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These kinds of comments show the paradox of the modern urban professional. The ones who have reached the top 1-2% in terms of educational achievement and career

These kinds of comments show the paradox of the modern urban professional. The ones who have reached the top 1-2% in terms of educational achievement and career prospects. They live in cities or remote locations with full amenities - car, electricity and internet, smartphones, laptops. They use apps powered by the global internet and consume from the global supply chain. And they hike in the Himalayas with their DSLR, patagonia/north face gear and post the snaps to instagram. They just want to freeze the state of development, fossil fuel usage, roads, etc. Because they see no benefit to themselves of any more of those things. Everything is swell for them. This denies the benefits of development to the hundreds of millions who still need access to education, health care and economic opportunities. There is NO country in the world that has reached first world status without going through development. I am sure you think there is a way but it is just one way to deny the poor of benefits. There is no widespread environmental destruction. Every measure forest cover, pollution, habitat has improved over the past decades. Just because things are great for you is not an excuse to unintentionally wage class warfare.

actuator 6y ago
Wow, that's a loaded comment that makes a lot of assumptions about me. I am not against connectivity or improving the life of people there, a lot of these areas are already connected by metalled road. What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately, if you talk to people there or even read some of the articles I have linked, there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. There are far more important things that would have been beneficial to people living there like education, healthcare and some of them can be improved drastically with something as simple as improving LTE coverage. All I am saying is, I would have preferred to see the myriad of problems associated with the project addressed, I am not saying do not build, but build sustainably. About the metrics you think that haven't degraded, I don't have sources ready on all of them but I just looked up forest cover and one of the most green regions is now covered with plantations a lot. [1] Plantation cover != Forest cover. Lastly, just because I am wearing Patagonia/North Face because of their environmental commitments, doesn't mean I expect everyone else to do the same. There are other paths, which might not be perfect but will be better, it doesn't hurt to raise issues when you see them so you can explore those paths. The choice is not binary. [1] https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d586f57c-6ef3-42e5-a68c-031b10d950b9_586x631.png https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.am...
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  Sentences like this betray your intent: What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. or there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. How long did you wait before you polled the locals for benefits? What timeline in your opinion is valid for benefits to accrue - 1 year? 3 years? Apologies if it came across as harsh but I do appreciate your comment. I used your comment as a template for the general environmentalist anathema in third-world nations like India against development which disproportionately helps the poor. The upper socio-economic classes everywhere are against further development be it the home owners of SF who rail against high density housing, the mansion owners of nantucket who hate off shore windmills, the woke classes of Mumbai who protest the cutting of 300 trees to stop development of a metro line which will disproportionately help the mass-transit commuting poor. Sustainability - that vague bogey of the anti-development movement. Oft used but never defined. I am not too different than you. I would love the earth to be pristine so when I visit distant locales I can enjoy untouched panoramas. I just value the quality of the life of the locals more than my view.
  - actuator 6y ago
    > Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. When I used the word indiscriminate, there was a specific purpose to it. It doesn't have to be that the engineers or planners don't know the better way to do it. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, or do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax. I have specifically mentioned examples in one of the other replies of things that they have done indiscriminately. Filling up narrow valleys with debris or destroying vegetation below the road slope by just leaving the debris there certainly isn't smart; nor is cutting slopes in the cheapest way to leave them prone to landslides. There are ways to activley manage it which have been employed throughout the world. As I said, even when I had searched in the past the media coverage on this was poor which is surprising. But here are few links which discuss the issues I mentioned in the comment. - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jul/21/char-dham-pariyojana-hpc-report-says-socio-cultural-concern-innovative-thought-largely-missing-2172741.amp https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jul/21/char-dha... - https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/char-dham-national-highway-has-cost-uttarakhand-its-ecological-balance-62661 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/char-dham-na...

actuator 6y ago

Wow, that's a loaded comment that makes a lot of assumptions about me. I am not against connectivity or improving the life of people there, a lot of these areas are already connected by metalled road. What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately, if you talk to people there or even read some of the articles I have linked, there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. There are far more important things that would have been beneficial to people living there like education, healthcare and some of them can be improved drastically with something as simple as improving LTE coverage. All I am saying is, I would have preferred to see the myriad of problems associated with the project addressed, I am not saying do not build, but build sustainably. About the metrics you think that haven't degraded, I don't have sources ready on all of them but I just looked up forest cover and one of the most green regions is now covered with plantations a lot. [1] Plantation cover != Forest cover. Lastly, just because I am wearing Patagonia/North Face because of their environmental commitments, doesn't mean I expect everyone else to do the same. There are other paths, which might not be perfect but will be better, it doesn't hurt to raise issues when you see them so you can explore those paths. The choice is not binary. [1] https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d586f57c-6ef3-42e5-a68c-031b10d950b9_586x631.png https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.am...

haltingproblem 6y ago
Sentences like this betray your intent: What was happening when I was traveling there was widening of the roads indiscriminately Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. or there isn't much benefit that local people are seeing because of this. How long did you wait before you polled the locals for benefits? What timeline in your opinion is valid for benefits to accrue - 1 year? 3 years? Apologies if it came across as harsh but I do appreciate your comment. I used your comment as a template for the general environmentalist anathema in third-world nations like India against development which disproportionately helps the poor. The upper socio-economic classes everywhere are against further development be it the home owners of SF who rail against high density housing, the mansion owners of nantucket who hate off shore windmills, the woke classes of Mumbai who protest the cutting of 300 trees to stop development of a metro line which will disproportionately help the mass-transit commuting poor. Sustainability - that vague bogey of the anti-development movement. Oft used but never defined. I am not too different than you. I would love the earth to be pristine so when I visit distant locales I can enjoy untouched panoramas. I just value the quality of the life of the locals more than my view.
- actuator 6y ago
  > Surely you know better than the urban planners and the engineers who are widening roads indiscriminately. When I used the word indiscriminate, there was a specific purpose to it. It doesn't have to be that the engineers or planners don't know the better way to do it. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, or do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax. I have specifically mentioned examples in one of the other replies of things that they have done indiscriminately. Filling up narrow valleys with debris or destroying vegetation below the road slope by just leaving the debris there certainly isn't smart; nor is cutting slopes in the cheapest way to leave them prone to landslides. There are ways to activley manage it which have been employed throughout the world. As I said, even when I had searched in the past the media coverage on this was poor which is surprising. But here are few links which discuss the issues I mentioned in the comment. - https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jul/21/char-dham-pariyojana-hpc-report-says-socio-cultural-concern-innovative-thought-largely-missing-2172741.amp https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/2020/jul/21/char-dha... - https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/char-dham-national-highway-has-cost-uttarakhand-its-ecological-balance-62661 https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/char-dham-na...