From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Newsgroups: talk.environment,sci.environment
Subject: Re: Libertarians & the environment
Date: 24 Jul 92 18:20:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: beaver.1992Jul24.182014.16962
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <ewright.711999698@convex.convex.com> ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright) writes:
>In <1992Jul20.192034.2963@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>
>>This is such utter nonsense, it shows that your clearly know very
>>little about forest practices. Clearcutting was in use long before
>>there were any government regulations; its been used to decimate
>>forests all over the planet. 
>
>I found it interesting how rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth environmentalists
>love the word "decimated."  

Good thing you've never met me, Mr. Wright. Last time I had foam at
the mouth was, err, err, I forget. And I seem to spend most of my time
*arguing* with other environmentalists who I consider too simplistic
in their outlook. Rabies was eliminated from the UK before I
emigrated, so I'm probably not suffering from that either.
			     
			     Perhaps that's because most people don't
>know what it means.  It sounds so much more awful to say that something's
>"decimated" rather than "reduced by 10%."  Not the US forests have been
>decimated recently -- we have more forest land today than we did at the
>turn of the century, 

I'm afraid that you are quite simply wrong about this. It *is* true
that there is more land under the cover of trees than there was at the
turn of the century, but if you consider this to be equivalent of
there being more forest land, then I'm afraid you don't know enough
about what a forest is, or rather, you don't know enough about why
cutting down a forest and planting trees are not necessarily
complementary activities.

And what word would you use to describe the cutting of at least 80% of
the forests extant in the Oregon Territory when Europeans first began
settling here ? "Trimmed" ? 
		      
		 But you won't hear that from extremist environmental
>candidates who believe they have to scare people to get votes.

Boring. I don't believe such a thing. And I haven't met any "extremist
environmental candidates" - people who subscribe, for instance, to the
"back to the pleistocene" foolishness generally don't run for office.

>
>>Why the caricature ? What aspect of deep ecology ("biocentrism")
>>prevents you from recognising the idea that trees deserve rights as
>>trees, not as people ? 
>
>Perhaps the same aspect that prevents him recognizing that trees
>should be required to register with selective service.  He may be
>operating under the delusion that trees are not people.

Perhaps he simply feels that rights can only be ascribed to people, a
position that I disagree with, since I see no clear way to divide
"people" from other living systems in a way that gives people rights,
and denies them to other things (see "The Evolution of Culture In
Animals" by J.T. Bonner for one interesting set of examples why). Tim
Freeman's suggestion of only ascribing rights to things you can
negotiate with seems like a sensible start, but has the problem of
justifying the denial of what now seem like perfectly reasonable
rights of many people around the world by sea-faring Brits who
couldn't speak the language of the various ports they decided to
visit.

-- paul



-- 
		     Paul's housebuilding credo:
     Measure it with a micrometer, cut it with a chainsaw, fit it
			 with a sledgehammer
Xref: sparky talk.environment:3023 sci.environment:10170