[at-l] Adding fuel to the fire (was Logging on the AT in Maine)

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Lee I Joe wrote:
>
>It has been shown several times that recreational use of any given chunk of 
>prime timberland generates more jobs than logging operations ...
>


Lee -
I'll go with Ron's question - what's the source for this?

There's a considerable body of "common knowledge" that's been dubbed The 
Litany - and this is part of it.  The problem is that while there's "some" 
merit to parts of The Litany, there's also a large percentage of it that's 
nothing but "made-up facts".  I'm not saying this is one of them, but what 
I'm seeing here is a blanket, one-size-fits-all statement that might make 
sense in some contexts, but makes no sense at all in others.  In my own work 
I've too often run into numbers and conclusions that resulted from someone 
picking a number out of the air, sometimes with the intent to modify it 
later to fit reality - and then having that number become Gospel.  I know 
for fact that the environmental movement has been continuously and 
conspicuously guilty of propagating numbers that make their cause "look 
good" even though they have no basis in reality.  And they're not the only 
ones who do that. There seems to be little interest anymore in "Trust but 
verify" - seems like a lot more people are into the "My mind's made up - 
don't confuse me with facts" type of attitude.

I'd REALLY like to find the source for this one if anyone knows.

Walk softly,
Jim


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