the Amazone area.
As a result of the pollution and deforestation the rain forest is changing due to a change of climate / rainfall.
on the photo the CO content of the air ( carbon monoxide content) showing the areas of burning forests and processes of incomplete burning in general.
(source : http://www.tropomi.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/8.-TROP_CO_world.png )
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I think we're aleady going there in a handcart.
Too little too late by too few.
Rob
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I call "bullshit."
Kent in SD
You would.
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More bad news for those who love the landscape...
How Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke prompted a mass resignation from his National Park Service Advisory Board (http://beta.latimes.com/nation/la-na-national-park-zinke-oil-gas-20180117-story.html)
Few groups have been closer and more involved in Interior Department policy and management than the National Park System Advisory Board, an appointed and nonpartisan group established 83 years ago to consult on department operations and practices.
So it came as a shock this week when nine of the board's 12 members abruptly resigned in protest, complaining that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had disregarded their requests to meet at least once, a circumstance no other Park System Advisory Board had encountered.
"We were deeply disappointed with the department's actions in dealing with us," said former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served as the board's chairman. "Advisory board advice can be accepted or ignored. The fact they suspended the board and there were no meetings on issues of climate and science, no meetings on finding ways to help underrepresented groups visit the parks. Those were the programs we'd spent years working on with previous secretaries. Those were the programs we wanted to discuss with the new secretary and keep the momentum going."
And this is the guy uncharge of America's "interior"...
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And the hits keep coming...
A Trojan Horse Threatens the Nation’s Parks (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/opinion/national-parks-threatened-utah.html)
Members of Utah’s congressional caucus, not content with eviscerating two national monuments in the state, have unleashed a new assault on public lands, proposing legislation that hides an agenda of deregulation behind the shield of the National Park Service and the beloved park system it oversees.
On Dec. 6, two days after President Trump radically reduced the size of the Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments by some two million acres, the largest reversion of federal land protections in the nation’s history, Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of Utah, introduced legislation to establish the Escalante Canyons National Park and Preserve.
On its face, the bill might seem like something for advocates of preserving iconic Western landscapes to embrace in the face of Mr. Trump’s rollback. The new park would incorporate a small portion of the original 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase area that the president’s proclamation fractured. The other three members of the state’s House delegation, all Republicans, signed on as co-sponsors.
But a reading of the bill, H.R. 4558 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4558), reveals it as a Trojan horse, appearing as a gift to the public while eroding federal environmental protections on public lands. If it becomes law, the bill could set a precedent with enormous consequences nationally, all of them bad for the national parks and the park service, which celebrates its 102nd birthday this August. It is, in fact, a model for the piecemeal unraveling of the more than 400 (https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/faqs.htm)national parks, monuments, battlefields, historic sites, recreation areas and other places in the park system.
Hopefully the current litigation surrounding Trump's attempts at undoing the National Monument status of large tracks of land in Utah will be successful and this kind of backwards attempts at gaining control of public lands for corporate exploitation will be reversed...