7 ms·
For those simply upvoting without reading the article, this case is more nuanced than the headline may sound: > Residents in the community of King Cove want to
by CA0DA 4y ago
For those simply upvoting without reading the article, this case is more nuanced than the headline may sound:
> Residents in the community of King Cove want to exchange land to build a gravel road through the refuge to provide access to an all-weather airport in nearby Cold Bay for medical transports.
- phkahler 4y agoIt's not about the residents of King Cove. BTW they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation. It's about power and control if you go by this part: “The split panel decision would allow the secretary, without any public process or without compliance with any other laws, to engage in a backroom land exchange,”
- hanniabu 4y agoThat's a pretty fucked up clause
- notch656a 4y ago45% of households in King Cove have children who had no choice in whether the road is there or not 40 years ago. It's hard to just blame them that "they knew the roads weren't there" when they were born thus they're not allowed roads to medical care the way I (and probably you) are.
- mod 4y agoI would sooner take the children away or force the residents to move than pave a road through the Alaskan wilderness. I wouldn't do those things either, though. People get to choose where and how to raise their children. Children don't get a say so in virtually anything that affects them. "Think of the children" is not a good argument. Also the whole population is like 1200 people. We're talking about a relative handful of kids. Like one very small elementary school (edit: Google search says there's 87 kids in PK-12th grade. Combined.)
- notch656a 4y ago>BTW they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation. Is patently false. It's not "think of the children." It's pointing out that statement was a vicious lie. I'm pointing out they've simply ignored the people who were born there. We're talking about a road connecting two closest communities. You've said yourelf you wouldn't do the things to remove these residents from these communities. I would find it hypocritical for someone to take advantages of roads in their own community while denying this community a single road to the closest airport to the kind of medical services that those in the lower 48 can drive to (even if it takes them awhile).
- IanDrake 4y ago
- ivanhoe 4y agoWe destroyed our local wilderness long time ago to make our lives safer and easier and more comfortable - and now we're judging others for wanting the same for their town...
- drekipus 4y agoYes because we realise the mistakes
- ivanhoe 4y agoDid we really? Just go around and see all those sterile lawns in front of houses, drowned in herbicides and fertilizers, wasting all that space that could be easily turned into gardens or beautiful meadows (you literally just have to leave it alone and it will happen on its own). But we're pissed on others for wanting a single gravel road, so that they don't die if some emergency happens... As the old Serbian saying goes: "it's easy to beat hawthorns with someone else's penis"...
- soupbowl 4y agoRules for thee not for me.
- Sharlin 4y agoWell, children are not even asked whether they want to be created, never mind where they want to be born.
- ivanhoe 4y ago> they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation. It's a really weird argument, you're basically saying that people shouldn't be allowed to upgrade their infrastructure ever? Imagine saying that for some poor country: "Oh, well, they either had no running water before, or they knew the situation before moving there, so screw them, they can just continue walking 5 miles every day to bring water from the spring". Also they've been without that road a lot longer than 40 years, King Cove exists since at least 1930s. Population is dropping so I doubt many people have been moving there, most of people live there their whole life....and if they get sick or injured and planes can't land, they're screwed without that road.
- WalterBright 4y ago> people shouldn't be allowed to upgrade their infrastructure ever? In a wilderness area? No.
- ivanhoe 4y agoWhole US were a wilderness once... you're basically punishing them for not destroying their nature earlier on, like the rest of us did...
- drekipus 4y agoYou make it sound like not being allowed a chocolate bar is a form of punishment
- WalterBright 4y agoWe have to stop the destruction of the wilderness at some point, or we'll all die.
- ivanhoe 4y agoAbsolutely, WE should do exactly that (and there's a plenty of things that we can do to protect nature around ourselves) - instead of living in hyper-urbanized cities and pissing online on people who actually live for a century or more in a real untouched wilderness and haven't destroyed it in all that time, and now want one stupid gravel road through that unimaginably wast area. It's a raindrop in the ocean, but people love to focus their energy on isolated, far-away problems, rather than tackling real problems and the wider image.
- notch656a 4y agoA well connected, wealthy person with no real worries about their own access to medical professionals and no real roots in Alaska feigning to act for the good of nature but in the process acting against the interest of these communities? Say it aint so.
- mod 4y agoWhat does 97 year old Jimmy Carter have to gain from making a stand here? I cannot come up with any motivations besides the guy actually just wants to protect the wild. He grew up close to the land, so that makes sense to me.
- notch656a 4y agoHe gets to look like he's saving the wilderness while denying advancement in access to medical care to majority native/Asian community.
- drekipus 4y agoOf course it's about race. Naturally he's a white supremacist. If they were white people he would be mowing down the trees himself.
- thrdbndndn 4y agoJimmy Carter grew up in Alaska? Never heard of that. I can't find a single occurrence of "alaska" in his Wikipedia article. Got any ref? Edit: I don't mind the downvote, but could someone explain if I missed something obvious?
- DennisP 4y ago"Close to the land" does not mean "close to that particular land."
- thrdbndndn 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- swayvil 4y agoWe upvote what we like, downvote what we don't like. Such dog damn simple creatures we are.
- mod 4y agoI personally don't consider that nuanced. I live five miles from pavement, an hour from a hospital, so I understand these concerns. I would be absolutely disgusted if they paved through my local national forest for some quicker access to... Anything. Literally anything. Those people all have the choice to leave. Living in remote places comes with many, many tradeoffs and inconveniences. There's no safety in the wilderness. Keep the wild places wild. There's so little left.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoWe know from history that the destruction of the jungle's began with roads making them accessible to illegal loggers, miners and hunters. The road to hell...
- WalterBright 4y agoA lot of illegal logging of old growth goes on in Washington State adjacent to the roads.
- thghtihadanacct 4y ago100%