Scooped off the net....

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Orton" <greenweb@ca.inter.net>
To: <Recipient list suppressed:>
Sent: December 4, 2007 1:44 AM
Subject: "Thrillcraft: A Manual for Action" Now Available


Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation_, editor George Wuerthner, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, Vermont, 2007, 274 pages, hardcover, ISBN: 978-1-933392-66-0, $60.

"The needs of wolverines and bears and other permanent residents of
wild places should take precedence over the recreational pleasures of
human visitors." - Tom Butler, p. 66.

Hello fellow environmentalists and Greens:

I would like to bring to your attention the recent availability of the coffee table size book documenting the destructiveness of off-highway vehicles, called _Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation_. This is a big and growing problem by quite a small male-dominated minority, who impose their mechanized ecologically destructive noisy pleasures on others who seek a more respectful outdoors experience. These off-highway machines include all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), jet skis, airboats, dune buggies, swamp buggies, dirt bikes, snowmobiles, some four-wheel-drive trucks, etc. The book is edited by George Wuerthner.

It is visually stunning, with well over one hundred pictures which
counterpose scenes of unspoilt nature with the destruction inflicted
by off-highway vehicles. Those who have embraced riding off-highway
vehicles are wont to say that any problems are caused by "a few bad
apples." But this book graphically shows that it is the technology
embodied in these vehicles plus, most importantly, the consciousness
of their riders - their attitude towards the natural world - which
demolishes the "bad apple" self-serving mythology. This book gives
examples of successful struggles by environmentalists to severely
restrict thrillcraft use, e.g. in the Adirondack Forest Preserve and
in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. The use of
off-highway vehicles in a work-related capacity is not opposed. But
overwhelmingly with thrillcraft, we have a journey that begins
ostensibly with recreation but ends up as wreckreation. These
machines provide thrills, not transportation.

There are essays in _Thrillcraft_ by 26 authors. These include people like James Kunstler, "The Twilight of Mechanized Lumpenleisure: An Elegy for Bread, Circuses, and Jet Skis" and Brian Horejsi " A Wicked Conflict: The Impacts of Motorized Encroachment on Grizzly Bears."

The book was published by the Foundation for Deep Ecology and is
distributed by the Chelsea Green Publishing Company in Vermont. If
you look at the Chelsea Green web site at
www.chelseagreen.com/2...rillcraft, one can gain an
overview of _Thrillcraft_, see the names of the various authors and
the titles of their essays.

While _Thrillcraft_ focuses on the United States, we face the same
kind of problems here in Canada. My own essay in _Thrillcraft_ looks
at the off-road vehicle situation in Nova Scotia generally, from a
deep ecology perspective. The essay is called, "Off-Road Vehicles and
Deep Ecology: Cultural Clash and Alienation from the Natural World."
"Task forces" on off-highway vehicle use in Nova Scotia have sought
to promote thrillcraft but in a more regulated manner. Ecological
considerations have remained quite secondary to those of a more
human-centered nature. Yet the consciousness among the general public
over the off-highway vehicle issue has greatly increased because of
all the task force-related discussions that have taken place. Some
positive regulatory changes have now been made, for example: private
landowners must now give written permission for off-highway vehicle
use; there is compulsory vehicle registration; all rallies now
require mandatory permits; drivers must complete safety courses, etc.

Also, courts in the province have upheld by-laws which ban
off-highway vehicles within town limits. Doctors in Nova Scotia
specializing in child trauma injuries also fought a highly visible
campaign in the media, to ban children under the age of sixteen from
riding OHVs because of the very real potential for injury and death
for younger riders. Although not ultimately successful, now children
younger than 14 cannot drive thrillcraft except on closed supervised
courses.

The important message this book concludes with is:

"Two opposing cultural paradigms determine how an individual or a
society relates to the natural environment and other individuals. One
paradigm sees the natural world as something to be respected and
protected; the other views it as a giant sandbox to play in,
regardless of the negative effects of that play." p. 229

For Greens and environmentalists living in northern Nova Scotia, my
own bioregion, I have given three copies of _Thrillcraft_ to the
Pictou Antigonish Regional Library.

Best and for the Earth,
David

"The needs of wolverines and bears and other permanent residents of
wild places should take precedence over the recreational pleasures of
human visitors." - Tom Butler, p. 66.

I have noticed that the bears are being driven away from Calgary. Was Calgary not born out of a wild place? I think we should shut Calgary down!

I am also assuming that the person who wrote this owns a car and has electricity in their house. I would hate to think that their car needs roads (which bears die on every day) and that their house needs electricity which comes from natural resources which deplete the environment and kill more bears every day.

And I was to think that global warming was killing the planet! I was wrong, it's the Quads that are killing the planet!

Give them time they will chose a new target to point their cannons at.

Wycked_1 wrote:

Give them time they will chose a new target to point their cannons at.

Yep, greenpeace has set up shop in Edmonton. To target the oilsands.

Uhhhhhh yeah that should keep em busy, probably until the last drop of oil is squeezed out of the last grain of sand.


So how about a book burning party???


Later
Molsondrinkr

It might damage the enviroment.

If they've set up shop in Edmonton to target Fort Mac there should be a lot more pedestrian traffic north of town I would think.
You Edmontonians should use a little more caution driving north and leave those hockey sticks at home.