SAVING THE PLANET

WALKER BRAGMAN—On Tuesday, president Joe Biden was one of 100-plus world leaders who pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030 during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. His Build Back Better framework, similarly, pledges “historic” investment in forest management.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, Biden has been plowing ahead with his predecessor’s approach to deforestation of public lands in the Kootenai National Forest.

On Biden’s watch, the US Forest Service is quietly moving forward with a series of Donald Trump–era plans to open up commercial logging in the Kootenai, despite the fact that the impacts of these projects were never subjected to rigorous analysis.

P. GREANVILLE—Being the most rabidly capitalistic, the Anglo-American business class and its political allies bear the most responsibility for this tragedy. Domestically, and for generations now, administration after administration has dragged its feet in terms of decisive environmental protection and restoration, when not actively behaving as a pimp handing over the nation’s natural assets to the business suits for what amounts in most cases to a pittance.

JAY JANSON—The business tycoons of America, who intentionally made a Second World War and the multi-nation Holocaust possible by head over heels investing in, and joint venturing with a poor and disarmed Nazi Germany helping to build Hitler’s Wehrmacht up to the world’s number one military force in five years are thus responsible for all that human suffering in astronomic amount. These investors in high-tech weapons of mass destruction, who now openly plan, prepare and promote  a third World War, are not thought of as demonic and criminally insane for their knowing full well the nuclear war constantly being planned, just as the regime change wars prepared and fostered in the past would bring great horror and pain, death and destruction, as all wars do.

DAVE LINDORFF—The need for major changes in our economic system and our national infrastructure are so great that they present an incredible opportunity to create much-needed jobs on an unheard-of scale. The so-called Green New Deal touted by politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others, while ridiculed by politicians who are on the take from corporate America, is eminently logical and a real way forward, but it’s only a start. [Neither Sanders nor Ocasio-Cortez has actually fought for their signature proposal, though, which is rather typical of Democrat-controlled politicos.—Ed)

PATRICE GREANVILLE—In terms of sheer labor inputs, and engineering difficulties, the Carretera Austral is in a class comparable to the “near miraculous” projects recently seen in China. We wonder indeed how long it would take the Chinese to build this highway across impossible fjords, glaciers, ocean expanses, and all. With their advanced machinery, proven skills, and legendary tenacity, who knows, maybe they would get it done in less time than anyone in the West would expect. Ironically, the “Carretera Austral” Project was pushed against all naysayers by Augusto Pinochet (the road was originally called Carretera Austral Gen. Augusto Pinochet), and may eventually serve to whitewash the dictator’s innumerable crimes. Cynics claim Pinochet saw the project as a gigantic, bottomless pork barrel opportunity for his family and hangers-on. In any case, the ecological price of “developing” this fragile and precious environment is unquestionably bound to be high, perhaps prohibitive, even if the region is only kept as mostly a tourist reserve. The German documentary featured on this page suggests as much: the red tide (“marea roja”) that killed hundreds and possibly thousands of whales, a mind-boggling number for an animal whose numbers remain fragile in the global oceanic ecosystem, is a tragic reminder that the human footprint should not be extended thoughtlessly.