Yeah, the point is not finding altruistic excuses as a solution to the
problem.
If everyone had a good attitude, then laws would not often be necessary
to enforce.
If the snowmobile and off-road industry does not contain the damage from
thier profits, they very well might become illegal, limited or more
expensive to purchase. The cost of education, enforcement and repair
should eat into those profits in my opinion. The fault is with the
industry, make no mistake. Just because the product is other than
alchohol, tobacco or firearms doesn't mean it cannot be expoited
similarly. I'm talking pure sports/recreation vehicles, not necessarily
work vehicles. If you want a rototiller, purchase a model more suitable
for the job.
However without going into the debate about how to deal with the
industry, and I wouldn't mind having some of the vehicles outlawed so
don't push that point with me, it is very possible and probable this
will happen in the near future so if you love this sort of recreation
you should be very concerned about the habits of your fellow sportsmen.
But without going into all this, I feel the remedy is to encourage
ourselves and especially the younger generations to participate in
responsible, productive and ethical endeavors. We must at least develop
the structure for this to present to them.
For starters, riparian habitat is fragile and silt producing activities
shall be identified.
To protect these habitats, roads would have to bridge waterways and
access to protected riparian systems carefully considered and limited
with respect to vehicles, livestock and pets. There is not much utility
in off-road recreation, so I'm leaning towards severe restrictions.
Essentially, you would be responsible for your own mess and able to be
held accountable. If there were a bounty on littering, there would be
licensed litterbug bounty hunters. There would have to be documented,
repeat behavior. If litter was valuable, people would not throw it away
or someone would come around collecting it. If litter was
biodegradeable, it would "go away" in a short amount of time in the
worst case scenario. Everyone makes money all the way around, the
environment abides to fuel future rounds of the money machine, we all go
home.
If you want to go back to having more wilderness areas and fewer people,
I'm all for it. Debateable is how to go about this sort of thing.
Instead of being lazy and scooting around on your ATV, why not get your
hands dirty with some of the menial labor your existence requires. That
will take care of your free time, you'll get some excercise and the
exploitation of immigrant labor will no longer be required for our
enjoyment of the "American" way. I figure all we need in the future is a
certain size square plot of land that gets x amount of sun energy per
year to support a family, everything else is more or less off limits to
direct exploitation. We would have to recycle all the substantial
elements we have mined and accumulated. Maybe what we would do is move
our populations around and allow previous areas to lie fallow and return
to wilderness, then there will always be a wild frontier for those of us
that appreciate elbow room. Everyone else can move to China. Yes, that
was my sour feeble attempt at humor, no comments necessary. A better
idea is to maintain "mountain men and indian" preserves where an
anachronistic dream will be realized. People could go there instead of
becoming a monk or nun. When they decide to return to the "real" world,
they can put on thier suit and tie they left behind at the gateway.
Sorry, I couldn't hold back on the pontification.
The point is, we will make changes not because we are shackled down with
laws, but because we desire a richer, more fulfilling way of life.
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