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Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

alaskapublic.org

131–140 of 187 posts

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#131
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in Alaska want to develop their land In many cases, the "people" who want to develop things are actually not people but rather businesses or agents of businesses. Go to rural or remote places which have been upgraded and you will find locals lamenting about the changes which invited industry. Many people like their environment undisturbed.

Businesses are just groups of people doing stuff, that hire people to do stuff and sell stuff to people. And you can go into San Francisco and find plenty of people who don’t want Silicon Valley businesses in the city, or people who complain about how NYC has become gentrified. But I bet if you took a vote “should tech companies all leave San Francisco for Texas” or “should NYC go back to the way it was in the 70s” t…

Yes, but Businesses are very clearly not the antecedent of the "they" you used upthread to reference "Alaskans". You can't make a nativist argument about the rights of the local population and then try to extend that to a Texas-based petro-behemoth wanting to drill new holes.

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#132
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People in Alaska want to develop their land In many cases, the "people" who want to develop things are actually not people but rather businesses or agents of businesses. Go to rural or remote places which have been upgraded and you will find locals lamenting about the changes which invited industry. Many people like their environment undisturbed.

Businesses are just groups of people doing stuff, that hire people to do stuff and sell stuff to people. And you can go into San Francisco and find plenty of people who don’t want Silicon Valley businesses in the city, or people who complain about how NYC has become gentrified. But I bet if you took a vote “should tech companies all leave San Francisco for Texas” or “should NYC go back to the way it was in the 70s” t…

Just to be clear, your claim is that because businesses would be happy to be gifted public resources for their own private profit, therefore generic “people” would like it because businesses = groups of people?

And you think “gentrification” (i.e. private sale/renting of private property in low-income neighborhoods to yuppies) is essentially the same as the President unilaterally deciding to sell part of a congressionally established National Wildlife Refuge to land developers, because you can find someone unhappy with either one?

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Jimmy was a terrible President. He's still a very good man, and I admire him, and would love to have him over for dinner!

[flagged]

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jimmy was a terrible President. He's still a very good man, and I admire him, and would love to have him over for dinner!

A friend of mine lives near him and has become close to him. They do have the Carters over for dinner a couple times a year. Seems crazy, but Jimmy's just a friendly guy.

My girlfriend met him and his wife once during the 80s or so. It's not that crazy, they really are humble and genial with ordinary folks.

They made such an impression on her that our dog is named after his wife, following her broader tradition of giving our pets presidential names.

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#135
post #50

Atrocious to me that anybody would want to block that road. A mine? Sure. Logging? Yup. Oil exploration? Yeah. A gravel road to an airport in Alaska? Come on. I haven't lived in Rural Alaska in 20 years but I was born and raised in a fishing village. People in the lower 48 have no understanding of the vastness of Alaska and how small a concession this really is. These specious environmental lawsuits are why no infras…

Quoted post unavailable.

> The flaw in this logic is that it sets a new baseline of expectations.

I.e., sometimes the inclined plane does have a low coefficient of friction:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#137
post #128
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was unclear. Make the airport in king cove all weather. 4 miles out of town.

That’s vastly more expensive than the road. But this court case has also strayed well past being just about this specific road.

Is it? Lights, transponders, and equipment to keep the runway free from snow.

let's assume $5.00/sq ft to lay down gravel - 5280 ft/mi * 60mi * 10ft wide road is about 3 million. That's pretty generous given the remote location, need to ship the heavy equipment.

I really don't know, but you could dodge a lot of lawsuits and shave an hour off of time to trauma center. Which, as I understand it, is the real goal. get hurt people to treatment as quickly as possible.

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not. People are still buying into 40 year-old propaganda against him.

It remains baffling to me that Reagan gets credit for the end of the hostage crisis; the deal to free them was made by Carter's administration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers_Accords

Furthermore, Ronald Reagan’s campaign probably conspired against the United States to delay the resolution of the crisis until after Reagan took office. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_th...

Not that dissimilar to 1968 when the Richard Nixon campaign conspired against the United States to prolong the war in Vietnam. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/nixon-prolonged-vi...

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#139
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses are just groups of people doing stuff, that hire people to do stuff and sell stuff to people. And you can go into San Francisco and find plenty of people who don’t want Silicon Valley businesses in the city, or people who complain about how NYC has become gentrified. But I bet if you took a vote “should tech companies all leave San Francisco for Texas” or “should NYC go back to the way it was in the 70s” t…

Yes, but Businesses are very clearly not the antecedent of the "they" you used upthread to reference "Alaskans". You can't make a nativist argument about the rights of the local population and then try to extend that to a Texas-based petro-behemoth wanting to drill new holes.

There’s tons of people who want those “Texas based petro behemoths” to “drill new holes” for the exact same reasons folks want San Francisco based ad behemoths to build offices in their city.

Re: Jimmy Carter asks court to defend Alaska’s ‘unrivaled wilderness’

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses are just groups of people doing stuff, that hire people to do stuff and sell stuff to people. And you can go into San Francisco and find plenty of people who don’t want Silicon Valley businesses in the city, or people who complain about how NYC has become gentrified. But I bet if you took a vote “should tech companies all leave San Francisco for Texas” or “should NYC go back to the way it was in the 70s” t…

Just to be clear, your claim is that because businesses would be happy to be gifted public resources for their own private profit, therefore generic “people” would like it because businesses = groups of people? And you think “gentrification” (i.e. private sale/renting of private property in low-income neighborhoods to yuppies) is essentially the same as the President unilaterally deciding to sell part of a congressio…

No, my point is that businesses developing undeveloped land creates profits for businesses but also jobs and economic activity for the local community. And while some people don’t want that economic activity to happen—just like they don’t want Silicon Valley workers moving into San Francisco—most of the community is happy to have the money coming in.

The distinction you’re pointing to—federal versus private ownership, is both inaccurate and irrelevant. Nobody is “gifted” anything—the federal government leases or sells the land. And from the perspective of the local community the distinction doesn’t make a difference. They care about the economic development, not the legal particulars of the property rights. The legal particulars also don’t matter to the conservationists—their objection isn’t the price that the government is getting for these leases.

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