gregorygarver.com

[rz1971]

Great post. I lived in California for eight years in the 80s and every year we had fires. In fact the same hill that caught fire twice while I was there now has homes on it.As for the Santa Anna winds, I remember times I had to walk backwards while leaning to get from one class to another in high school.Simple fact is more people have built more homes in places where they shouldn't have.

[JasonR]

They do more harm than good because they have very narrow tunnel vision: They only focus and are only interested in the benefit that they are doing, and not any of the negative consequences - even if the negative consequences are much worse than any benefits.A lot of of it is fanaticism. Sometimes people let themselves get to the point where they become so fixated and obsessed about achieving a goal, that they only ask themselves if the goal COULD be achieved rather than if it SHOULD be achieved. Often times a fanatic doesn't care HOW it gets achieved either, and how much damage it does on the way as long as the goal is achieved.Example: Nature First is a very radical group that is known to "spike" trees in the upper northwest states of Washington and Oregon. This means that they drive large iron or steel spikes into trees that lumberjacks will eventually harvest. Lumberjacks will cut down the trees, and the trees will be sent to a factory where they are usually sent through a large saw unit. The saw unit hits the spike, and the blade shatters and causes injury to any person within a certain vicinity of the machine. I watched one documentary in particular where one man had his face mangled and lost some eyesight when the saw machine hit a spiked tree, and the blade broke and mutilated his face. Point of the story: Nature First succeeded in their goal: to stifle the lumber industry (at least temporarily), and they had their narrow tunnel vision (preserving trees), but the "HOW" was reckless and outrageous (sabotage the lumber and risk killing or seriously injuring innocent people).

[contrarycrow]

In the spirit of full disclosure, I like animals more than I like people and I was born in a tree. That said, I don't think you should lump all "environmentalists" into a group. Generalizations are generally wrong! I actually read your whole question and while thought-provoking, it's a little one-sided. Blaming environmentalists for the CA wildfires is just as silly as blaming God. It happened. There was a lack of rain for a long time. Global warming, I don't know but "generally" plants tend to burn more when they don't get water. Basically we need something called common sense. Some of these property owners should have spoken up but maybe they were too busy having lattes at Starbucks? While do California yuppies cause more harm than good? (LOL) And hindsight's 20/20, huh?

[Shaneladd]

Most of the environmentalist do much more good than harm. There are a few extremists that go too far, but most of us are good people. I highly recommend watching the Anderson Cooper documentary, "Planet in Peril," although it's not the planet that is in danger.Human beings are in danger because of the dwindling resources on earth, that is caused by greed, overpopulation, stupidity, and the short-sightedness of our leaders. I give Anderson Cooper credit for making it clear that overpopulation is one of the biggest threats to our environment. Many environmentalists refuse to mention the overwhelmingly negative impact that human overpopulation has on our environment.

[peppersham]

.Thanks! For saying it so well,I 100% agree I did happen to see that program,and it was insulting to anyone with common sence.

[libsticker]

I agree that yours is a long question. I also agree that environmentalist are misguided. It is one thing to save the whale from harpooning, or baby seals from getting smacked with baseball bats, it is quite another to think that by non forestation and good forestry planing we can not harvest and control our forest and still have a habitat for wild species. The spotted owl, save their nest, what happens when a forest fire burns it down. The scrub you speak of, now those poor birds no longer have a nesting habitat, my guess is that come the nesting season, they will find one suitable. This is typical radical behavior, not give a solution that is in the best interest of all concern. I say your on the right track. The solution is protect the habitat from fires. The species will thrive, or maybe not, isn't that what Darwin's whole theory is about, survival of the fittest? If they don't adapt, then surely they will be extinct in the future, not because of man, but because they failed to evolve.

[HeathH]

OK. i just bet you could have condensed that. Good question though. We do need environmentAList to remind unthoughtful people like me that we need to clean up after our selves. I am a hunter/fisherman and i know the only ways ill ever be able to do either in the future is to take care of what we have. Some people take it too far though but i really believe in al gore's message as well as coopers they just take extremes with it. fires can be set by matches. but maybe the state of our environment has made it harder to put out the flames. I say cooper is a journalist. Not an expert in global warming. and btw i only read the first paragraph of ur question i have a novel that im working on and didnt expect to be reading one on Y! answers