Who would trash the bush and give nothing back?

[Happy Pirate]

Following on from a post on Boguns in the bush that wandered into a political debate http://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=13171 I find that my mental "Imp of the perverse" begs me to question the attitudes (especially my own) of the previous post.

So it is regularly asked by those of an environmental bent (me); what sort of society are we living in, where we see wilderness as something 'other'; that it is a mere recreation to be exploited?
I think we all here hate the mindless bogun image of the loud, bush trashing idiot who leaves the sort of foot print he'd (often a he) never leave at home.

BUT people generally can be brilliant at the sort of 'Us and them" reclassification that puts 'us and our friends and our activities' always in the 'good' zone and 'everyone else who we don't like' in the bad zone. I know I do it regularly; smacking myself for my hippocracy is a game I play often.

So while I have ranted and raged about wilderness destroying insensitive hoons who exploit their surroundings and leave a legacy of damage I now feel compelled to ask the following question:

Assuming that EVERY lifestyle and camping trip damages what is left of the natural world to some extent, how do we separate ourselves from the morass of humanity we rage against?
In other words: What do you do FOR the bush that offsets your lifestyle?
I know I don't do enough

So is this the real election issue? How much the politicians will do to offset our individual apathy?
Maybe TA is just asking us to contribute more as individuals to create a future of empowered, involved individuals in the perfect agrarian society
[insane maniacal laughter]
Steve (just thinking and ramblin')

[Happy Pirate]

I know I'm getting a bit uber-green here but maybe it's time to challenge every attitude and lifestyle in this country considering that 99.99% of us are living beyond our ecological footprint and there is no decent societal attitude of giving back.
Time for a call to arms against our own Hypocrisy perhaps? We certainly cant rely on politicians.
cheers
Steve
(Time for bed)

[GPSGuided]

For those who feels the society, the country, the planet owes them everything, preserving the environment would not be at the top of their mind. And there's plenty of those around, unfortunately.

[Happy Pirate]

For those who feels the society, the country, the planet owes them everything, preserving the environment would not be at the top of their mind. And there's plenty of those around, unfortunately.

I've been thinking of environmental issues a lot recently with the elkshun coming up.
It's a simple conversation really of people vs governments vs other stuff whotever that is;

It's true, I don't blame people individually, (actually I do), I actually think it's societies fault (no, the individual is the primary level of responsibility).
But if politicians would take more control of issues (politicians are nothing but wind-vanes, People take control of issues) people would be more motivated (peoples actions can be driven by social-pressure).
So an individual can't do anything if the media is against an issue (the media is issue-driven, so make it an issue!). But the media is ineffective against entrenched ideas (the media is a major conduit of ideas)
But seriously, there's nothing an individual can do (collectives of individuals changed the Franklin, Indian politics and Tassie forest politics) but governments are useless (except they stopped Fraser Island sand mining and the Tassie Dam).

But the environment is too important to politicize! (Yes but it's happened already) so it's an individual's responsibility (tradgedy of the commons means the estate is reduced to the lowest enforceable state).

You're right it's easy - let's go and vote (No, it's complex - lets go and vote)

Liberal is right
Labor is right
Green is right

A stoopid persons simplistic attempt to rationalise the current debate on the environment.

**sigh**
Steve

[Hallu]

I think we already do some good by trying to educate people on how to behave in the bush. I got a couple of French friends coming to Australia last year and their behaviour was appalling. No guard and no booth at the entrance of national parks meant they thought they could get away without paying, I had to persuade them that it was wrong, they wanted to touch every animal, collect shells and flowers etc... And I reckon that it's common behaviour unfortunately, especially with the huge number of Chinese tourists now who are completely new to travelling, totally clueless about how to behave.

