Dear HCN,
The Feb. 20 HCN had three
very provocative opinions expressed on its back pages. I was
startled, however, by Ray Rasker’s comments which followed
“Education … is an important determinate to individual success
…” He meant that old-timers need to become educated, which is
true.
I had assumed that he was going to say that
newcomers need to educate themselves about the land into which they
move, which is just as true. Very many newcomers are as
well-meaning as a missionary and as ignorant as a rock. Of course,
many old-timers also are remarkably ignorant about the land where
they have a long personal history. But the old-timers seem less
impudent and self-assured in their ignorance.
I
reread John Walker’s plea to be allowed to endure privations on the
land he loves several times, trying to find something wrong with
it. I failed. His argument is tightly built, without cracks, and
competent. This is the best writing on any subject that I’ve read
in a long time. It will not be recycled into my wood
stove.
Jon Margolis’ characterization of
Westerners as cry-babies was imaginative but contained one glaring
example of faulty reasoning. Demanding subsidized use of public
resources is completely different from demanding that managers of
public lands contain forest fires within public lands. I believe it
is obviously unjust for my neighbor (public or private) to be
permitted to drain his wetlands and dump all that water on my land,
or to spray pesticides which drift or migrate to my land, or to
allow his wildfire to pollute my air and spread into my trees or
home.
Most of the taxpayer millions spent
fighting fires last summer was spent on public land. That the first
priority of fire fighters was to keep the fires from spreading to
private homes was entirely appropriate. The appropriate second
priority would be to keep wildfire from spreading to privately
owned trees. Doubtless public lands could be better managed with
regard to wildfire. Once the smoke was in the air, however, the
public land managers had exactly the right priorities: Stop our
fire before it invades the lands of our neighbors, who are not
responsible for it.
From reading some comments
about last summer’s fires and those of preceding summers, I suppose
that some people would judge my attitude toward fire to be
unreasonable. Such people view wildfire as an ungovernable natural
force such as weather or gravity before which property lines are
not relevant. I might as well complain, they think, about the
earthquake that radiates from an epicenter on my neighbor’s land
and tumbles my house. Some of these people even view wildfire as a
positive thing. That such people are wrong to the extent of being
silly is self-evident (reference my comment above about ignorant as
a rock).
Kent
Dannen
Allenspark,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Three provocative essays.
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