board77

sauronsfinger wrote:

Tear them down... tear them all down.
Saurman of Insengard.

Sf, it is not true that if the government doesn't protect the forests nobody will. There are acting agents outside the government - they're called people.

I think Saruman was the ruler of Isengard, so "tear them down" was a government decree.

I'm feeling the impulse to trot out the usual defenses: A government is less likely than a corporation to get into financial trouble and sell the forests off for a quick buck. If a government does try to sell the forests off, the people have recourse to the democratic process. The government can be required by law to protect the forests. Etc. However, here in post-GWB America, I'm not sure I can honestly make those arguments.

I'm going to dust off my right wing nuttiness... and point out that Government owned and preserved land is a complete waste of natural resources.

If you have a forest, and you preserve it, and leave it in its natural state... and it burns to the ground in a massive fire... what good did preserving it do?

You could argue the chances of that happening are small (which is wrong, but that's another topic), but comparitavely, people get very little use out of a preserved forest.

I lived in the middle of the redwood forest in northern california most of my life. They're loggign up there ALL THE TIME. You know what... I've never seen a bare spot of ground.

There are pictures of when the whole mountainside was clearcut in the early part of last century... but you know what... the forest grew back! There are plenty of animals around, they have plenty of space to roam free... there are wonderful preserves around, as well as plenty of trees that can be cut down.

The forest is healthier if maintained rather than let run wild.

To bring up analogies with Tolkien (boy would he have hated that ), the Old Forest had run wild forever, and it became a very bad place outside of where Bombadil ran things, and even there when he didn't pay attention things got ugly... The Ents were the Shepards of the trees, and when they maintained the forests, things were good, but when they stopped, and just sat around letting things grow wild... the trees got dumb, and mean, and wild... Not exactly pleasant.

There's waste by cutting down too much, and there's waste by not cutting down enough. There is a spot in between where forests flourish, and we get nice furniture .

hum Buffalo come to mind

This is very interesting and I won't pretend to know anything about preserved lands but I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to save forest preserves. My fear is one day not having any forest at all because it will all be developed into townhomes and condos!

Hi Meril! I'm interested to know your position on this since you don't seem fond of forest preserves would you mind PM-ing me? I'm not looking for a debate, I'm just curious

TheMary wrote:

This is very interesting and I won't pretend to know anything about preserved lands but I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to save forest preserves. My fear is one day not having any forest at all because it will all be developed into townhomes and condos!

As wonderful as these forests are, people need homes. People don't need national parks.

I'm not arguing one way or the other, but that does need to factor into whatever your viewpoint is.

not to mention, people don't strip forested lands to build homes. They don't do much strippign of lands at all any more. If you own land you intend to log... it does you no good just to cut down all the trees... you're then left with useless land.

Land cleared for homes is different than land used to provide wood... which is an agricultural crop like any other... just takes years rather than seasons to grow...

They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

They took all the trees
Put ’em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see ’em
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

Hey farmer farmer
Put away that d.d.t. now
Give me spots on my apples
But leave me the birds and the bees
Please!
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot

thanks to Joni Mitchell

Yes, people like forests... and people don't like parking lots...

What does that have to do with this discussion? You can't park a car in the forest.

whats the matter Hal ? you got something against Joni Mitchell?

No, but that song has been covered by like 20 other people who want to seem environment friendly or something...

And quoting it here has nothign to do with the discussion. So Joni Mitchell and others agree with you... big deal. There are lots of people who agree with me too... even write songs about it...

You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac El Dorado convertible, hot pink with whaleskin hub caps and all leather cow interior and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights, yeah! And I'm gonna drive around in that baby at 115mph getting one mile per gallon, sucking down quarter pounder cheese burgers from McDonald's in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers and when I'm done sucking down those grease ball burgers, I'm gonna wipe my mouth with the American flag and then I'm gonna toss the styrofoam container right out the side and there ain't a God damned thing anybody can do about it. YOu know why? Because we got the bombs, that's why.

Two words. Nuclear fucking weapons, okay?! Russia, Germany, Romania - they can have all the Democracy they want. They can have a big democracy cake-walk right through the middle of Tiananmen square and it won't make a lick of difference because we've got the bombs, okay?! John Wayne's not dead - he's frozen. And as soon as we find the cure for cancer we're gonna thaw out the duke and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You know why? Have you ever taken a cold shower? Well multiple that by 15-million times, that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be.

Thank you Denis Leary...

I understood what SF's point was with the song

Yes, I know the song, I probably know it better than you do as I had to listen to Amy Grant singing it over and over and over again for an entire summer!

Why don't you come up with your own arguments rather than refer to a pop culture reference that introduces an entirely irrelivant hypothetical...

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
**************************************************

Lennon's better than Mitchell

ers!!!!

No kidding Lennon is better... and his point is more valid...

Also, has nothing to do with this discussion...

There is more than enough land in the US for everyone to have a home without cutting down any national forests.

what are you going to build those homes with?

Materials taken from existing mines and tree farms, or from new ones created outside of national parks. And how many vacant houses are out there already? Why do we need to keep building more?