Reply-Reply to PanickedPaladin: Zinke Parks
Guy sounds okay to me, what’s the problem?
Several. To begin with his position on public lands isn’t logically consistent. To hold them federally is to hold them as a trust which we can all derive utility from; opening them up to logging and mining will, necessarily, offer them up for private utilization. At the same time such exploitation, with the exception of limited logging leases designed to promote forest health, will destroy these sites capacity to provide public utility by making them dangerous for wildlife, unsuitable for camping, and unappealing for touring. I mean, unless the intent is for this activity to be nationalized and carried out sustainably by the forestry service(which would exclude mining since you can’t really have sustainable, environmentally low-impact mining). Furthermore much of these lands were donated as permanent trusts by private citizens to the Federal government for the express purpose of Conserving them as nature preserves and national monuments. To open them now to private exploitation would be to violate those agreements.
Second, Climate Change is proven science by any metric. Here’s a simple analogy. If I heat up a pan on an oven and drop a hunk of butter on it, I will see that butter melt. I can do this many times, and each time I will observe the same effect. On the basis of this I can say that a pan at such and such a temperature will always melt a certain amount of butter at a certain rate and in a certain time. More generally, I can say butter will always melt past a certain temperature. This is science. We have data on the Earth’s past climate. This data shows that, as atmospheric carbon rises so, too, does global temperature. Atmospheric carbon is rising. Temperature is rising at a rate consistent with past data. Glacier and oceanic ice is melting at a rate consistent with past data. We know our civilization is putting carbon into the atmosphere, because we measure it, which is to say, we count it as it happens. To say this isn’t settled or rigorous is to hold climate science to a higher standard than any other scientific field is held. Certainly our knowledge of this dynamic isn’t perfect, but that it is happening is clear.
Third, there is how he got the nom to begin with, which is Through His Friendship with Trump’s Sons. A modern, democratic, healthy state does not award office on the basis of personal relationships. The man’s clearly not the most qualified -more qualified candidates were under consideration- yet he was given the nod. This is precisely the sort of corruption Donald’s supporters claimed they were so against(as is Trump’s sons having a say in cabinet appointments to begin with). So, assuming those concerns were sincere, his nomination on the basis of obvious nepotism ought to be disqualifying to those who argued Hillary’s candidacy and political career are necessarily tainted by Bill having been president in the 90s. More directly, it ought to be disqualifying to Donald himself, considering all his talk about cronyism.
