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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 t

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...
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  You are playing whack-a-mole here. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, Of course you know the most optimal trade-off between costs, quality and the environment not folks who are building thousands of miles of roadway every year. do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax. Straw man. There is corruption everywhere even in the west. Because there is corruption, nothing should happen. 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. You know a better way? How do you know dumping it in the valley below is worse than carting it off and dumping it in a remote valley. Do you have data showing where it should be dumped? Have you talked to any transportation engineers. Let me allow that it is worse and causes landslides. Are those landslides worse than having wider safer roads? Your arguments have too much innuendo, conjecture because you have an defacto ideological position. You are fundamentally opposed to all development as it no longer serves your needs. Just ponder that.
  - actuator 6y ago
    It seems futile to discuss this with you. All you have done is, counter arguments with counter questions while never addressing the issue. I chose to reply once hoping that it would be constructive, but it isn't. If all both of us are going to do is counter questions with more questions and just refute the arguments entirely by questioning the other person's knowledge and research boosted by our own biases just to prove oneself right, the whole discussion becomes a non sequitur. For instance, you don't even know the dumping this is something an actual engineer working there told me about, the decision wasn't upto him, alas. You see, while backpacking one thing I make a point to do is to talk to locals. Additionally, the landslide vs road widening argument. Things are not binary in real world, it is not like one has to exist at the cost of other. While accusing me for having an ideological position which you know nothing about, you are conveniently ignoring yours. In no way, I have opposed "development" anywhere in the thread, it should definitely be at balance with other things and definitely not indiscriminate like I saw.

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...

haltingproblem 6y ago
You are playing whack-a-mole here. It just might be that they choose to pick the cheapest way they can get away with, Of course you know the most optimal trade-off between costs, quality and the environment not folks who are building thousands of miles of roadway every year. do you deny that in developing countries corruption is not high and implementation of laws is not lax. Straw man. There is corruption everywhere even in the west. Because there is corruption, nothing should happen. 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. You know a better way? How do you know dumping it in the valley below is worse than carting it off and dumping it in a remote valley. Do you have data showing where it should be dumped? Have you talked to any transportation engineers. Let me allow that it is worse and causes landslides. Are those landslides worse than having wider safer roads? Your arguments have too much innuendo, conjecture because you have an defacto ideological position. You are fundamentally opposed to all development as it no longer serves your needs. Just ponder that.
- actuator 6y ago
  It seems futile to discuss this with you. All you have done is, counter arguments with counter questions while never addressing the issue. I chose to reply once hoping that it would be constructive, but it isn't. If all both of us are going to do is counter questions with more questions and just refute the arguments entirely by questioning the other person's knowledge and research boosted by our own biases just to prove oneself right, the whole discussion becomes a non sequitur. For instance, you don't even know the dumping this is something an actual engineer working there told me about, the decision wasn't upto him, alas. You see, while backpacking one thing I make a point to do is to talk to locals. Additionally, the landslide vs road widening argument. Things are not binary in real world, it is not like one has to exist at the cost of other. While accusing me for having an ideological position which you know nothing about, you are conveniently ignoring yours. In no way, I have opposed "development" anywhere in the thread, it should definitely be at balance with other things and definitely not indiscriminate like I saw.