Are we haggling over the wrong things?

[Shangobango]

@Hunting Wife I have been thinking about this topic more since my last reply while piddling around on the farm. I came back to reread some things.

Obviously a lot of the replies, including my first, were not really specific beyond “ there are too many people on this rock”.

What do you see as possible approaches to address these issues? Primarily habitat degradation and fragmentation?

Given the multiple use nature of the vast majority of our public land and some of the pushback I have seen on conservation easements and the like, I really don’t have any great ideas. How do we protect more habitat given the pressures being applied for more and more land for energy and food production?

How do we stop this or even slow it down without some huge shift toward sustainability? Can we get that shift without some sort of dire human crisis triggering a shift in the opposite direction of where we are headed?

I would like to think so but damned if I can see it.

 

[JLS]

When the American dream is your own acreage away from people, a big house, cars, boats, etc…

I’d love to see people try to live more sustainably.

 

[FI460]

When the American dream is your own acreage away from people, a big house, cars, boats, etc…

I’d love to see people try to live more sustainably.

Is this a shifting baseline thing?

I feel like the American dream used to be to own a little house with a white picket fence.

 

[JLS]

Is this a shifting baseline thing?

I feel like the American dream used to be to own a little house with a white picket fence.

I live in a house that was probably the American dream in 1960. And, I’m fine with it.

Now, it would seem the American dream is 3800 sf on a five acre lot, with a big shop to park the toys in. Not only do we increase our physical footprint, but our lifestyle footprint as well.

Some good friends of our bought 12 acres in an area that is rapidly developing. That’s what they’ll build. And so will the neighbors, and their neighbors. I want to be happy for them, but I despise the conversion of open spaces to acreage suburbia.

 

[Shangobango]

When the American dream is your own acreage away from people, a big house, cars, boats, etc…

I’d love to see people try to live more sustainably.

Yea and I am as guilty as any of some of this.

I am in a 1940’s vintage 1100 square foot house in desperate need of an update and remodel and have been for quite some time. It is sitting on 35 acres of what was once a peach orchard, and then crop fields, and now is 15 acres of CRP and the rest pasture.

If I didn’t have a boat, ATV, tractor, and a pickup I would feel almost handicapped.

Sure get’s you to thinking…

 

[DFS]

I think a lot of people on this discussion have taken the thoughts to a way more extreme place than my original point, not that any of it is irrelevant. Maybe I’m simple, but my main thought was more wildlife management oriented. We wring our hands over declining mule deer, too much wildlife/human “conflict” (e.g. elk in MT), declining habitat quality on public land, habitat fragmentation, increased disturbance, and we get very upset that the state agencies aren’t “fixing” it.

But from the other side, all of those pressures are not only not going away, but they are accelerating and expanding at an exponential rate. I don’t think it’s realistic to think state agencies are going to somehow just fix any of those problems. As long as we demand unlimited energy consumption, second homes, our own 20 acre chunk of habitat, unlimited access to recreational opportunities, etc etc, agencies don’t really have the authority to address the underlying issues. Yeah, you can improve habitat quality. But if habitat keeps getting gobbled up by solar farms, wind farms, subdivisions, etc populations will still decline.

My mental query is more along the lines of “what are we willing to give up to allow for more mule deer, more elk, more high quality habitat, etc?” Based on our behaviors as a society, and responses on this thread, I take the answer to be “Nothing”.

I would give up mule deer rut hunting and doe tags. I would give up my opportunity to hunt elk deer and antelope every single year. While what you say is true game agency’s aren’t seeing the changes and adapting and that is on them. I would love to see the gallatin and bitterroot valleys restored to their natural habitat and their inhabitants restored to cities where they came from or the Ingomar alkali flats. I would give up all the Bozeman influencers profiting off of wildlife. I’d sacrifice a lot to see more and healthier wildlife on the landscape.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Yea and I am as guilty as any of some of this.

I am in a 1940’s vintage 1100 square foot house in desperate need of an update and remodel and have been for quite some time. It is sitting on 35 acres of what was once a peach orchard, and then crop fields, and now is 15 acres of CRP and the rest pasture.

If I didn’t have a boat, ATV, tractor, and a pickup I would feel almost handicapped.

Sure get’s you to thinking…

I am glad you are thinking. Better late than never. Help the next generation do some thinking.

 

[JLS]

I would love to see the gallatin and bitterroot valleys restored to their natural habitat and their inhabitants restored to cities where they came from or the Ingomar alkali flats.

At some point, everywhere was once habitat, including “the cities where they came from”.

 

[DFS]

At some point, everywhere was once habitat, including “the cities where they came from”.

Agreed and those are the guys trying to fix eastern Montana. They have a lot of work to do at home. Or their previous home. Endless opportunity to help habitat.

 

[JLS]

Agreed and those are the guys trying to fix eastern Montana. They have a lot of work to do at home. Or their previous home. Endless opportunity to help habitat.

Your circular logic is impressive. Do you want help with eastern Montana or would you rather they just said fuq it? You know as well as I do eliminating the existing urban sprawl in those valleys is hopeless and not worth the bandwidth to discuss.

You and your family could go back to where they emigrated from as well. We all could.

How big are the lots in your subdivision?

 

[DFS]

Your circular logic is impressive. Do you want help with eastern Montana or would you rather they just said fuq it? You know as well as I do eliminating the existing urban sprawl in those valleys is hopeless and not worth the bandwidth to discuss.

You and your family could go back to where they emigrated from as well. We all could.

How big are the lots in your subdivision?

10 acres Would gladly give it up if it helped things.

 

[JLS]

10 acres Would gladly give it up if it helped things.

It’s hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube.

