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Anyone who's worried only the wealthy will be able to enjoy nature hasn't been to West Virginia.

seattle_spring 8y ago
I think "nature" in this article refers to actual natural treasures (Grand Staircase, Yosemite, etc.), not just some random forest on some rolling hills.
- StronglyTyped 8y ago
  Clearly you've never been to Appalachia. It's beautiful, and it's full of poverty.
  - seattle_spring 8y ago
    Sure, it's beautiful. Just not nearly as beautiful as the mountain west and west coast.
- woodruffw 8y ago
  I don't think the Blue Ridge Mountains count as rolling hills, and I would count them among our national treasures. That being said, the fact is that WV's natural resources have been subjected to some of the most profound (and least regulated) economic exploitation in the country. So I don't think the GP's point is correct.
  - thr0waway5678 8y ago
    It reads like "the Poors can live Outdoors!"* but I'm going to assume I'm mistaken or that that couldn't possibly be a popular opinion on hn. *this is a joke and if you want to argue that i'm implying that everyone in West Virginia is homeless, bless your heart
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thr0waway5678 8y ago
Can you expand on this? I genuinely don't understand the "poor people are adjacent to trees" statement in the context of an entire country. Like genuinely this sounds like solid comedy unless I'm missing something here.
- megaman22 8y ago
  When you're a broke white hillbilly, you hunt and fish and do stuff outdoors because its there, its cheap, and there ain't much else to do. Source: Grew up broke hillbilly
  - thr0waway5678 8y ago
    That's weird. A very large chunk of poor people I've met live in urban areas, and if they don't, often lack the time or resources to do those things. I must know a special type of poor person that OP hasn't bumped into.
  - manicdee 8y ago
    It’s only cheap for them because they inherited vast tracts of land.
    - megaman22 8y ago
      What? Do you actually believe this? I grew up in the northern end of Appalachia, with a lot of people that had less than an acre their doublewide sat on. Nothing stopped them using the ponds and lakes, the trail systems, or the technically private but defacto public access swathes of paper company land.
      - greggarious 8y ago
        Not only did they use them for recreation, they often hunted for food. Technically illegal out of season, but national forest rangers tend to look the other way if you're hunting for sustenance, since those same poachers often would blow the whistle on more serious issues. (Illegal waste dumping, marijuana grows that abuse the forest with chemicals, meth labs that might explode and start fires, etc) Plus as a practical matter, if someone takes one shot at a deer then moves regardless of success, it's pretty much impossible to pinpoint where the shot came from.
Alex3917 8y ago
And the fact that it has vast natural resources is part of why it's poor. If you can forage a meal of morels, trout, and ramps, what's the point of earning a lot of money to go to fancy restaurants? It's not like you're going to get a better meal than that even by dropping a couple hundred bucks in NYC. So you end up with lots of people who living on large parcels of inherited land but not making very much money per year, because that is actually somewhat sustainable, at least until it comes time for retirement or (more likely) you have medical issues that you can't afford to pay for.
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gt_ 8y ago
Please tell me you’re joking. West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature. The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain. All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.
- thr0waway5678 8y ago
  Well, the wealthy get to take time off of work to go camping and hiking, and the poor people get to dynamite the hills their ancestors settled. Surely they're equivalent.
  - extralego 8y ago
    I’m not an expert on top chopping but I’m pretty sure the employment opportunities for local residents are slim to none and that’s the whole point. I went to school in North Carolina where about a 2 mile drive around the side of a mountain would bring us to an overlook of a valley full of peaks that we gradually watched disappear over those 3 years I was there. The machinery was utterly massive. I think the logging crews employed more people than the earth movers but I think logging on those hillsides qualifies as one of the most deadly jobs in America. They made a TV show about it.

I think "nature" in this article refers to actual natural treasures (Grand Staircase, Yosemite, etc.), not just some random forest on some rolling hills.

StronglyTyped 8y ago
Clearly you've never been to Appalachia. It's beautiful, and it's full of poverty.
- seattle_spring 8y ago
  Sure, it's beautiful. Just not nearly as beautiful as the mountain west and west coast.
woodruffw 8y ago
I don't think the Blue Ridge Mountains count as rolling hills, and I would count them among our national treasures. That being said, the fact is that WV's natural resources have been subjected to some of the most profound (and least regulated) economic exploitation in the country. So I don't think the GP's point is correct.
- thr0waway5678 8y ago
  It reads like "the Poors can live Outdoors!"* but I'm going to assume I'm mistaken or that that couldn't possibly be a popular opinion on hn. *this is a joke and if you want to argue that i'm implying that everyone in West Virginia is homeless, bless your heart
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thr0waway5678 8y ago

Can you expand on this? I genuinely don't understand the "poor people are adjacent to trees" statement in the context of an entire country. Like genuinely this sounds like solid comedy unless I'm missing something here.

megaman22 8y ago
When you're a broke white hillbilly, you hunt and fish and do stuff outdoors because its there, its cheap, and there ain't much else to do. Source: Grew up broke hillbilly
- thr0waway5678 8y ago
  That's weird. A very large chunk of poor people I've met live in urban areas, and if they don't, often lack the time or resources to do those things. I must know a special type of poor person that OP hasn't bumped into.
- manicdee 8y ago
  It’s only cheap for them because they inherited vast tracts of land.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    What? Do you actually believe this? I grew up in the northern end of Appalachia, with a lot of people that had less than an acre their doublewide sat on. Nothing stopped them using the ponds and lakes, the trail systems, or the technically private but defacto public access swathes of paper company land.
    - greggarious 8y ago
      Not only did they use them for recreation, they often hunted for food. Technically illegal out of season, but national forest rangers tend to look the other way if you're hunting for sustenance, since those same poachers often would blow the whistle on more serious issues. (Illegal waste dumping, marijuana grows that abuse the forest with chemicals, meth labs that might explode and start fires, etc) Plus as a practical matter, if someone takes one shot at a deer then moves regardless of success, it's pretty much impossible to pinpoint where the shot came from.

Alex3917 8y ago

And the fact that it has vast natural resources is part of why it's poor. If you can forage a meal of morels, trout, and ramps, what's the point of earning a lot of money to go to fancy restaurants? It's not like you're going to get a better meal than that even by dropping a couple hundred bucks in NYC. So you end up with lots of people who living on large parcels of inherited land but not making very much money per year, because that is actually somewhat sustainable, at least until it comes time for retirement or (more likely) you have medical issues that you can't afford to pay for.

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gt_ 8y ago

Please tell me you’re joking. West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature. The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain. All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.

thr0waway5678 8y ago
Well, the wealthy get to take time off of work to go camping and hiking, and the poor people get to dynamite the hills their ancestors settled. Surely they're equivalent.
- extralego 8y ago
  I’m not an expert on top chopping but I’m pretty sure the employment opportunities for local residents are slim to none and that’s the whole point. I went to school in North Carolina where about a 2 mile drive around the side of a mountain would bring us to an overlook of a valley full of peaks that we gradually watched disappear over those 3 years I was there. The machinery was utterly massive. I think the logging crews employed more people than the earth movers but I think logging on those hillsides qualifies as one of the most deadly jobs in America. They made a TV show about it.