Editor:
I am also writing in response to John M. Hopkins letter entitled Blame Environmentalists. The author shows himself to be the kind of person who revels in the misfortune of others, who gleefully says I told you so! when someone elses disaster seems to validate his views. Hopkins and his kind would welcome the apocalypse with open arms as long as they could predict it.
If Hopkins wants to see public lands crisscrossed with roads, all he has to do is look at a map. If he wants to cut wood, he should buy a permit. If he wants more roads on Menefee, he should hike up it and see why there arent more. Its a vertical landscape.
Im an environmentalist, and proudly so. Im sorry I had to evacuate my house, but I dont blame myself, nor dismiss the science of land management, which was less informed when Mr. Hopkins started his career 29.5 years ago. Fire is a fact of drought, and always has been, regardless of how many roads are built, how many wood cutters are out there, or how many gas wells we can stick all over. I dont think most of us want to live in the dystopian industrial tree farm that Hopkins would wish on us.
A little logging here, a little thinning there, and plenty of wilderness scattered around. That sounds good to me. But spare us the rabid exaggeration and condescending tone, Mr. Hopkins.
Ole Bye
Mancos
Via CortezJournal.com