🚀 go-pugleaf

"Enough Already" <enough_already@lycos.com> wrote in message
news:1106525950.033784.172560@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Jeff Strickland wrote:
>
> > The fact of the matter is, California is _expected_ to undergo
> significant
> > population growth in the next 20 years. The communities where this
> growth is
> > projected to go have already made plans to accomodate the expected
> influx.
> > The _problem_ these communities face is that they are near enough to
> the job
> > centers that people can make the daily trip back and forth to work,
> but the
> > road that goes from the housing centers to the job centers are by and
> large
> > rural two-lane farm roads that have been in place for decades. These
> roads
> > will see more cars in an hour than they were designed to see in a
> day, once
> > the homes are built.
>
> Sorry for the delayed reply but you're missing the bigger point. I am
> not so much protesting the roads themselves, as the population growth
> that people keep accepting as inevitable or desirable. Roads and houses
> unfortunately will be built because people are the center of the
> universe <sarcasm>. But I'm tired of people who think the human
> population "must" keep growing indefinitely because the economy "must"
> also grow indefinitely. This mentality takes much of its origin from
> the Bible.
>

All sarcasism asside, people ARE the center of the universe. Populations
will continue to grow because that is what populations do.

Animal populations will grow until they can not be naturally sustained, then
they stop growing until they can sustain themselves once again. This happens
time and time again. The difference with people is that we have the ability
to manipulate our (the) environment to gain the greatest use. We can build a
home. We can manipulate the food supply. We can do any number of things that
animals can not do, therefore our population growth is limited only by what
we can, or are willing to, manipulate.

Certainly, we manipulate the environment to the detriment to the animals
that are dependent upon natural habitat, and this is a reasonable problem to
resolve.

There is no "requirement" that the human population continue to grow, that
is, nobody says it "must grow indefinitely." Where there is a requirement is
that one accepts that the human population will continue to grow, then find
a compromise that will meet the human need while accomodating the natural
need of the animals.




> See: http://enough_already.tripod.com/genesis.htm
>
> Apparently, Arnold wants to have it both ways. He thinks we can
> accommodate more and more people (living the standard sprawl lifestyle)
> while protecting nature from their very impact. It just doesn't work
> that way. Anyone who tries to spend time in real wilderness in
> California knows this well. You have to go farther and father into the
> country to find it because the "country" keeps becoming the city. Who
> is crazy enough to think the environment can be kept in its current
> state when we have 50 million Californians by 2025?
>

That has ALWAYS been a problem. It isn't a new problem.

Nobody in his right mind expects that we can remain in our current state and
have 50 million in population in 20 years. But, IF we are going to have 50
million in 20 years - a growth of about 15 million, by the way - then we had
better start finding ways to accomodate both humans and the environment.

One thing would be to map out the wilderness areas that are worth
protecting, and the places where humanity is determined to spread into, then
create legislation that preserves the wilderness and pass funding measures
to create the infrastructure. The infrastructure can and should accomodate
the environment to the extent that the particular infrastructure project can
accomodate the environment. An example would be a roadway that if needed to
traverse a wilderness area, would be required to accomodate the wildlife by
having plenty of undercrossings so the animals could cross under, or be
built inside of tunnels that amimals could thrive without even knowing there
was a highway cutting through.



> > You can bury your head in the sand and scream about the environment
> while
> > the impact on the environment becomes progressively greater as cars
> standing
> > in long lines traverse sorely over used farming roads and people die
> as a
> > result of horrendeous wrecks, or you can help preserve what is left
> of the
> > environment by calling for environmentally sensitive roads that not
> only
> > cross the new communities, but also connect those communities to the
> job
> > centers.
>
> People dying in wrecks on overcrowded roads is not an environmental
> issue in my context. I'm talking about the loss of wilderness and
> animal habitat to human overpopulation. But you rather treat it as
> inevitable and therein lies the problem.
>

Well, people standing in long lines of stationary cars for hours spewing
smog IS an environmental issue.

It is interesting to note that YOU just said that you are concerned about
saving the life of a rat, moth, toad, etc., but don't care about saving the
life of a human being. I think this puts the entire issue into perspective.




> > An environmentally sensitive road will have undercrossings so
> > animals can migrate back and forth, it will not have exits where
> there are
> > never going to be homes. We can build new homes in one area, and
> refuse to
> > build them in others, but still have a road cut across the area where
> there
> > are no homes, but that road has no exits in the middle, only at the
> ends.
> > For example, I live in a community that is 20 miles from a job
> center, but
> > the roads that go there take over 60 miles and two hours due to
> traffic. The
> > short route is through a national forest and/or a wilderness area. If
> a road
> > was built that had no exits except at each end, and could accomodate
> the
> > wildlife in the area by having underpasses or overpasses if that
> would be
> > better, then the wilderness could be preserved, and humanity's needs
> of
> > getting from one place to another could be met. The compromise is
> that the
> > wilderness would not be impacted any more than is absolutely
> necessary.
>
> With ever-shrinking land acreage to build "environmentally sensitive"
> roads on, that concept is largely a joke. I'd rather see people stop
> breeding (worldwide) so we don't have to keep expanding infrastructure
> in the first place. We are running out of new, green valleys just over
> the hill.
>
> Also, roads and houses are just one part of the problem. More people
> means more crowding in wilderness areas as they try to escape
> population centers on weekends and holidays. There is really no such
> thing as "localized" growth impact because people don't stay rooted in
> one place. And food, timber and water must be taken from distant areas
> to feed the growth.
>
> > Plan B, which seems to be the environmentalist's plan of choice, is
> to build
> > no roads, no homes, nothing. Ever. Period. That approach is simply
> > unreasonable. Of course, the plan that calls for building everything
> we can
> > everywhere we can withoug regard for anything is equally
> unreasonable, but
> > at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. The actual course of
> action is
> > a plan somewhere between these two.
>
> My course of action is to get to the root of the matter and ask that
> people live and breed in true balance with nature instead of
> infiltrating it with endless growth. If you want to see the
> effectiveness of the "more roads solution," just drive in L.A. for a
> day. Finite land cannot be infinitely parceled. California is heading
> toward a future of megapolis suburbs that cover the very farmland we
> need to feed ourselves. Routes to the mountains and beaches will only
> become more crowded as 500,000+ people are jammed into the state each
> year. We no longer live in a frontier. It's a sick situation from an
> ecological view.
>
> Again, this is about far more than just roads and houses. It takes a
> lot of extraneous land to support human needs. There are just too many
> of us.
>


If people could not manipulate the environment, your idea would have already
happened, but people can and do manipulate the environment, and this is what
puts humans above the rest of the animal kingdom.

It then becomes incumbent upon humanity to understand the impact it has, and
then take steps to mitigate that impact.