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the johnHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:58pm

(Go to any beautiful natural area that is being rapidly developed into condos and chain stores if you have any doubts about that.)

No shit. As a fellow Floridian, you know better than most what this looks like. I'm in central Florida, and the speed and breadth of development is astounding. There are places that I remember seeing when I was a kid in the '90s that were amazingly beautiful — rolling hills, orange groves, pine forests. Today? Soulless housing tracts and WalMarts. And these fuckers gave Rick Scott a go-ahead for the next four years.
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  Emerald D.V.the john
  11/13/14 3:13pm
  If it wasn't for Marjory Stoneman Douglas, there would be even less of that left.
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  the johnEmerald D.V.
  11/13/14 4:23pm
  Every school child in Florida should know her name, but as it is, I doubt our esteemed governor coups find the River of Grass on a map. And if you show it to him, he'll just want to drain the glades and build golf courses.
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Zsa Zsa GaborgHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 3:05pm
The National Park system is one of the few things the US still does better than every other country on earth. We've preserved some of the most beautiful, majestic places in the entire world, and pay only a pittance to keep them pure and available to everyone who wants to visit. These critics of Muir are literally not seeing the forest for the trees.
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  Cyber Mind GrrlZsa Zsa Gaborg
  11/13/14 4:08pm
  Apparently you have never visited Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, or Waterton National Park, all located in one province in Canada. In fact, some of the national parks in Canada are larger than some states in the US.
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  Zsa Zsa GaborgCyber Mind Grrl
  11/13/14 6:31pm
  Our parks are also visited by many, MANY more people. Also, Canada is just the US with manners.
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Ian MuirHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 3:30pm
Well, my initial reaction (for obvious reasons) is FUCK THESE GUYS!

The idea that John Muir exclusively worked to only preserve pristine wilderness settings is just bullshit. Both as a farmer and a forester, he maintained the idea that there are a variety of uses for nature. He not only championed conservation efforts he also worked to promote sustainable use of land that wasn't being preserved.

Did he write about urban parks? No. Does this mean he would have a problem with the idea? No. During Muir's time, urban sprawl was not nearly as big of a problem as it is today and not as problematic as industrial abuse of natural resources. These critics assume that because Muir didn't write about these issues specifically, he must have somehow been opposed to them. I highly doubt that somebody who dedicated his life to conserving nature and promoting sustainable use of natural resources would somehow be opposed to urban parks and green spaces.

I also take offence to the phrase that "One blemish on Muir's past is indisputable: He had disdain for California's Native Americans". In his earlier writings, he described problems with Native Americans in Wisconsin, but also wrote this was the result of "being robbed of their lands and pushed ruthlessly back into narrower and narrower limits by alien races who were cutting off their means of livelihood." In California, he initially called the Paiute lazy and superstitious, but after spending time with them he wrote very highly of the tribe and encouraged Americans to adopt aspects of their less destructive way of life. His views and relationships with native people was definitely not always positive and evolved over his life, but calling him indisputably disdainful is cherry picking on a FOX News level. That passage seemed to be put in place to avoid actual facts by attacking Muir's character.
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  boobsmcgee223Ian Muir
  11/13/14 6:41pm
  .... Are you related to John Muir?
  
  Totally agree with all of this, btw.
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  Ian Muirboobsmcgee223
  11/13/14 9:16pm
  Yeah, I'm a great great great (great?) grandson of his brother David Muir (via his son Wilberforce Muir which might be the best name ever).
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doublepluscraftyHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:51pm
To say that "it is not economically feasible for many Americans to enjoy our national parks" is not to argue against conservation—it is to argue for making the majority of American more economically prosperous. I would vote for socialist redistribution of economic resources over a move away from land conservation any day.

YES.
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  doublepluscraftydoublepluscrafty
  11/13/14 2:52pm
  I'd also like to add that it's not really that big of a deal to visit these parks if you're poor. Cram the family in a car and drive there on the weekend. A lot cheaper than Disneyland, a movie, etc.
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  Rambledoublepluscrafty
  11/13/14 3:00pm
  Yep. Just cause there are douchebag yuppie types out there spending $800 on a tent for their weekend camping trip, doesn't mean mean you can't do the same with a $50 one from Walmart or whatever. People trying to make things like a camping trip out to be something only the rich can afford are way off base.
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Cam/ronHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:57pm
"For many communities of color, nature of great significance isn't out there in distant charismatic Sierra peaks; it's in urban parks, in local mountains and along local rivers — and under their fingertips in the stuff they grow in their own backyards," he said.

You gotta love Enlightened White Progressives who claim they can read the minds of so many non-whites. Well, as a PoC, I can say the Sierras matter just as much to me as the Sacramento Delta, Golden Gate Park, and the Marin Headlands.
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TheHoopoeHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:54pm
I presume it's useful to examine conservation goals and ideologies every so often but the false dichotomy between large national parks and urban parks sound stupid. Most people are never going to see let alone climb mt. Everest, why not just flatten the silly thing.
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  burlivesleftnutTheHoopoe
  11/13/14 3:10pm
  These people must look at the world through pinholes.
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DMaheuHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:55pm
Critics also say Muir's vision of wilderness is rooted in economic privilege and the abundant leisure time of the upper class.