Now for Australians, there SHOULD be simple measures to apply, that are basically applied in most developed countries but aren't here. First, double glazed windows should be the norm. Thermal isolation in Aussie homes is awful, a huge amount of energy gets wasted, either with the air con in summer or heater in winter. Second, just ditch that nasty tradition of having big gas or electric heaters in winter in the front of the restaurants and eating outside, it's ridiculous, such a waste of energy again. Taxes should be applied for poorly thermally isolated homes (as it is already the case in Europe) and restaurants using outdoor heaters. Another simple measure : you don't need a big 4x4 to go shopping. Basically as you pointed out, Australia sometimes feel as if people think they can waste everything because they're rich in a rich country. That's rubbish. Because you're rich, you can precisely afford to isolate your home, have energy efficient home appliances etc... The guy who's gonna convince everyone to get double-glazing and sell it in this country is gonna be making millions. The first time I mentioned double glazing on this forum, a poorly informed (and rather racist) bloke thought it was stupid, while I couldn't believe it was so rare in Australia...

Aussies are the most urbanised people in the world, and yet their energetic ways feel absolutely outdated : dirty old coal for everything, whereas they used to campaign ferociously against nuclear power plants (which are actually the most ecological way of producing electricity right now, until thermal solar power becomes the norm : why aren't there more sites like Cloncurry Solar Farm ?), they waste huge amount of water to irrigation, for example to produce wine in industrial quantities (dropping massive amount of pesticides on the vines with almost no regulation), they mine relentlessly even next to world heritage NPs, etc... It's such a huge contrast when you see that Tasmania produced the first ever green party in the world, have a huge chunk of its territory protected, and when you see how easy it is to go and enjoy the wilderness in every state of Australia.

[Happy Pirate]

For those who feels the society, the country, the planet owes them everything, preserving the environment would not be at the top of their mind. And there's plenty of those around, unfortunately.

Yeah but I'm kinda raging about that "someone ELSE is the bad guy attitude, generally.
So here's my start at a communal confession with the idea that if we don't start critiquing OURSELVES, we are only shifting the blame.
Feel free to join in.
My Bad is:
I'm the bad guy: I don't plant enough trees to offset my lifestyle even though I know I should.
I'm the bad guy: I don't compensate for those who don't know better.
I'm the bad guy: I drive a car when I could ride my bike
I'm the bad guy: I don't grow enough of my own food even though I could
I'm the bad guy: I could have (more) solar panels on the roof
I'm the bad guy: I am still locked into the consumerist lifestyle I rage against
I'm the bad guy: - .... (insert your own guilty secret here) ... -
(gawd I could go on and ON...)

I just think we are too keen to blame other people/political systems/social groups when the whole idea just seems to be about dodging responsibility.
It's my fault.
Sorry
Will try to do better
Steve
(I'll be on my bike tomorrow..)

[Happy Pirate]

In particular there are very few in the world who are motivated by:
b): I'm the bad guy: I don't compensate for those who don't know better.
That is the guilt I constantly feel - that if I'm going to complain about those less sensitive than me that I don't increase my effort to compensate for them in my own actions.

[Happy Pirate]

Now for Australians, there SHOULD be simple measures to apply, that are basically applied in most developed countries but aren't here.

That would have been the carbon tax. The most (overly?) simplistic measure of environmental impact regulation we've seen and hoped for killed by the cancer of public opinion and simplistic fear mongering.
Steve

[perfectlydark]

Bringing politics back the "pink batts" thibg was a terrific idea in principle for energy saving..again some bad publicity and shonky operators put that to bed..

[neilmny]

For those who feels the society, the country, the planet owes them everything, preserving the environment would not be at the top of their mind. And there's plenty of those around, unfortunately.

Yeah but I'm kinda raging about that "someone ELSE is the bad guy attitude, generally.
So here's my start at a communal confession with the idea that if we don't start critiquing OURSELVES, we are only shifting the blame.
Feel free to join in.
My Bad is:
I'm the bad guy: I don't plant enough trees to offset my lifestyle even though I know I should.
I'm the bad guy: I don't compensate for those who don't know better.
I'm the bad guy: I drive a car when I could ride my bike
I'm the bad guy: I don't grow enough of my own food even though I could
I'm the bad guy: I could have (more) solar panels on the roof
I'm the bad guy: I am still locked into the consumerist lifestyle I rage against
I'm the bad guy: - .... (insert your own guilty secret here) ... -
(gawd I could go on and ON...)

