The trashing of our public lands.

[rk911]

saw this today in the Saturday edition of RV Travel Newsletter. and have posted it here for those who may not have seen it or who don't subscribe. please give it a read.

https://www.rvtravel.com/trashing-public-lands/

[dedmiston]

It feels like we've squeezed all the civil discussion possible out of this topic.

We're preaching to the choir here, since everyone agrees that littering and unlawful dumping are both bad.

I hope we all carry on the responsible Happy Camper tradition of packing out as much trash as we can, especially the stuff that isn't ours.

I haven't thought about this in a long time, but our kids were young and a little useless when we first started boondocking in the desert, so to improve our camps and keep the kids out of the way while we packed up, we would always give each of them a full-sized garbage bag and tell them that nobody would be allowed in the truck to go home unless they brought back full garbage bags. This worked for a few years until we'd been camping in the same various spots long enough that there wasn't enough litter to fill their bags anymore. The kids would drag the weirdest stuff back to camp, like car bumpers and shot up toilets. Eventually it dawned on our kids that they had actually made a huge difference and the decades worth of garbage was gone. And oddly enough, future campers seemed to litter less when they showed up to those clean camps. And now the tables are turned and our grown kids are finger-wagging my wife and I to quit using single-use plastics, etc. Lessons learned.

Have a great day everyone and keep stomping out those litterbugs.

[Eric_Lisa]

cptqueeg wrote:
.... The cause is the same though - it's all about me, and how much money can I extract for the "shareholders."...

Hopefully you don't have a retirement plan which you expect to grow and be profitable. Unless you are an active and picky hands-on investor, you are probably like the rest of us with investments tucked away in a variety of mutual funds and so forth. Just going out on a limb here...but I'll just bet those people managing your funds are instructed to extract as much money as they can for those evil shareholders.

Ah, so let's have the government be the answer to everything and heavily tax companies for environmental concerns. Hmmm... Maybe I should move my money over to foreign stocks instead of domestic because they now have a higher rate of return, yeah that is the smart strategy.

You can hate it all you want. But that's just how it is going to be until people make the conscious decision to invest their money based upon environmental impact instead of return on investment. Do with YOUR money what you want. But don't try to shame me as a "shareholder" who is trying to get the most out of my investments.

[rk911]

i looked up his filmography on imdb.com. well over 200 different roles in
movies and TV, virtually all of them playing an indian.

[down_home]

rk911 wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
That Native American commercial was done back in the 70's so this NOT a new problem. Been going on for decades, centuries

And that Native American...Italian Heritage actor

i never knew that. all these years i thouht he was an indian. wow.

At a "Pow Wow"near Nashville years ago he was there. They seemed to regard hims a Native American, This was during the time of the commercials. Sn part Cherokee go into the dancing with them. I think they were Sioux not Cherokee though. He was singing autographs and photos. Sure fooled a lot of people. You never know. Grand Ma said both her Parents were from the Sweedish colony but her Grand Father was 3/4 Cherokee and it showed in Grand Ma and my Uncles. To be an Indian durign her lifetime. Everyone though t she was Swedish..with a dark complexion and a hardiness of no European.

[Bumpyroad]

dedmiston wrote:

rk911 wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
That Native American commercial was done back in the 70's so this NOT a new problem. Been going on for decades, centuries

And that Native American...Italian Heritage actor

i never knew that. all these years i thouht he was an indian. wow.

We learn something every day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody

IIRC, some other person falsely claimed native american heritage lately.
bumpy

[dedmiston]

rk911 wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
That Native American commercial was done back in the 70's so this NOT a new problem. Been going on for decades, centuries

And that Native American...Italian Heritage actor

i never knew that. all these years i thouht he was an indian. wow.

We learn something every day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Eyes_Cody

[Bumpyroad]

dodge guy wrote:
I was expecting to see trash scattered throughout a campground. Instead I see trash piled around an overflowing dumpster. From the looks of it, it's mostly trash from outside the campground. I don't see a need to berate campers for something they obviously didn't do!
It's obvious the surrounding area uses the place as a free garbage dump.

yep, as I said, looks like the public dump near my house when the pick up crew is overdue.
bumpy

[dodge_guy]

I was expecting to see trash scattered throughout a campground. Instead I see trash piled around an overflowing dumpster. From the looks of it, it's mostly trash from outside the campground. I don't see a need to berate campers for something they obviously didn't do!
It's obvious the surrounding area uses the place as a free garbage dump.

[rk911]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
That Native American commercial was done back in the 70's so this NOT a new problem. Been going on for decades, centuries

And that Native American...Italian Heritage actor

i never knew that. all these years i thouht he was an indian. wow.

[CavemanCharlie]

pitch wrote:
Humans have always been slobs. Many native groups lived in an are until it was just nasty and then built a new village. Our pioneer ancestor's tossed their refuse out the back door, or if they were lucky enough to have a flowing river, directly into the drink
Where would archeology be if it wasn't for slobs?
Certainly not approving of littering, but am merely pointing out that it is nothing new.

!

No it is not something new.

What is new is the amount of people on the planet now. It took 100000 years for humans to reach the population level of 1 billion. In the last 250-300 years we have gone from 1 billion to 7.5 billion. It doesn't sound like much but, a billion is a really big number.

[Grit_dog]

Thermoguy wrote:

cptqueeg wrote:
While it's disgusting no matter whose trash it is, it's a tiny problem compared to environmental disaster that is occurring or about to occur in the US. The cause is the same though - it's all about me, and how much money can I extract for the "shareholders."

Pebble Mine - Bristol Bay

Drilling in ANWAR

Opening 9 million acres of wilderness to roads and logging in the Tongass NF

If you have ever been to any industrial site in AK, like the oil fields in Prudhoe Bay, or mines outside of Fairbanks, you would not feel this way. They are very conscientious of the environment and the animals that call those places home. They take incredible care to not harm wildlife and keep everything clean. If a polar bear goes anywhere near a drill site, the shut it down regardless of the cost until the bear has it's babies and leaves the area. Alaska is the last place in the world you have to worry about environmental damage.

But it sure is fun to sit in your house heated by fossil fuels, using power generated by fossil fuels and drive to the beer store in your car powered by fossil fuels for beer that was made in a factory using fossil fuels, lights and fridge at the grocery store, etc etc
all while saying logging drilling and mining are bad.
Typical hypocrite....and as you said, never seen the level of care and effort that goes into some of these operations. Namely the N Slope and other AK activities.

[Mayor30]

I love our forest service campgrounds. But for years, you rarely see a ranger. We were just at a COE campground last week. Same thing. No one at check in. No one ever came around to check if I had a reservation. The only ranger I saw was when I was walking my dog around the visitor center. I too suggest charging for some of these no fee campgrounds. Even at a night would help.Same with back country camping. Some state parks don't charge for people to swim in the lakes. Luckily our state of Pa started up dating campground facilities a few years ago so our state parks have a lot of new bath houses but even in them,I rarely see a ranger drive through.

[magicbus]

TMA.

[irishtom29]

Thunder Mountain wrote:
It seems that the new users of public lands are just pigs with no back country ethics. They wouldn't know what real wilderness was if it bit them in the butt.

Much of what is now considered American wilderness was once populated by people who either died off from Old World diseases or were run off by the American government. The concept of wilderness is largely a modern one.