Josh and Bora have already taken a swing at this, but the level of... of... of... I'm honestly at a loss for words. I just can't find any way to use printible words to describe how pissed off I am right now.
Apparently, some North Carolina residents were recently informed by the Fish and Wildlife Service that new regulations might be coming down to protect habitat for a rare woodpecker. This particular species of woodpecker will only make its home in living trees, building nests over a period of years, sometimes handing the nests down from generation to generation.
Many of the locals, alarmed at the possibility of losing some of their property value as a result of government actions to protect the woodpeckers, have found a fantastic way of protecting their economic bottom line. They're eliminating all of the potential woodpecker habitat from their property now, just in case they might not be allowed to do it later. Just so that we're clear, "eliminating" in this case means that they are clear-cutting the lots. They are cutting down every single tree so that they can make sure that they can do whatever they want with the property later.
Assholes like that really, really, really make me hope that karma is real.
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Judging from the sattelite image, that looks like a lot trees. Sad, really.
This certainly qualifies as a "Big Yellow Taxi" moment.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/j/joni+mitchell/big+yellow+taxi_20075370.html
I'm betting that whoever is doing this now will regret it later, but it will be too late.
But see? There's the whole irony of force-fed environmentalism. Because the residents were worried that they would no longer be able to develop _their own land_ as they saw fit, they panicked and eliminated what they perceived as the source of the threat.
Why would you not expect this? Very few people who invest in land are willing to turn over the value they?ve built to make you happy. Those landowners thought they would lose value, which amounts to a specialized tax on their personal wealth. Not one of the posts I?ve read is from someone who would have to pay in any way, shape or form to protect this habitat. The entire cost would be borne by these landowners without any assistance from you, you, or you.
The Left?s insistence that landowners give up some of their value for the sake of habitat, and should be happy to do so, is _exactly_ the same thinking as the Right?s insistence that people should give up their jobs for the sake of globalization and should be happy to do so.
These landowners have actual cash value in their property that will be diminished once the law comes into effect. Factory employees have actual cash value in their jobs that is diminished when those jobs are ?off-shored? or vast numbers of immigrants are allowed in.
In both cases the costs are being borne by a few, and those few receive no benefits in exchange.
So you don?t really have a leg to stand on when you criticize these people for protecting their investment. That?s like criticizing people for selling their stock before the price goes down. If you want the landowners to protect this habitat for your benefit, then you need to help bear the costs associated with that protection.
This is what I consider to be the main failure of both Liberal and Conservative politics: Each person wants the benefits of this policy or that, and especially if the costs are paid by someone else.
I wanted to compare this to the tragedy of the commons, or perhaps the tragedy of the anti-commons, or even the comedy of the commons. Whichever one it is, it?s a tragedy for the woodpeckers, for the landowners and for the rest of us.
I agree with Spike. I don't know if those people over-reacted or not, but I can appreciate their concern and might have done the same thing if I was in their place. I would have really hated having to cut down all those trees, but I would want more than some government official's word protecting the value of my hard-earned investment.
If the woodpeckers themselves don't detract from property values (by pecking houses or making too much noise), couldn't the government at least try asking people nicely not to cut down woodpecker- inhabited trees? I would think that a lot of people would be willing to do their part if it wasn't going to cost them money.
the trees are (well, were) pine trees, so if the birds evolved to handling that, the wood in a house itself (usually imported) would be too thick for the birds to poke into.
not that they'll have any choice but to try, if any are able to breed at all in the next year or two.
as for "karma", i think that will come when the april storms arrive.
they just turned a HUGE swath of reasonably tornado-resistent forest into incredibly tornado-prone plains-land. the trees won't be there to keep the storms from coming up into the town and they'll discover in just one season EXACTLY why it sucks to be in the midwest in the spring.
Joe Shelby: Not to mention erosion issues -- and of course, this is a classic example of cutting their nose off to spite their face. Had they gone to, say, the Nature Conservancy, they could worked something out -- instead, they've demonstrated that there is no negotiation possible with them. They'd rather burn the house than open a window!