I just think we are too keen to blame other people/political systems/social groups when the whole idea just seems to be about dodging responsibility.
It's my fault.
Sorry
Will try to do better
Steve
(I'll be on my bike tomorrow..)

Steve, this is right on the money. It is wrong but so easy to point the finger at everyone else, we have to look at and fix up our own issues first.
There would not be many whose "I'm a bad guy" list wouldn't match yours (guilty as charged your honor ).

[Ent]

I started off walking in the North of the state and was rather shocked by the environmental damaged done by thousands of feet when doing Frenchmans Cap and similar thing on the WAs. It is rather noticeable the growing number of straight-line tracks forming due to blatant peak bagging. As a OSM mapper the photographs from above show a surprising number of tracks. Interestingly on the weekend in my return to the Dial Range I noticed the lack of erosion on the tracks as the number of walkers is below the limit nature requires to regenerate. Even more curious this area is not regulated and generally frequented mainly by locals rather than Chapman’s hordes. ironically probably by not been considered remote enough.

We as a community are rather defensive our rights but a critical of over use. I find it strange that some will post how great that their trip was (and how special they are) and then claim that the area that they trod is too sensitive for other to follow. I much prefer the approach of spreading the walkers over numerous areas so what damage is done is within the ability of nature to regenerate. Others seek to boardwalk every area. And other restrict the "knowledge" and hope that only they will know. At the risk of damaging their egos a lot more people know about areas than many would like to think. All strategies have merits and flaws.

I quite like the old approach by Forestry when it had tracks as part of its community service obligations. They appeared to have mastered the art of cutting a track that created very little damage and have numerous ones so peak traffic numbers were low. Similar to trapper tracks. Of course, the rampant anti Forestry and its commercialisation by government removing the community service obligation meant that such tracks fell into disuse or were transferred to Parks that already had asset maintenance issues exceeding its budget.

We have the likes of Chapman bemoaning the damage done by walkers but writing books that will only encourage more walkers. We as a community are rather contrary seeing others rather than ourselves as trashing the environment.

[Hallu]

A well known Forestry track is the one to Quamby Bluff and I thought it was very nice. It's not a clear broad path, it's mainly a small worn out path between trees with lots of tape markers, and I often prefer that to a big obvious track. The Mt Murchison track is like that too. In Victoria, there's an overuse of old 4WD tracks converted to walking tracks. Glenn Tempest is very critical of that in his books, and I agree. It's not pleasant to navigate on old roads, it denies you this feeling of wilderness and solitude.

So I guess a good way of giving back would be if more of us would volunteer to do trackwork. I'm more of a loner so I've never joined a bushwalking club, but it would be nice to have a sort of centralized website posting calls to volunteers to help all sorts of track repairs/building in Australia. A good habit would be : on a week-end when you want to go for a walk, you check the website, and if help is needed near where you were planning to go, then you take a couple of hours on your time to help. So far those calls for volunteers are only on Parks websites, which aren't exactly user friendly. Getting involved should be made easier, don't you think ?

[geoskid]

Hiya HP,
I'm happy to engage on this topic, but I don't think the title of the thread is representative of the content of your opening post.
What I mean Is, the content of your post goes far deeper than the title indicates - and I would be happy to explore the content of your post rather than the title of the thread.
I do get( I think ) where you are coming from - and I know others here would jump at it - but it starts with framing the question.
What do you think?
Regards,
Mark

[geoskid]

Just to add (took too long to edit) thoughts about starting position.
A given for me is evolution is fact, humans are not special, reality is, and our job is to understand it - not make it.
I also have a reasonable understanding of the (theory) of Fair Minded Critical Thinking - as opposed to just Critical Thinking.
I hope you can help me get to your starting point, if not I will help you get to my starting point - we can go from there.

