Conservation versus development pressures

It's rather curious that I as often as not reject the claims of conservation groups, like Sierra club rejecting a new Stillwater bridge on "aesthetic" grounds of wrecking the beauty of the St Croix river valley, while for me the REAL issue is a big new bridge large is a DEVELOPMENT issue, that Metro sprawl will lose one last natural boundary and there'll be a skyrocketing of land prices on the other side. Those who OWN that land will gain a huge financial advantage, whether luck of their ownership or through speculation. So I vote with the antidevelopment side as much to SPOIL short term speculators from profitting, WHILE causing a real problem - making it easy to continue unsustainable development.

On a different side, I think of any sort of nonrenewable resource, or any renewable resource that is being depleted in nonrenewable ways, what sort of resistance should a community put up against this.

Thinking of the Alberta sandtars, or Appalacian mountain-top removeal coal extraction, it seems clear to me that booming development for such a dirty resource, done by people who come there merely for work, and don't personally care about the consequences of their development to the environment. Even if the industry itself is "forced" to "care" by law, in practice it is pretty easy for "big money" to bribe there way out of real responsibility for cleanup, or for accepting a level of cleanup that meets the needs of the local community which is affected by the development.

I try to not be fully a naysayer, and I know I'm generally just a worrier, so if I had "my way", there'd be 1/10 the development there is now, and effectively "life as we know it" would end sooner, not that I don't believ it won't end later, if we TRY to maximize our exploitation of the environment.

I try to be practical as well. Environmental regulations are "warm fuzzies" to a well-to-do society, especially one capable of buying resources from DISTANT markets which can do anything to THOSE environments they want, as long we can afford to buy what they offer. So if regulations merely move a problem further away, they're not helping. AND if regulations merely delay action until we're more desparate, it's equally unclear if we've done anything constructive.

I'm very impressed by the "Nature Conservancy" and their efforts to purchase special lands to protect from development, BUT I wonder if even THEY will someday find themselves short on cash, and lower their standards, allowing development unsoundly. I can't even judge, since I don't know what is good or bad. If the NC discovers oil under their lands, and can get paid $1 billion to develop it cleanly, sell it for profit, and then use the proceeds to buy up more land to protect, what's the harm? I ask rhetorically in a general case, and clearly in specific cases, an analysis can be made on harm/risk/benefit. And interestingly there's "risks" not usually considered, like if a future time comes where land-ownership laws can't be enforced, what are they willing to do to protect their lands?

And more interestingly, considering ALL land as ultimately "The commons", owned by the people, AND the government is getting bribed by big money to reduce the land's potential, to destroy that which takes centuries to restore and heal, is there means to defend that which the government won't defend?

I can think of Iraq now, with a good fraction of the remaining oil in the world, underdeveloped, and under threat from multiple sides, including foreign developers who will come in (under government support) and drain away the country's resources?

If you simply believe in democracy, then if 51% say "Let's sell off our resources for a quick profit", then the other 49% be dammed, unless they're willing to start a revolution perhaps. A step beyond democracy protects "Human rights", so minorities can't be trivially harmed by the majority, but what if a minority isn't protecting their rights, but "the commons" for future potential? Ideally you'd say its up to the minority to convince the majority their position is worthy, but in practice "harm" can be measured in many ways, like "job loss" and reduced "economic development", and so as long as a majority "feels" they benefit, a lot of decisions can be made with long term consequences which are left unackowledged.

Okay, easy to get too abstract. And in specific cases, like a new bridge, there's simply divergent values going on that have no good compromises. Those who believe development can't be stopped and the future will always grow (a false belief to me, but defendably exaggerated here by my version of it), and those who think something must give and we ought to accept limits when they present themselves and focus our energy where we can have more hope for the future.

I fear NOW that conservation is a tough legal fight, but LATER different fights will come along that may be impossible to defend, and maybe some fights against development now should be let go. I'm going abstract again, but just recognizing the question and uncertainty.

When building a dam against development pressures, you must ask what forces you use to reinforce the dam and how those forces can be maintained in the future.

A most curious example is development of nonrenewables. If they are developed sooner than later, and used wisely, perhaps a better future can be created. On the otherside, like not extracting the resource might mean someone else might just use force to take it anyway. Not that ANY development is clearly defendable.

I feel pretty useless in these questions, but just trying to see them. I think peak oil is a real problem and we need to look sooner than later, both how to deal with less energy, AND to consider what NEW development pressures may come of it.

Kunstler things suburbia is doomed, will be abandoned with oil prices, and perhaps become lawless squatter villages or something. Its too hard to imagine such things. I imagine "Gated communities" as becoming more and more popular, as well-off citizens cluster their resources together from crime, and pay their own police services to protect them. I mean its already happening, peak oil or not, and perhaps things will go differently. It's not even that I'm against such things, communities protecting their common interest. My only complaint is when wealth clusters to protect itself, and lets the neighboring poor areas go to hell. Whatever defenses can be set up they need to consider the needs of their neighbors.

Yes, of course, and that idea is universal and scalable, from household to neighborhood to city to state to country to world. We're not responsible for the problems of our neighbors, but if we ignore them, there's going to be a cost to pay later.

I could have fun and imagine how empires fall, how ruthless leaders EXPLOIT the poor and oppressed to unify to a common cause, even if a false cause, carried through scapegoating, to destroy neighbors through fear. I could imagine even the Roman empire itself fell partly from its own brutality, teaching lessons of brutality to their neighbors until they weakened and fell to them.

An uncaring, inwardly directly elite, whether through royal families, or technocrats and exploiters of a complex modern world, we're all selling off some of our souls, when we reach first and last for our short term self-interest, when we take more than we need, while others are suffering, there's costs that come from this.

As always, the wider world scares me as much as anyone, and I'll cocoon my interests close to home as well as anyone, and blind my effects through abstract money values.

Most of all I just have to realize I'm pretty much already lost. I don't have the heart to fight, so whatever I have, is easily taken by those angry or ruthless enough to take it.

What do I defend now, knowing the weakness of my resolve to protect the life I know?