Slog - Comments on Just Plain Fun? http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun The Seattle Times, which just finished running a very good series on the effects of global warming in the arctic region, today offers this cheery endorsement of snowmobiling in "pristine" Chelan County: It's "Just Plain Fun." Hmmm. Just plain fun? Really? Most snowmobiles are powered by two-stroke engines which dump 25-30 percent of their fuel unburned out the tailpipe. The air pollution from these dirty machines is so bad that Yellowstone Park Rangers now wear respirators to protect themselves. The piercing noise of snowmobiles can often be heard throughout our parks; studies show that these machines can be heard 90... Copyright 2007 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:05:40 -0800 Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:05:21 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Seth Dear Rural Americans--The fun you enjoy harms the environment! Please in future enjoy less harmful fun like cutting down entire forests to build cities filled with bars and clubs and specialty coffee shops. Thank you for cooperating!

Sincerely,

Urban Americans

]]> Seth http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005610 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005610 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:07:41 -0800 Comment by douchebag exactly

]]> douchebag http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005612 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005612 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:12:53 -0800 Comment by * Boooooooooo-urns!

Trees, forests and wildlife are all just getting in the way of future Wal*Mart parking lots anyways.

]]> * http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005615 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005615 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:21:30 -0800 Comment by whateverSETH whatever - this is the best post eli's ever put on the slog

]]> whateverSETH http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005621 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005621 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:32:37 -0800 Comment by whateverwhateverseth ?? Best post how? Eli posts awesome posts all the time. This one, in addition to being irritating and curmudgeonly, features a total of three sentences of his own writing. You're obviously a fun-hating zealot.

]]> whateverwhateverseth http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005625 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005625 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:40:27 -0800 Comment by whateverallayous Clearly cutting down trees to build cities with bars and clubs and specialty coffee shops is considerably less harmful, per capita, than "the fun they enjoy" polluting some of our last wild spaces. Density is an environmental good, doof.

]]> whateverallayous http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005628 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005628 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:46:51 -0800 Comment by douchebag Agreed that density is an environmental good, no doubt. But the fact remains that snomobiling is a non issue and this is just like Eli's big bitch-whine about boating last year. Liberals often derive a feeling of superiority by pissing all over fun or other people's fun, even when it doesn't matter, at all.

Fact: Lakes Washington and Union are eleventy times cleaner and safer than they were twenty years ago.

]]> douchebag http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005634 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005634 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 16:55:23 -0800 Comment by Seth The only true environmental good would be if we all just dropped dead tomorrow. Every moment you live on this earth, you are leeching resources away from it--whether you do it by burning electricity by listening to your iPod, or snowmobiling, it's happening. Accept it. Action on climate change and habitat destruction will only happen if the urbanites and ruralites accept that, as humans, they are sinners all, and unite to mitigate their pernicious effect on Eden.

]]> Seth http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005642 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005642 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:15:00 -0800 Comment by Eli Sanders Hey Whatevers, this is from that site I linked to:

A snowmobile driven for an hour can emit as much pollution as a car driven for a year.

So, compare that to urban forms of recreation (biking, running, even driving a couple of hours to go skiing) and you see the basis for a critique of snowmobiling. The point is to compare apples to apples... or recreation to recreation. (Not rural recreation to urban coffee shops.)

When you do a comparison that makes sense, clearly some forms of recreation are more destructive than others.

]]> Eli Sanders http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005649 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005649 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 17:38:10 -0800 Comment by Seth But what's more damaging to the environment? Alienating potential allies of the environmental cause by criticizing their recreational pursuits.

Rural folks--hunters, fishermen, and even loggers--care about open spaces, if for different reasons that urban folks do. The point is to preserve the open spaces, not argue about who uses them better. When wildlife start dying because the food chain is bollocksed by global warming, or urban sprawl overruns a forest, the argument will be forever moot.

True, effective action on climate change will require bipartisan compromise, and this will never happen if Democratic environmentalists alienate Republican NRA types over an issue as utterly insignificant as snowmobiling.


]]> Seth http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005659 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005659 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 18:29:50 -0800 Comment by seattle98104 I like the fact that you can only eat fish from lake Chelan "at most once a week". That was on the tele the other night and I thought to myself,"if you can only eat it at most once a week, why the fuck would you eat something that toxic in the first place?".

]]> seattle98104 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005725 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005725 Fri, 06 Jan 2006 07:30:22 -0800 Comment by B.D. Back to the media critique, this is typical of the Seattle Times reporting on the environment. Last fall they had an excellent series on the science behind global warming and why many people don't believe it is happening. In the series they squarely laid part of the blame of the issue on the media themselves. In the media pursuit of "fairness", they often put counter views on global warming into articles without mentioning that the counter views come from people whose tests are faulty (and have been debunked) and whose salaries are paid for by industries contributing to global warming. The editor of the Seattle Times wrote a very favorable column praising the article and touting his paper's responsible, investigative reporting.

The following week the Times ran a story on global warming sourced from the Washington Post. In the article a counter view was reported. The view was reported by a person exposed in the previous Times article as being funded by Exxon and whose "science" has been debunked.

When I wrote the Times about this, they apologized and said that they couldn't possibly be consistent in their reportage due to compartmentalism in the divisions of the paper. Grrr

]]> B.D. http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005735 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005735 Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:44:13 -0800 Comment by Brian The point on snowmobiles is well taken yet .. Seth has a good point. Snowmobilers, hunters, people who use the rural land care about preserving it. There is plenty of room - and we as a country can afford it - for 'pristine nature preserves' and 'using the woods for fun and recreation.

]]> Brian http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005740 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005740 Fri, 06 Jan 2006 09:13:18 -0800 Comment by fnarf999 Douchbag says "Fact: Lakes Washington and Union are eleventy times cleaner and safer than they were twenty years ago."

Err, try forty years. The beach closures (due to lumps of human shit washing up on Mathews Beach and elsewhere) that led to the formation of Metro and the introduction of real sewage processing were in 1968.

And those problems are starting to reappear; Lake Washington is much dirtier now than it was in the 70s, and may even start seeing closures again soon.

But that's about sewage overflow, not gas. Boat gas isn't that big a deal in Lake Washington; in Lake Union, it is, but I'll bet the improvement has more to do with the gradual death of commercial boating (i.e. fishing) than anything to do with pleasure boats.

]]> fnarf999 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005765 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c005765 Fri, 06 Jan 2006 11:03:27 -0800 Comment by Gomez I'd like to add that the person in the foreground of that grainy photo looks like Mayor Gridlock.

]]> Gomez http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c006278 http://slog.thestranger.com/2006/01/just_plain_fun#c006278 Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:05:21 -0800