Cheers , Mark

[Hallu]

What the hell are you on about ?

[geoskid]

What the hell are you on about ?

Shocked , Really?
Would you like to ask a specific question Hallu?

[madmacca]

That would have been the carbon tax. The most (overly?) simplistic measure of environmental impact regulation we've seen and hoped for killed by the cancer of public opinion and simplistic fear mongering.
Steve

Actually, it has been killed by vacillation and deceit.

When you have a government that has gone from "We're going to have an ETS" to "The ETS has been postponed" to "We'll have a town hall meeting of random citizens to sort out a price on carbon" to "There will be no carbon tax" to "Now I'm giving you a carbon tax anyway" to "I'll abolish the carbon tax and introduce an ETS", the obvious conclusion by the public is that if the government is acting as though it is electoral poison, well, it must be totally toxic.

Compare the approach taken by Howard and introducing the GST (in the face of an equally large scare campaign) where the subtext was "I am so convinced this is the right thing to do that I am willing to stake my entire Prime Ministership on it", and the public concludes that it can't be that bad.

And to be even-handed, Paul Keating also introduced many measures that were unpopular in the short term, but faced down opposition through being resolute.

Strip away how you feel about the individual issues, and look at it as issues of pure leadership. If a leader shows a bit of spine, then people will follow.

[GPSGuided]

No leader can shine when there's a deliberately hostile senate that blocks initiatives.

[Clusterpod]

No leader can shine when there's a deliberately hostile senate that blocks initiatives.

And a captive, partisan media.


Its my opinion, of course, that if you value the wild and undeveloped areas, and want to repair those that have been damaged and rebuild those that have been lost, then supporting the business-as-usual major parties is not the thing to do. We have all the evidence and hindsight we need to see that little or nothing is going to be done.

Which is underlined by my answer to the OP. The type of person that would trash the bush and give nothing back is the kind of person that has had their ideology and worldview sculpted by the demands of immediate returns and short-term thinking as dictated by the election cycle and the power structures behind politics. You only have to look at the level of increasing private debt to see that your average Australian is increasingly of the "want-it-now, pay for it later" persuasion.

Decades of strident, almost fanatical consumerism, encouraged, if not demanded by the economic system has unsurprisingly resulted in generations that see the wild and natural places as their entitlement to use and abuse at will. Frack now, repent at leisure. Drop litter now, someone else will pick it up. Drive all over this beach, the tide will clean it up. Remove this mangrove forest and dredge this tidal creek we need coal revenue.

[Hallu]

What the hell are you on about ?

Shocked , Really?
Would you like to ask a specific question Hallu?

More surprised than shock, you talk to him as you were his philosophical mate, and seem to attach more importance to the discrepancy between title and content than the subject itself, then you go on talking about obscure abstract notions. I thought it was both incomprehensible and funny, and wondered if you were serious or joking.

[geoskid]

Assuming that EVERY lifestyle and camping trip damages what is left of the natural world to some extent, how do we separate ourselves from the morass of humanity we rage against?
In other words:

Simple - We justify what we do is outside of what we consider damage - we re-lable it as usage.
It's really no different when people talk of overconsumption - it's a subjective assessment. If someone were to suggest that any consumption over and above what is required for survival can be considered overconsumption - sit back and watch the show of justification - such are humans.
I think the basis of what humans can care about is empathy. It's innate - its a starting point.
Fundamentalist environmentalists would have me consider my consumption on the basis that I am depriving future generations of those same resources.
I think in terms of wellbeing for existing sentient beings. And just for a minute, just consider humans in that category.
What are the basics (very basics - the starting point) for human wellbeing - adequate food clothing and shelter.
Do all humans currently alive have adequate food clothing and shelter? - No
What Should we be concerned about? - Also, prioritising these needs (and all of the barriers that need to be overcome) will benefit the environment.
Also what is 'the environment' other than where we find ourselves? - It certainly can't feel.
What will anyone do? Whatever eases their conscience.
Lets talk about priorities and what we can do.

