There are many people who consider themselves to be environmentalists. Yet, these people have very diverse beliefs and come from very diverse backgrounds.
On specific issues, environmentalists often disagree. One environmentalist might view the issue of providing pollution free power through hydroelectric as an acceptable cost to a damaged salmon population. Another might very well disagree.
What we can delimitate some fundamental processes that the environmentalist must go through to reach his rational conclusion:
Carefully Observe The World
Analysis What You Learn
Question Why Things Are the Way They Are
Act Upon What You Believe To Be Right
In one way or another, you could argue that all environmentalists are seeking the best use of our limited natural resources and our limited land. In contrast to our natural resources, the human imagination is unlimited and we can find solutions to our problems.
Indeed, environmentalists seek the best use of the land. They want to see uses that are:
Sustainable and protect our land for generations to come.
Can be enjoyed and embraced without fear of being poisoned.
Leads to human prosperity with diverse environments, smart cities, and prosperous farms.
We should seek environmental policies that not only protect our diverse species but also protect human dignity. We need an environment where:
People can create, farm, and live.
People can get away from urban life.
People can live happy and productive lives in urban centers or in small communities if they so choose
What’s good for our environment is indeed good for our economy, as our economy is based on our environment. We must indeed be liberal in our quest to embrace new technologies and ideas that will improve our environment, but also conservative in respecting our natural environment around us.
I’ve always recycled. I always try to save materials for recycling and avoid tossing things in the trash. It really bothers me to throw things away, yet somehow it’s more okay to toss things in the recycling bin to be hauled off somewhere and hopefully turned into something new.
So why do I recycle? I recycle as it’s a way to absolve some of my guilt for all the materials I consume everyday. I suspect that is the reason that most people recycle. We produce massive amounts of waste each day, and while it’s largely out of sight, it still bothers us. We feel we must do something more proper with our waste.
Recycling slows the process of extraction of resources to the dumping of resources for a brief period time. It certainly has slowed the increase in our trash dumping, but it seems that even our best intentions can’t slow our consumption of material. Recycling cuts down on waste and makes me feel good.
People automatically assume that everybody who really likes playing with fire is a dangerous arsonist who destroys property without rhyme or reason. Yet, it turns out according to studies by a variety of psychiatrists that the lover of fire (the pyromaniac) is much different then the person who sets destructive fires (the arsonist) to buildings and other structures. Let’s investigate.
Arsonists are motivated by many different factors. The most common form of arson is not motivated by mental illness or even a desire to set fire, it’s simply done out of anger or jealousy to another person. Such a person knows the differences between right or wrong, they simply want to avenge some wrong against them.
Much rarer is the arsonist who sets fire simply because of his passion to watch things burn and is too concerned with suiting his own passions to reflect concern on what he is doing to others. That person is a pyromaniac but also a person whose passions overwhelm their commonsense and understanding of the meaning of life and property of others.
Indeed, there are plenty of other pyromaniacs that don’t go to around destroying other people’s properties. Many adult males love to play with fire—they just become firefighters or spend lots of time outdoors using fire in their recreation or camping. They sublime their beliefs into something productive.
One of the things that irks me the most is when people destroy public property. Some people cut down trees, spray paint rocks, tear up fields with quads recklessly, or do other damage. They seem not to understand that this public land belongs to not only them but to us all. Public land is out there for all to use, to enjoy and respect.
We don’t need more rules and regulations on how we can use public land. Just because some idiots choose to leave litter on the ground, doesn’t mean we should be prohibited from camping. Likewise, just because some people tear up the land with their quads, doesn’t mean all motor vehicle trails should be closed. You wonder why people simply can not see the beauty they are destroying.
There is a sign on Vroman’s Nose that says “Respect the Land, and the Land will Respect You”. That seems like such common sense, yet so many people fail to follow such things. Most of really love the land out here, and it seems only sensible for others to respect it similarly.
We all like our pickup trucks. They are fund to play with off-road, use them around the farm, tow our boats, and so forth. They are built strong and are pretty reliable. Yet, like most things in life they have limitations and we must be careful how we use them and avoid serious damage. It seems like a similar analogy can be used for mother earth. Our planet is tough and resilient, but with the pressures of 6 billion people on it we can damage it seriously if we aren’t careful.
On a truck we can do some pretty serious damage. We can run it into a tree, blow the engine by allowing it to overheat, grind up the transmission by accidentally shifting into reverse while driving, or rolling it over while driving on snow covered roads. We can do same thing with earth by carelessly allowing massive amounts of toxic escape into the air without control, dumping massive amounts of chemicals into our waterways, or consuming all of our fresh water for frivolous uses.
We aren’t just talking about minor things that while annoying don’t actually do that much damage unless massive aggregated together. A minor dent or ding in your truck might be annoying, but it’s not going to make the truck less useful. A campfire might release some smoke into the atmosphere, or a cow may leave some dung in a pasture, but that to our environment.
I sit tonight under the stars on the tailgate of my pickup, deep in the woods in Southern Schoharie County. Tall pine trees tower over me as I look at a sky that has finally cleared out and the stars are shining brightly down on me. A nice big campfire provides light, as does my overhead florescent lamp powered by my truck when I turn it on to write.
I yehaw at the moon with my cowboy hat on, drinking yet another Corona. I listen to yet another top-40 country music song, inter-spaced with some obnoxious religious right talk on another station that seems so powerful out here. I cook myself a meal on the old gas stove made of eggs, hash, potato chips, and lots of Corona. I’m in heaven it seems.
I just love being alone, playing cowboy out in the woods around the fire. I’m increasingly drunk, but at the same time I am so much at ease, so peaceful in a kind of redneck-y kind of way. I love my pickup truck and I love the woods. I’m just not sure how I could ever live without such a free life.
Writing is one of many forms of self-expression. It’s about releasing a part of yourself, and allowing the whole world to experience it. There are many secrets that lie within the individual, only to be relased in a note scribbled in a notepad or typed upon a keyboard.
There are many ways one can preserve an emotion, time, or place in the future besides writing. There is photography in still and motion, and audio recordings. All of them came after the written word and seem to lose some of their meaning when recorded. Writing only includes what the individual thinks is important and my exclude things not noticed or overlooked by the individual. Writing is best for capturing an individual’s emotions at a specific time.
We evolve every second, and it’s impossible to go back in time to fully understand the context of each sentence. Nobody can revisit a particular thought. Words are only as good as the fedality of the emotion they represent. We have to be careful not to distort the word from it’s orginal context.
I certainly do not know how to fully write down my experiences. As soon as I experience something, it changes me in a way that I can not go back. I see the world different minute by minute. Things have changed in my life since the last word I wrote was written, and I can never truly go back to that time in my life.
I close my eyes for a moment to pause and think about what I just wrote. I’m already in a different place, despite breathing the same fresh mountain air I did a minute ago and hearing the same sounds of nature from a minute earlier. I’m doomed in keeping the past alive, but I’m not particularly saddened as I know I can experience other great things.
