So yesterday I took a political action I'd long desired but never received the proper oomph of motivation to do. I said something semi-publically about my distaste for a number of actions of our current political administration.
It caught me a bit unawares. I'm used to harrumphing each morning as I read the paper, taken aback by what I so often consider to be a backward, manipulative, or self-serving activity on the part of the larger political establishment (for the record, I think of myself as a left-leaning independent moderate on most issues). But it ends there, with the cats in silent agreement and AZ rolling her eyes but in agreement.
Then yesterday I read of the updated rules (.pdf, 155pg) proposal being bandied about by the US Forestry Service, a move which would decentralise the decision-making authority for forest management (potentially good) and reduce costs by eliminating the need for environmental impact studies at time of forest management decisions. The local forester, according to the Chief Operating Officer (yes, that is her title) has the information to make those decisions without general review.
It was just one of those things in the way they said it. I was moved at last to take fingers to keyboard and speak out my frustration in a Letter to the Editor. Not the most active of acts, perhaps. Perhaps just a whitman-esque barbaric yawp. But I had to do something to release some of my concern.
Now to read the 155 pages of proposed rules.
Incidentally, a review of Theodore Roosevelt's 1908 State of the Union speech is informative as to his initial views of the use of America's forests when he started creating the national parks system. Obviously the early industrial-post-industrial utility argument is there, but the deeper argument of stewardship and caution (hello, conservatives? caution? preservation?) as well.
Nothing should be permitted to stand in the way of the preservation of the forests, and it is criminal to permit individuals to purchase a little gain for themselves through the destruction of forests when this destruction is fatal to the well-being of the whole country in the future.Posted by esinclai at November 29, 2002 10:01 AM |