[Happy Pirate]

That would have been the carbon tax. The most (overly?) simplistic measure of environmental impact regulation we've seen and hoped for killed by the cancer of public opinion and simplistic fear mongering.
Steve

Actually, it has been killed by vacillation and deceit.

When you have a government that has gone from "We're going to have an ETS" to "The ETS has been postponed" to "We'll have a town hall meeting of random citizens to sort out a price on carbon" to "There will be no carbon tax" to "Now I'm giving you a carbon tax anyway" to "I'll abolish the carbon tax and introduce an ETS", the obvious conclusion by the public is that if the government is acting as though it is electoral poison, well, it must be totally toxic.

Compare the approach taken by Howard and introducing the GST (in the face of an equally large scare campaign) where the subtext was "I am so convinced this is the right thing to do that I am willing to stake my entire Prime Ministership on it", and the public concludes that it can't be that bad.

And to be even-handed, Paul Keating also introduced many measures that were unpopular in the short term, but faced down opposition through being resolute.

Strip away how you feel about the individual issues, and look at it as issues of pure leadership. If a leader shows a bit of spine, then people will follow.

Oh boy,
my biggest rant so far and sooo many topics I could reply to.
So I'll jump in here to say - madmacca I agree with what you say but my rant against a Carbon Tax/ETS is not about its effectiveness nor (gawd forbid) it's relevance but about how much the issue of climate change has poached environmental interest and then dropped the ball. Weak climate action has pushed all environment issues off the radar.
PK was in my estimation the last leader we had who didn't act like we were a USA circus.
I am very much NOT a climate denier but I was appalled by an ABC survey that asked me my primary voting motivation and listed climate and mining (good or bad I was never sure) but environment was never listed.
Climate action IS important but NEVER at expense of other environment issusue!
BUt I'll be damned if I can see a single leader with any spine.
I'd do whatever it takes to re-invest politics with intelligent engagment - but damn it!
What does it take?
Steve

[Happy Pirate]

For those who feels the society, the country, the planet owes them everything, preserving the environment would not be at the top of their mind. And there's plenty of those around, unfortunately.

Yeah but I'm kinda raging about that "someone ELSE is the bad guy attitude, generally.
So here's my start at a communal confession with the idea that if we don't start critiquing OURSELVES, we are only shifting the blame.
Feel free to join in.
My Bad is:
I'm the bad guy: I don't plant enough trees to offset my lifestyle even though I know I should.
I'm the bad guy: I don't compensate for those who don't know better.
I'm the bad guy: I drive a car when I could ride my bike
I'm the bad guy: I don't grow enough of my own food even though I could
I'm the bad guy: I could have (more) solar panels on the roof
I'm the bad guy: I am still locked into the consumerist lifestyle I rage against
I'm the bad guy: - .... (insert your own guilty secret here) ... -
(gawd I could go on and ON...)

I just think we are too keen to blame other people/political systems/social groups when the whole idea just seems to be about dodging responsibility.
It's my fault.
Sorry
Will try to do better
Steve
(I'll be on my bike tomorrow..)

Steve, this is right on the money. It is wrong but so easy to point the finger at everyone else, we have to look at and fix up our own issues first.
There would not be many whose "I'm a bad guy" list wouldn't match yours (guilty as charged your honor ).

Yeah neilmny
I'm kinda looking at how I can make a TA Gov a positive by making it a call to arms.
And DAMN IT! We should have had an army of concerned bushies out and amongst it YEARS ago planting trees and pooling resources to save threatened land! Doing all the things that we expect our one simplistic act every 3 years will be enough to accomplish.
Ha Ha Ha
Decades of self-delusion
How do we finally raise the army???
Steve (Doing nothing is no-longer an option - so take your side)