Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
1–10 of 39 posts
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#2Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#3You think that's devastating? Go check out what happens at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd, San Ramon, CA.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#4And yet, most of humanity still seems to be only vaguely aware of how much things are breaking all around us. And politicians are unfortunately not an exception.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#5You think that's devastating? Go check out what happens at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd, San Ramon, CA.
It's entirely possible they could both be devastating. It's not zero-sum. However, I have to say, I didn't actually go there. I can't figure out what you're talking about. Seems to be the site of "Chevron Federal Credit Union". I can't see that anything in particular really happened.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#6I don’t want understate the impact of climate change, but if the author is comparing the dryness of 2021 specifically to 1993… 1993 was the 5th wettest year in California since the 1930s, and 2021 is a drought year.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#7> Now, almost 30 years later, in what might be the most profound shift of all, the power dynamic between humans and Yosemite has changed. To see nature so vulnerable not only feels depressing, but wrong, disorienting and scary.
Beautiful piece, but that's hardly the whole story. Nature doesn't care about climate change and it couldn't care less about us. Sure, it might kill all the birds, trees, landscapes, but our planet will adapt. We, humans, won't be able to. What we're destroying is our own future, both the beauty in the world and the environment we live in.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#8You think that's devastating? Go check out what happens at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd, San Ramon, CA.
It's entirely possible they could both be devastating. It's not zero-sum. However, I have to say, I didn't actually go there. I can't figure out what you're talking about. Seems to be the site of "Chevron Federal Credit Union". I can't see that anything in particular really happened.
It’s also funny that the author of the OpEd flew (presumably) her son from NYC to see the place, needing the services of Chevron or companies like it.
Moving mass requires energy. Using energy results in an increase in entropy (heat). We went from 2 billion to 8 billion people in 100 years, each life moving exponentially more mass than the generation before it.
Absent the discovery of a miraculously efficient energy source, there were only ever 2 options. Either force reduction in consumption per capita and/or capitas, or live in the future we are living in now. The former was never going to be politically popular, and I suspect the author of the OpEd also would not like to be told she cannot take her child to see Yosemite from NYC via current methods of transport.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#9> “Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller — their accounts of nature are that it’s perfect,” Dr. Strong said. “You would go and learn from this limitless teacher. Nature was pure truth. It offered access to the infinite, a stand-in for God.”
I enjoy being the literal one here - this is not aligned to what we observe. Nature can inspire, but most of the legwork is done by humans in labs and houses nestled in the largest of cities. Most of the pinnacles of human achievement (the law, heavier than air flight, undersea transport, the highway and rail networks, spaceflight, mastering radiowaves and digital communication) we have surpassed what nature could teach us by superior control of energy, theory and materials.
It isn't nature that propelled us into the modern era. It was cities. Pretty much everyone with the means chooses to stay in the heart of a city with rare visits to nature because cities are just more supportive of humans, more interesting and more prosperous.
There are people who get a lot out of going to visit nature. They are relatively rare.
Re: Opinion: What I Saw in Yosemite Was Devastating
#10> Now, almost 30 years later, in what might be the most profound shift of all, the power dynamic between humans and Yosemite has changed. To see nature so vulnerable not only feels depressing, but wrong, disorienting and scary. Beautiful piece, but that's hardly the whole story. Nature doesn't care about climate change and it couldn't care less about us. Sure, it might kill all the birds, trees, landscapes, but our p…
> our planet will adapt. We, humans, won't be able to.
We are by far Nature’s most adaptable creation, we live everywhere from the harshest deserts to the frozen tundra. I find the idea that we won’t adapt remarkably laughable.