 

[VikingsGuy]

This just continues the ongoing replay of 1968-1977. The original sucked - and the reruns are not better. Absent nuclear war, people will not destroy the planet or themselves, but it is a very trendy talker every 50 yrs or so. Was also popular in 1917-1920.

 

[DFS]

It’s hard to put the toothpaste back into the tube.

Western Montana needs to do better.

 

[BrentD]

This just continues the ongoing replay of 1968-1977. The original sucked - and the reruns are not better. Absent nuclear war, people will not destroy the planet or themselves, but it is a very trendy talker every 50 yrs or so. Was also popular in 1917-1920.

I'd like to say you are right, but the math doesn't work for me, although I certainly wish it would. Whether it is trendy or not has nothing to do with it being right.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I'd like to say you are right, but the math doesn't work for me, although I certainly wish it would. Whether it is trendy or not has nothing to do with it being right.

It’s like the guy who claims stock market crash every week and is “right” once every 40 years. People have been declaring the “end of the world” for millennia. Sure at some point someone will be “right” but there is no predictive power in the sentiment and the one person at the end who is right won’t have anyone left to lord it over.

 

[BrentD]

It’s like the guy who claims stock market crash every week and is “right” once every 40 years. People have been declaring the “end of the world” for millennia. Sure at some point someone will be “right” but there is no predictive power in the sentiment and the one person at the end who is right won’t have anyone left to lord it over.

I know what you are saying but the analogy doesn't cut it.

In what way do you think anything like a sustainable planet will be achieved in however many decades are left? We haven't made any progress. We are grossly overpopulated with no will, nor means, to change much of anything, much less the trajectory, which you have to admit is headed to a pretty dark place - at best.

As often as people may have claimed the end of the world is at hand (almost always involving extra terrestrial/supernatural beings), people have also always claimed that "technology will save us". Good luck with that. It hasn't yet. It has, however, made things much worse.

 

[Hunting Wife]

I would give up mule deer rut hunting and doe tags. I would give up my opportunity to hunt elk deer and antelope every single year. While what you say is true game agency’s aren’t seeing the changes and adapting and that is on them. I would love to see the gallatin and bitterroot valleys restored to their natural habitat and their inhabitants restored to cities where they came from or the Ingomar alkali flats. I would give up all the Bozeman influencers profiting off of wildlife. I’d sacrifice a lot to see more and healthier wildlife on the landscape.

First, I’m speaking much more broadly than the already beaten to death FWP-mule deer issue. Many agency folks in the world do see the problems, and have zero authority to do anything meaningful about it. If they try, they are lambasted by a hostile public, and a hostile legislature. This is commonplace today.

Second, your list appears to me to emphasize things everyone else should give up while you give up really very little. Which is a very common human perspective, but also part of the problem.

I’d give up home outdoor water usage. I’d give up being able to buy small acreage. I’d give up being allowed to buy second homes. I’d give up electrical grid power or caps on usage for some set number of hours each day. I’d accept nuclear power as an alternative to the outsized footprint of wind and solar. I’d give up unrestricted access to public land for more management of use if I thought it would help. I’d give up being able to drive my UTV on public land. I don’t think I can even think big enough here.

@Hunting Wife I have been thinking about this topic more since my last reply while piddling around on the farm. I came back to reread some things.

Obviously a lot of the replies, including my first, were not really specific beyond “ there are too many people on this rock”.

What do you see as possible approaches to address these issues? Primarily habitat degradation and fragmentation?

Given the multiple use nature of the vast majority of our public land and some of the pushback I have seen on conservation easements and the like, I really don’t have any great ideas. How do we protect more habitat given the pressures being applied for more and more land for energy and food production?

How do we stop this or even slow it down without some huge shift toward sustainability? Can we get that shift without some sort of dire human crisis triggering a shift in the opposite direction of where we are headed?

I would like to think so but damned if I can see it.

I have no answers. Related, either directly or tangentially, to my line of work:

Incentivize living in cities and developing up rather than out. More restrictive zoning in rural areas. Stop attacking conservation easements. Incentivize habitat restoration.

I don’t know how to get around the fact that people resist being told what to do, so even if people agree with conservation or want more wildlife on the landscape, they are unlikely to support anything that inconveniences them, even slightly. I’m not sure how you overcome that, because conservation on the scale we’re talking is not going to be convenient. And there is no political will to do anything that impedes big business and the almighty dollar anyway.

I’m not saying humans wont find a way to survive as a species through tech advancements, new technology, whatever. But the likelihood that we prioritize conserving some semblance of the “wild” we have now is low, based on our past and current behavior. Consumption always wins, eventually.

 

[Shangobango]

People have been declaring the “end of the world” for millennia.

I get your point.

I can only speak for myself when I say that what I am talking about is not “the end of the world”. Species decline all the time. Sometimes they rebound sometimes they don’t. Even for modern humans there is evidence that there may have been a severe bottleneck in the population at sometime in the past. I see no reason to think it can’t or won’t happen again. Nothing lasts forever. To think otherwise in my opinion is hubristic. And also in my opinion, hubris is why the planet is in the shape that it is in.

 

[VikingsGuy]

I get your point.

I can only speak for myself when I say that what I am talking about is not “the end of the world”. Species decline all the time. Sometimes they rebound sometimes they don’t. Even for modern humans there is evidence that there may have been a severe bottleneck in the population at sometime in the past. I see no reason to think it can’t or won’t happen again. Nothing lasts forever. To think otherwise in my opinion is hubristic. And also in my opinion, hubris is why the planet is in the shape that it is in.

I agree we will not last for ever. But all those who have bet against us for the last 2,000+ years have been wrong, so why now 2022? All the reasons that could be cited today could have been been the answer multiple times in the past.

Some day we will be gone, but I will neither predict when or root for it as some "good".