Partially true, but the upper class didn't keep the parks for themselves, they gave them to the American people. Mostly due to Muir and his relationship with Roosevelt. I don't see our current overlords doing anything like this for the citizens of this country.

These people need to watch Ken Burn's 'National Parks' series which is rife with Muir references. We wouldn't have the parks if it wasn't for his tireless campaigning.
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  La.M.DMaheu
  11/13/14 3:38pm
  The upper class and the govt. stole the land of poor and indigenous people in the creation of many the national parks. Don't get me wrong, I am a strong supporter of the park system, but it was not a rosey happy thing creating them. It was a violation of the rights of people living on the land. The wealthy stole the land from the poor and then allowed them to pay to tour it. One would hope that the current overlords of this country would not drive people off their own land for the purposes of conservation and tourism. In fact, it would be awesome if they would focus on urban parks.
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  DMaheuLa.M.
  11/13/14 3:42pm
  I agree but that's revisionist thinking. We had one chance to keep these places from becoming resort communities for the 1%. Unfair as it was with the Parks under goverment control we could theoretically give some of that land back. If the robber barons of the 19th century had built it up it would certainly be gone forever.
  
  Can you imagine trying to wrestle Yosemite away from the Koch's?
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HubcapJennyHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 3:36pm
When I've been poor, parks (national or more local) were one of the few places I could afford to go. If it weren't for camping in parks, I wouldn't have been able to travel or take a vacation. And even now that I'm more comfortable financially, my favorite vacations are still long walks out in the wilderness and camping. I believe our national parks, preserving some of our continents greatest wonders, are one of the few things that can make this fucked up country worth living in sometimes, even if I don't get to see every one in person.
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  teddyballgameHubcapJenny
  11/13/14 4:34pm
  Yes! This. When the only money I had was tip money from waiting tables, my would-be wife and I spent an awesome summer exploring the myriad national parks out west precisely because they were cheap! Now, I totally get that someone who is working an hourly job probably can't take off to go explore a park. And that sucks. But the idea that these large (and small) tracts of unspoiled land are somehow themselves tied to privilege is patently absurd.
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  kbasaHubcapJenny
  11/13/14 5:01pm
  I've been scanning 35mm slides that are the family photo archive and some of the items I've scanned were from a 1971 trip we took. We piled everyone in the family station wagon and departed San Diego. We visited Death Valley, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, Saguaro National Monument, White Sands, Petrified Forest, Zion, Bryce, Arches, Yellowstone, Glacier, Canadian Glacier, Banff, Vancouver, Victoria, Puget Sound, Crater Lake, Golden Gate National Seashore and then on down to San Diego.
  
  We camped the whole way and that trip formed the fascination with the outdoors that I still have as an adult. It was cheap for us, beyond gas and food, my brothers and I were exposed to some of the most beautiful scenery in the country. I think that trip is what turned me into a solid westerner and broke my ties to the midwest and the east at age 13.
  
  A couple years ago, people were bitching about park fees going up to $25 or something. Are you kidding me? You'll pay less than that to go see some crappy movie for two hours, but for $25 you can stare at Grand Canyon until the sun goes down, then get up and watch it rise over the Canyon, too. I'm going to call that a pretty good value.
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MaxyPerk4Hamilton Nolan
11/13/14 2:53pm
I am a board member of an environmental nonprofit. The critics point to an actual problem, which is that the Yellowstones of the world do tend siphon funds away from other places.

That's not to say they're not morons, 'cuz they are.

National parks need protecting more than ever, particularly with the right-wing fucktards running Capitol Hill now. Watch them try to kill funding for the Dept of the Interior, the EPA, repeal the Endangered Species Act, give you a $500 tax refund for every endangered species you kill (but only with an American-made weapon of course), you name it.

But an area I'm particularly interested in is NY's Adirondacks Park. Now THERE'S a model for conservation we can all get behind. Not a national-park style place where no people live — there are over 100,000 people in the 6-million-acre Adk Park — but an attempt to blend conservation and simultaneously create a place people want to live and work in harmony w/ nature. And with plenty of hiccups (the current governor is a fucking nightmare) it works pretty damn well.
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GRAY-pefruitSmileHamilton Nolan
11/13/14 3:14pm
Gawd I wish I could remember the particulars of my conservation class regarding this topic, but I do recall that even back in the day there were several different schools of thought on conservation, and leisure/class privilege were some of the points of contention. Today, there is more of an argument of integrating conservation land with modern needs, including but not limited to leisure. But as our needs always seem to trump everything else, this sets up nature to fail big time. You need huge plots of suitable land for specific habitats that allow the food web to remain in tact. Large predators need lots of space (not cut off by highways), and connections to more space. Tough to provide that these days.
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