Yes, intentionally, because that's been the direction of this discussion. Lighting from mining and drilling operations spoiling dark skies around the many national parks and monuments in Utah. Joe, I'm not siding with anybody on this venue, but trying to point out that there are many competing interests here. I actually value such things very much as you do, but think that the dark-sky and wilderness advocates are fighting a losing battle, mostly because they don't see the root cause and are probably incapable of winning the fight even if they do. If you want to stem drilling and mining, you need to stop population growth and greatly reduce the demand for such resources. As long as the population keeps growing, so will the need for physical natural resources. But that runs counter to the concept of growing an ecconomy and creating wealth. Markets must be enlarged in order to sell more product, in this case, fuels for energy production, which itself is needed to support every other business enterprise- which includes feeding that ever-growing population. In a world market, just stabilizing a population in a handful of countries won't cut it. It needs to be done world-wide. The greater the world's poplulation, the less likely untouched wilderness areas will be preserved. On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com>wrote:
You are mixing up wilderness protection with national parks, Chuck. Parts of national parks are managed for wilderness values but the NPS is also charged with providing for visitors as well as protecting resources. There will be no industrial development in national parks, as mandated by the Park Service's Organic Act. The tracts proposed for development are not in parks. But many of them have been found to have qualities of roadlessness, solitude, and other factord that could qualify them for wilderness protection. One of Utah's most precious resources is its pristine wilderness, which should be protected for the future. -- Joe