[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.

[yellowapple]

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

I'm directing it at myself as much as anyone else. Like yeah, it's shitty that a gravel road could very well spiral into further ecological destruction and sprawl. It's also shitty to assume that it'll do so and use that assumption to actively hinder the quality of life for a community - especially when in all likelihood the vast majority of people wanting to impose such a hindrance do so from the comfort of lifestyles built upon far greater degrees of ecological destruction. It's great that you're making a positive difference (and if I had the funds to buy 40 acres of land I'd be thrilled to do something similar), but among those condemning a gravel road in a national forest, you're almost certainly the exception, not the rule - and even if I was such an exception, it still wouldn't be my place to judge them for that.

Put differently:

> 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.

No. We don't. That's exactly my point. Humans need to choose to be good stewards of the world they inherited. We lack the context, the moral high ground, and the ability to make that choice on anyone else's behalf.

[mod]

> it still wouldn't be my place to judge them for that

> We lack the context, the moral high ground, and the ability to make that choice on anyone else's behalf.

I don't disagree with these sentiments. I feel the same.

But I don't think I'm deciding for them. I'm not part of the deciding body. I'm voicing my opinion in opposition, and in defense of our wild lands. We all have different motivations, and some of them are bad for our planet. I think it's fine to stand against them, and still accept the different viewpoint of others. I don't consider people with different opinions to be my enemies. Nearly every belief I can hold is disbelieved by another human, and that's okay--truly. I think we need to be experimenting with many ways of life.

[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).