Re[2]: [at-l] Maine land buyout

[RoksnRoots@aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

In a message dated 8/13/01 10:46:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
spiriteagle99@hotmail.com writes:

<< Yep - and if we keep on locking up land (i.e. - subtracting it from the 
 available resource pool), then sooner or later there's nothing left to log - 
 so lumber becomes either too expensive for the average bear or the lumber 
 companies go out of business.  In either case, the construction industry 
 goes belly-up, the housing market (among others) goes into the middens and 
 we're back to 1929 and another depression. >>


     This is an educated analysis of the economic cycle in which the Trail 
dangles, but what befuddles me about your angle, Jim, is that I am left with 
the taste that you somehow approve of these reasons. To me it only proves our 
present economic machine to be at direct odds with nature.
 
    The positive thing emerging from your post is a clear outline of the 
hopelessness towards the preservation of wild lands the average economic 
model entails. If you read MacKaye, you will see this was the motivating idea 
behind the project whose name is included in the title of this list.

    I would volunteer to weather a depression if it meant the sure track 
inevitability of countryside development was curtailed. * But somehow, in my 
crazy mind I think there is a better solution out there we haven't tried yet 
short of living up to the comfortable scenario of land rapers. I would never 
argue the case that disrupting the clear track towards total countryside 
development is somehow morally wrong.  

    People who desire to save the earth from being stripped should never be 
portrayed as persons out of touch with economic reality. The more pertinent 
reality here is the long term health of nature, and therefore us.
 
    I see a failure to follow through in your thinking. You see, if that land 
isn't locked up the healthy and robust market (present day) will develop into 
those lands anyway, making it happen one way or another. Whether chip or 
board the profits from those lands will have to be invested and this 
investment usually occurs in the form of sprawl. That foreign company was 
driven to sell off for maximum profit in a strong market, so your bringing 
the threat of depression into this isn't exactly relevant. A strong market 
also creates more demand for second homes in guess where? "Locking up" land 
becomes sensible at this point.

    I would rather see a society determined to do the right thing and take 
the burden than knuckle under to forced compromises they don't endorse. But 
sheep probably like a calm flock. Nobody can argue the Bush administration 
hasn't taken a clear stand against environmental progress.
  
  Why can't we do that in America? Save the land and work out the details 
later. The future will see us as an enlightened generation. What is the 
reason why we can't just go ahead and do it?

    The reason MacKaye was a genius is because he put the Trail there for us 
to ask this question from. "Wilderness mechanism". People should never fear 
evolution.