5 ms·

Interesting. What kinds of things has your group accomplished? I'm not a conservative, but the Sierra Club will never see a dime from me until they lay off mo

by davidw 9y ago

Interesting. What kinds of things has your group accomplished? I'm not a conservative, but the Sierra Club will never see a dime from me until they lay off mountain bikers. It seems so stupid to antagonize a group that could share about 99% of what they want to accomplish.

barsonme 9y ago
We have a few different ways we're approaching this. In no particular order we: 1) Work with college republicans to introduce them to environmentalism. We saw lots of success here during National Clean Energy Week where we held events and had 20 CR chairs sign on to our clean energy pledge (https://www.acc.eco/cr-clean-energy-coalition https://www.acc.eco/cr-clean-energy-coalition) and we have 25 pilot campuses we're partnering with. We hope to more than double that number next year. 2) Are growing the climate solutions caucus. We've met with members of congress and support those who are pro-environment. 3) Have a policy newsletter with policy research 4) Work with city and county county officials to assist with their environmental policy. (This one has been my favorite to watch take off.) and plenty more.
- davidw 9y ago
  > 4) Work with city and county county officials to assist with their environmental policy. (This one has been my favorite to watch take off.) This one is so ripe for bipartisanship: https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regulations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regula...
  - barsonme 9y ago
    It's been so awesome to local politicians from across the political spectrum message us and say, "Hey, what we're doing isn't working, do you have advice?" People are so much more invested in their own community and open to tangible solutions.
    - davidw 9y ago
      Are you familiar with Strong Towns? https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ They're good people, non-partisan, and also very much in line with "something isn't working": https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburban-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburb...
      - barsonme 9y ago
        I personally am not, but will definitely run it by some people. At first blush this looks really neat. Thanks for sharing!
24gttghh 9y ago
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the Sierra Club only opposed mtn biking in designated Wilderness Areas, which only make up 36M out of 192M NFS acerage.[0] (That's 145,000 km^2 out of 780,000 km^2) Those areas really should just be left alone as much as possible. The White Mountain National Forest doesn't even like expanding or maintaining the leantos in much of their Wilderness Areas, so it's not like Mtn biking is singled out in my area. FWIW I love mountain biking and helping to build singletrack as much as possible, but I also like visiting the sublimely quiet wilderness areas with only my own two feet as my way into those natural cathedrals. [0]https://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR2011/LAR2011_Book_A5.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR2011/LAR2011_Book_A5...
- davidw 9y ago
  They've been pretty consistently anti MTB over the years. There are absolutely wilderness areas where there should not be bikes, but it should be decided locally, just as certain trails outside of wilderness areas are, justly, hiker only. For instance, this is a Wilderness area east of Bend, Oregon. It is not, however a "wilderness" - indeed many of the trails are former jeep roads: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0008533,-121.0058259,13154m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0008533,-121.0058259,13154m/... And don't forget: you can legally ride a string of horses into a Wilderness area, shoot an elk with a rifle and pack it out. To my way of thinking, riding a bike around is not nearly so impactful.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Give me bikes over horses every day. Not sure exactly why hiking in a bit of horseshit, here and there, bothers me so much. I think it mostly is that I imagine that when you are on a horse you are much higher off the trail and don't have to deal with the stink your horse created.
    - davidw 9y ago
      I'm happy to share, and happy for local decision makers to decide which users should get access to which trails. There are some that even hikers damage, let alone adding bikes and horses. Others are fine for everyone. Some places (not in Wilderness areas) should have some room for ATV people and so on. I guess besides being a housing YIMBY, I'm a trail YIMBY too.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by davidw 9y ago

barsonme 9y ago

We have a few different ways we're approaching this. In no particular order we: 1) Work with college republicans to introduce them to environmentalism. We saw lots of success here during National Clean Energy Week where we held events and had 20 CR chairs sign on to our clean energy pledge (https://www.acc.eco/cr-clean-energy-coalition https://www.acc.eco/cr-clean-energy-coalition) and we have 25 pilot campuses we're partnering with. We hope to more than double that number next year. 2) Are growing the climate solutions caucus. We've met with members of congress and support those who are pro-environment. 3) Have a policy newsletter with policy research 4) Work with city and county county officials to assist with their environmental policy. (This one has been my favorite to watch take off.) and plenty more.

davidw 9y ago
> 4) Work with city and county county officials to assist with their environmental policy. (This one has been my favorite to watch take off.) This one is so ripe for bipartisanship: https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regulations/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/reforming-land-use-regula...
- barsonme 9y ago
  It's been so awesome to local politicians from across the political spectrum message us and say, "Hey, what we're doing isn't working, do you have advice?" People are so much more invested in their own community and open to tangible solutions.
  - davidw 9y ago
    Are you familiar with Strong Towns? https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ They're good people, non-partisan, and also very much in line with "something isn't working": https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburban-experiment https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburb...
    - barsonme 9y ago
      I personally am not, but will definitely run it by some people. At first blush this looks really neat. Thanks for sharing!

24gttghh 9y ago

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the Sierra Club only opposed mtn biking in designated Wilderness Areas, which only make up 36M out of 192M NFS acerage.[0] (That's 145,000 km^2 out of 780,000 km^2) Those areas really should just be left alone as much as possible. The White Mountain National Forest doesn't even like expanding or maintaining the leantos in much of their Wilderness Areas, so it's not like Mtn biking is singled out in my area. FWIW I love mountain biking and helping to build singletrack as much as possible, but I also like visiting the sublimely quiet wilderness areas with only my own two feet as my way into those natural cathedrals. [0]https://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR2011/LAR2011_Book_A5.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/lar/LAR2011/LAR2011_Book_A5...

davidw 9y ago
They've been pretty consistently anti MTB over the years. There are absolutely wilderness areas where there should not be bikes, but it should be decided locally, just as certain trails outside of wilderness areas are, justly, hiker only. For instance, this is a Wilderness area east of Bend, Oregon. It is not, however a "wilderness" - indeed many of the trails are former jeep roads: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0008533,-121.0058259,13154m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.0008533,-121.0058259,13154m/... And don't forget: you can legally ride a string of horses into a Wilderness area, shoot an elk with a rifle and pack it out. To my way of thinking, riding a bike around is not nearly so impactful.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Give me bikes over horses every day. Not sure exactly why hiking in a bit of horseshit, here and there, bothers me so much. I think it mostly is that I imagine that when you are on a horse you are much higher off the trail and don't have to deal with the stink your horse created.
  - davidw 9y ago
    I'm happy to share, and happy for local decision makers to decide which users should get access to which trails. There are some that even hikers damage, let alone adding bikes and horses. Others are fine for everyone. Some places (not in Wilderness areas) should have some room for ATV people and so on. I guess besides being a housing YIMBY, I'm a trail YIMBY too.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]