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Neat read on the whole, but was fun to see how huge the author believes Estonia is: > When Estonia, for example, became independent of the Soviet Union, some 245 million square miles of collectivist farmlands were simply abandoned.
"What Flynn makes clear is that while we tend to think of human activity on the landscape as not only damaging but irreversible, this may not always be the case."
The author keeps taking jabs at “capitalism” - but let’s be honest that this could happen in any political/economic system. This cheapens the article.
I find the story of Centralia fascinating. I read through the entirety of Unseen Danger https://archive.org/details/unseendangertrag0000deko , marvelling how it went from something that could have been handled easily if there had been funding, to something that killed the entire town with heavy doses of politics along the way.
Neat read on the whole, but was fun to see how huge the author believes Estonia is: > When Estonia, for example, became independent of the Soviet Union, some 245 million square miles of collectivist farmlands were simply abandoned.
Neat read on the whole, but was fun to see how huge the author believes Estonia is: > When Estonia, for example, became independent of the Soviet Union, some 245 million square miles of collectivist farmlands were simply abandoned.
To convert that figure to a more relatable number: the surface area of the Earth is just about 197 million square miles. With such an error I'm having a hard time trusting the article content.
so how do you put that fire out? or was "So now, people like Phil assume that the government is just waiting them out. Once they’re gone, putting out the fire will be easy enough" referring to how the locals think the government is just pretending they can't fix the problem?
"What Flynn makes clear is that while we tend to think of human activity on the landscape as not only damaging but irreversible, this may not always be the case."
This is pretty obvious if you've ever watched what happens to abandoned property over a few years once nobody is maintaining it. First grass and weeds, then brambles, then trees. If it's covered in asphalt or concrete it takes longer but it still happens.
With nary a comment about the intention of the company who is now buying up the land.
>Those that stayed had to go to court to defend their right to live on this abandoned land, all because they wanted to keep the mineral rights to their property. So now, people like Phil assume that the government is just waiting them out. Once they’re gone, putting out the fire will be easy enough. “They’ll take all that red hot coals, but also they’re going to get that rich anthracite coal,” he told us. “And I’m sure they’ll sell that. But are the people or the relatives going to get anything? It’s very doubtful. It’ll probably go to the federal government. Or the coal baron, maybe?”
>His voice, I noticed after a while, has a peculiar kind of nostalgia for the worst times in the world.
>so when coal company Pagnotti Enterprises bought the land in 2018