[phkahler]

It's not about the residents of King Cove. BTW they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation.

It's about power and control if you go by this part:

“The split panel decision would allow the secretary, without any public process or without compliance with any other laws, to engage in a backroom land exchange,”

[ivanhoe]

> they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation.

It's a really weird argument, you're basically saying that people shouldn't be allowed to upgrade their infrastructure ever? Imagine saying that for some poor country: "Oh, well, they either had no running water before, or they knew the situation before moving there, so screw them, they can just continue walking 5 miles every day to bring water from the spring".

Also they've been without that road a lot longer than 40 years, King Cove exists since at least 1930s. Population is dropping so I doubt many people have been moving there, most of people live there their whole life....and if they get sick or injured and planes can't land, they're screwed without that road.

[WalterBright]

> people shouldn't be allowed to upgrade their infrastructure ever?

In a wilderness area? No.

[ivanhoe]

Whole US were a wilderness once... you're basically punishing them for not destroying their nature earlier on, like the rest of us did...

[WalterBright]

We have to stop the destruction of the wilderness at some point, or we'll all die.

[ivanhoe]

Absolutely, WE should do exactly that (and there's a plenty of things that we can do to protect nature around ourselves) - instead of living in hyper-urbanized cities and pissing online on people who actually live for a century or more in a real untouched wilderness and haven't destroyed it in all that time, and now want one stupid gravel road through that unimaginably wast area. It's a raindrop in the ocean, but people love to focus their energy on isolated, far-away problems, rather than tackling real problems and the wider image.

[asdfk-12]

Please consider visiting rural Alaska. It might be more vast than you imagine. Please consider there are people in this community who need access to a critical resource that you likely take for granted. This particular example isn't a good 'hill to die on'.

[WalterBright]

I would love to visit Alaska. I've wanted to ever since I read "On the Edge of Nowhere" as a boy.

I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful places to live in Alaska that have access to a hospital. If one chooses to live in a wilderness area with no road service, one accepts no road service.

It isn't unusual for elderly people to move to a place that is easier to maintain and is in close proximity to a hospital.

[macinjosh]

Wow, you should see a therapist.

[WalterBright]

BTW, if I was President, you'd see a lot more land become federally protected wilderness in the lower 48. Marine areas, too. National parks would get much bigger. If you want to see that, write me in on your 2024 ballot!

[drekipus]

You make it sound like not being allowed a chocolate bar is a form of punishment

[notch656a]

45% of households in King Cove have children who had no choice in whether the road is there or not 40 years ago. It's hard to just blame them that "they knew the roads weren't there" when they were born thus they're not allowed roads to medical care the way I (and probably you) are.

[mod]

I would sooner take the children away or force the residents to move than pave a road through the Alaskan wilderness.

I wouldn't do those things either, though. People get to choose where and how to raise their children. Children don't get a say so in virtually anything that affects them.

"Think of the children" is not a good argument.

Also the whole population is like 1200 people. We're talking about a relative handful of kids. Like one very small elementary school (edit: Google search says there's 87 kids in PK-12th grade. Combined.)

[ivanhoe]

We destroyed our local wilderness long time ago to make our lives safer and easier and more comfortable - and now we're judging others for wanting the same for their town...

[drekipus]

Yes because we realise the mistakes

[ivanhoe]

Did we really? Just go around and see all those sterile lawns in front of houses, drowned in herbicides and fertilizers, wasting all that space that could be easily turned into gardens or beautiful meadows (you literally just have to leave it alone and it will happen on its own).

But we're pissed on others for wanting a single gravel road, so that they don't die if some emergency happens...

As the old Serbian saying goes: "it's easy to beat hawthorns with someone else's penis"...

[yellowapple]

Then we should be leading by example. I know there's a lot more I could be doing to preserve and restore ecosystems local to me before I've any right to demand the same of folks thousands of miles away.

[mod]

I'm kind of the guy you're directing this comment at, I think.

I bought 40 acres adjacent to national forest service land and I keep about 38 acres of it wild. I try to improve the forest and provide good habitat, and I've been rewarded with a lot of wildlife.

I've said in another comment, I'm an hour from a hospital.

I am both doing a lot for my local ecosystems, and also demanding that a national forest owned by the national government thousands of miles away be preserved as wild.

You can change the phrasing to attack the idea, but that's my idea as I intend it.

The people there can serve their own interests just fine. I think a whole lot of us can help keep wild places wild, and that's equally important as you working locally.

Do we even know what the locals think, by the way? Like actual normal people who live there? I would bet it's not a one-sided issue.

[soupbowl]

Rules for thee not for me.

[drekipus]

Yes, that unfortunately tends to be the way of it.

People can do things until they can't, I don't know what you're claiming otherwise.

[notch656a]

>BTW they've either been without that road for 40 years, or moved there knowing the situation.

Is patently false. It's not "think of the children." It's pointing out that statement was a vicious lie. I'm pointing out they've simply ignored the people who were born there.

We're talking about a road connecting two closest communities. You've said yourelf you wouldn't do the things to remove these residents from these communities. I would find it hypocritical for someone to take advantages of roads in their own community while denying this community a single road to the closest airport to the kind of medical services that those in the lower 48 can drive to (even if it takes them awhile).

[Sharlin]

Well, children are not even asked whether they want to be created, never mind where they want to be born.

[hanniabu]

That's a pretty fucked up clause