Kathryn and I are basking in the joy of a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, followed up with the joy of decorating our Fratellanza Italian Club for Christmas. In this week following the fires, we count our blessings of a home that’s safe, warm, and send our love and prayers to those who had losses.
As the lives are put back together, there is no break from the polarization. The President of the United States argued for better forest management. Environmentalists cited climate change and argued for their ideas to be implemented. Both sides hold the other in disdain.
I’m here to argue that neither side can survive without the other. The forest management people can’t survive without the environmentalists and the environmentalists can’t survive without the forest management people.
As I wrote in last week’s blog post, everything circles back to sports. Particularly baseball. As much as I have a disdain for the Los Angeles Dodgers, I can’t imagine a baseball without the Giants don’t battling with a good Dodger team. There would also be a major void in the lives of Red Sox and Yankee fans if they didn’t compete.
In the same way, California functions better when both the Republicans and Democrats are viable and being heard. California also functions better when the forest management people and the environmentalist are both being heard.
What do I mean by that? With the growth in our population and the housing crisis, we need material to build housing. The loggers and the truckers are vital to providing that material. They’re also vital to the economy. On the other hand, during the past week of fires, Northern California officially had the worst air in the world. Every citizen in California, including the loggers, truckers, and the construction workers who build homes, breathe that air and get sick when it’s bad. Since you can’t build houses if you can’t breathe, what’s the answer?
I suggest we put the logging representatives and environmental representatives in the same room. You can even lock the damn doors and turn up the heat to motivate them to come to an agreement. The number one rule is that neither side gets everything they want. The loggers can argue for what they need with the understanding there are things that they can live without. The environmentalists can argue for what they need with the understanding that there are things that they can live without. FOR GOD SAKE, LET THE OTHER SIDE SAVE FACE! After all the environmentalists can’t live without the loggers and the loggers can’t live without the loggers. Most Californians think that we have clean air AND have some loggers keep their jobs?
I want to live in a state where forest management and environmentalism wasn’t a zero sum game.
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