Your thesis and the Colorado pictures are appealing. However, there's more to the public lands story. I suggest that the 40 year old battle between industry/Republicans and environmentalists and their Democratic supporters has caused land policy to become radicalized. A new phase began with Jimmy Carter's use of the American Antiquities Act of 1906 to sequester 60 million acres of Alaskan land as "National Monuments". He had asked his Secretary of Interior for a way to keep economic interests out of this vast area. The solution was a three-paragraph statute not designed to shut the public out of vast areas of federal land. The expansions of the Escalante and Bears Ears monuments follow the same partisan pattern - exclusion rather than protection to facilitate appreciation and access. How many ordinary citizens are going to access areas over a million acreas and with only sparse dirt roads? President Biden pushed partisan ship to further extremes, proposing to "protect" one third of US land area.
Not surprisingly, radical policies breed radical counterpolicies that we see now in the Trump administration. It's not how Swedes, who are among the world's most environmentally committed people, handle their natural recources.
Use this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress. Reach out to your own, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
Your thesis and the Colorado pictures are appealing. However, there's more to the public lands story. I suggest that the 40 year old battle between industry/Republicans and environmentalists and their Democratic supporters has caused land policy to become radicalized. A new phase began with Jimmy Carter's use of the American Antiquities Act of 1906 to sequester 60 million acres of Alaskan land as "National Monuments". He had asked his Secretary of Interior for a way to keep economic interests out of this vast area. The solution was a three-paragraph statute not designed to shut the public out of vast areas of federal land. The expansions of the Escalante and Bears Ears monuments follow the same partisan pattern - exclusion rather than protection to facilitate appreciation and access. How many ordinary citizens are going to access areas over a million acreas and with only sparse dirt roads? President Biden pushed partisan ship to further extremes, proposing to "protect" one third of US land area.
Not surprisingly, radical policies breed radical counterpolicies that we see now in the Trump administration. It's not how Swedes, who are among the world's most environmentally committed people, handle their natural recources.
Use this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress. Reach out to your own, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit