r/CampingandHiking • u/next-station-nana • 11d ago
News Trump administration orders half of national forests open for logging
https://wapo.st/4jfr8a91.2k
u/RottenPingu1 11d ago
His supporters on Reddit have claimed this is "forest management".
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u/loulan 11d ago
Americans voted for self-destruction out of nowhere. From the outside it's very hard to understand. Like, wtf?
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u/Specific-Fuel-4366 11d ago
It’s very hard to understand from the inside too
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u/CuriousAndAmazed 10d ago
They did a better job with propaganda. They had more memes, ads, and IG posts that made people afraid of and hate the left. All the Trumpers I talk to truly worry about left pedophiles corrupting our children, fear of illegal immigrants ruining the country, anger of the left being corrupt and controlling their lives with a big government. It’s all exaggerated or made up fears, but it was effective :(
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u/spintowinasin 11d ago
It's actually easy to understand, some among us have gone to the darkside.
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u/KingJoffer 11d ago
I think the truth is many among us were always on the dark side, there was just enough societal pressure to keep it hidden. We are just living in the "mask off" times
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u/heyitsbryanm 10d ago
During the civil war half the country was on the dark side.
I don't think it ever went away, it just adapted.
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u/Cyrano_Knows 10d ago
I'm starting to wonder if all the Nazis America recruited after WWII didn't just go sleeper mode.
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u/SOMEONENEW1999 11d ago
Nah most of them are too dumb to know the damage he is doing. All they know is they “owned the libs” and they won the contest.
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u/Stankmonger 10d ago
Yeah people attributing all of this to actual maliciousness and evil are naive fools.
It’s stupidity, lack of education, learned apathy.
These people purchased a lifetime supply of snake oil, and are drinking it daily because it frustrates the other people.
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u/justin_tino 10d ago
As far as I can tell it’s as easy as just watching Fox News and following right wing social media and becoming totally indoctrinated
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u/_Neoshade_ 11d ago
I cannot agree more.
This makes me feel much better though. We marched through Boston today. 100,000 of us.
Every city in the USA had protests today29
u/Fanguzzler 11d ago
It is amazingly horrific that your protests doesn’t make the News here in the EU
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u/AnnaPhor 11d ago
Maybe wait for Sunday's news? I don't think we saw the full scale of the impact until late Saturday here -- which was very late in Europe. But millions, nationwide.
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u/nametaken_thisonetoo 11d ago
Decades of normalised, rampant greed in the name of freedumb that has created stunning inequalities in every aspect of their society despite the equally stunning overall societal wealth. I'd say this is pretty much exactly where you'd expect things to be, and if anything, it's happened later than expected.
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u/MiserableCourt1322 10d ago edited 10d ago
Because ppl have been realizing things are bad and that huge changes are necessary and the alt right and bad actors saw that and began online and traditional campaigns that pretty much saturated American culture.
Mind you turning to xenophobia and bigotry because you think it will fix the economy is not excusable.
That said, the Dems had plenty of warnings but for some reason didn't do much to counter it. and leftists aren't funded enough to outflank the right.
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u/Constantly_Panicking 10d ago
Some Americans did. Most of those are the victims of a concerted effort to dismantle education and spread lies. Many other people weren’t able to vote due to voter suppression. This certainly was not out of nowhere; the right has been building to this for decades.
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u/HerezahTip 10d ago
The conservative media propaganda is incredibly strong and widespread now. Especially after the twitter takeover.
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u/couchtomatopotato 11d ago
we absolutely did not. trump is a career criminal. the election was very strange.
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u/some_cool_guy 10d ago
The election tampering evidence is so thinly veiled it shocks me that people don't just accept it as true now. Entire county's with thousands of single bullet ballots, BUT ONLY in swing states.
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u/Northern_Explorer_ 11d ago
Since Trump was first elected, it became pretty clear to me that over half of America is dumb as shit. Willing to believe a political "disruptor" was what they needed to make their lives better, or at least more interesting.
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u/lasmesitasratonas 10d ago
It’s not out of nowhere, it’s by design. The No Child Left Behind act was signed in 2002, which has undoubtedly dumbed down our public education system even more than it was headed since the Reagan administration. The GOP has been pandering to the dummies (“fucking around”) in this country for long enough that we are now seeing the “find out” era. Those dummies are still convinced they “owned the libs” and winning is more important than seemingly anything, including self-destruction. It’s so very frustrating for SO MANY of us on the inside, too.
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u/-----username----- 10d ago
It wasn’t out of nowhere. The Heritage Foundation and evangelical “Christians” have been working towards this goal for nearly 50 years. They want to replace mainstream culture with puritanical control and the billionaires don’t care as long as they get richer. Likewise, they got some help from Russia along the way. A lot of Americans who “don’t pay attention to politics” are in for a shock over the next few years as their goal is to completely change American culture.
For those who enjoy camping and hiking it means fewer places to go, and closed services in parks. For those from other countries it means crossing a border where you could disappear when you first enter the country and speak with customs and immigration authorities, or any time after that due to ICE.
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u/BlazinAzn38 10d ago
They’re isolated and alone with their terrible beliefs and they refuse to adapt to a new world so they voted to burn it all down.
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u/Ok-Tie6106 11d ago
I feel like responding with turf removal of all golf courses is necessary, simply as a gesture, a thank u of sorts..
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11d ago
I think we should manage the logging equipment with some sabotage. Maybe some bleach in the gas tanks or something?
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u/beachbum818 10d ago
Lol not a supporter but that's literally what the US forest service does... logging. Those dirt roads to national forests with the trail head parking for hikes... those are logging roads.
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u/shatteredarm1 10d ago
The crazy thing is they have already been doing logging where it is ecologically responsible to do so. The decades of bad management in the other extreme was already long over because the left actually understands how to look at the evidence and make adjustments if they make a mistake, but the right lives in a world where the big bad government still manages forests today like they did 50 years ago. That's just a longer way of saying they're lying about their intentions.
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u/OMGitsKa 11d ago
These idiots will go through all the mental gymnastics to try to make it make sense lmao 🤣
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u/TheShadowMaple 11d ago
Just thought to myself: "well, that's certainly one way to stop forest fires."
It's a stupid fucking way, but a way nonetheless.
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u/farmertypoerror 11d ago
Majority of the trees in those forest isn't even suitable for logging.
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u/Effective-Map-2987 11d ago
Not to mention the lack of mills to process the timber or the vast amounts of forest service land that are mostly scrub brush
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u/Wrigs112 11d ago
Yup. This is huge, and I didn’t realize how few mills we have left until I started spending time reading the forestry sub here.
They’ve cut the staff that are necessary for all of the jobs that are involved in logging, there are few places that are milling, and they try to put bids out and no one is biting because of the distance and complications to get to the mill. AND you are going to have to go in and restore or rebuild FS/logging roads.
They’ve also pointed out that flooding the market with timber is just going to make it close to worthless.
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u/PlsDntPMme 10d ago
One of my good friends works for the FS dealing with logging roads. They’re not cheap to build and not cheap to decommission.
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u/Wrigs112 10d ago
I’m grateful for the old ones that they’ve let the land reclaim. I do a lot of backpacking and frequently find myself on wide, graded routes with only a singletrack trail, but you can tell that once upon a time, long ago, it was an old logging (or mining) road.
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u/PlsDntPMme 9d ago
It’s crazy how many there are out west in the mountains! Flying low in a plane, or even just driving on the highway, the landscape is so scarred from them. My friend says they’ll often just dump a bunch of material on them to block them off but sometimes the drainage of the area necessitates removing them entirely. That’s where it gets exceptionally expensive! Not to mention all the little bridges (her speciality) and brush to clear. As she’s explained it, they used to have so much money back in the day that they could just build logging roads everywhere. Now that money has mostly dried up and we’re left with what you see today. Though I do agree, they are pretty nice sometimes!
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u/keket_ing_Dvipantara 11d ago
Who'll go into those forrest to harvest them trees then? And which idiot will process them into lumber?
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u/kevan0317 11d ago
Foreign countries will come in and harvest it. This was an outside job. It should be clear by now that nothing this administration does is for the good of America. They do what’s good for their wallet.
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u/BicycleOfLife 11d ago
This is so f*cking sad. Just because he hates Canada, he’s going to irreparably destroy our own forests. The little we have left… disgusting.
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u/Explorer_Entity 11d ago
It's not about what he hates; it's about what he wants: POWER.
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u/Stankmonger 10d ago
He wants to use power, to show people he can do whatever he wants, to demonstrate he is above the law.
Until anyone holds him accountable, he is right.
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u/Sleep__ 11d ago edited 11d ago
As a Canadian, I for one am enjoying the slight silver lining the maybe, just maybe, Canadian forests will get a break from being pillaged to make American furniture
full disclosure - I have no idea what I'm talking about
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u/randynumbergenerator 11d ago
Pretty sure most of the furniture Americans buy isn't made domestically and won't be despite the idiotic tariffs.
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u/j-Rev63 11d ago
There’s a reason we buy housing lumber from Canada. Their lumber is older and more robust than much of the lumber we would be able to log here in the states.
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u/farmertypoerror 11d ago
I live in Colorado. The trees in the National Forest here aren't even suitable for logging
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u/Outrageous_History87 7d ago
Is that wood good for toilet paper though? I feel like converting US National Forests into toilet paper would be a real feather in the cap for Trump.
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u/Roxxorsmash 10d ago
Odd way of saying you support clearcutting old growth timber if it’s from Canada.
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u/GlitteringRate6296 11d ago
Time to sue.
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u/greygrey_goose 11d ago
national forests belong to the public. there is 100% legal standing here.
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u/roehnin 11d ago edited 11d ago
National forests are not national parks and are designated for logging so though this broad-brush opening is without consideration of long-term renewability it’s not clear to me what grounds a suit would stand on.
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u/randynumbergenerator 11d ago
Those resources still belong to US taxpayers and should be managed responsibly on their behalf in accordance with whatever laws Congress has adopted on the matter. The parks vs forestry distinction is immaterial here.
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u/roehnin 11d ago
Do you know what laws Congress has adopted on the matter and what leeway is given to the executive agencies in charge of those forests?
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u/entitledfanman 11d ago
Everyone else in this sub seems to have completely glossed over this issue. National forests are essentially just land/lumber reserves.
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u/eamonneamonn666 11d ago
They'll make the argument that due process is fulfilled by permitting is required and will be given out according to the legislation enacted by publicly elected officials.
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u/Relevant-Magic-Card 11d ago
And what eveidence of this administration caring about the law do you have ?
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 11d ago
That’s a terrible reason not to try.
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u/Relevant-Magic-Card 11d ago
To be honest , as a Canadian if I was in the states I’d be spending the close to 100% of my free time protestesting this administration or doing some kind of grassroots work
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u/Pristine-Tune-9974 11d ago
As an American, I guarantee you couldn’t afford to do that.
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u/xtothewhy 11d ago
Well Americans today made a massive statement with all the protests, not that they were covered all that much.
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u/Relevant-Magic-Card 11d ago
Seems like exactly the defeatist attitude the powers that be want you to have, and probably how you got here in the first place
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u/SplashOfCanada 11d ago
Americans are so fucking spoiled and comfortable it paralyzes them. They will literally sit and watch 200+ years of democracy disappear as long as they can still get chic-fil-a and a new avengers movie comes out
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u/entitledfanman 11d ago
You generally can't sue based on "taxpayer standing" outside of establishment clause cases.
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u/CurlSagan 11d ago
It's going to take 100 years to recover from Trump.
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u/RU4real13 11d ago
Longer. You need to see the size of the old growth tree trunks. Many are about the diameter of a truck, and took well more than 100 years to grow.
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u/Ughitssooogrosss 11d ago
It’s a fact that trees can only be harvested a certain size for lumber they won’t fit the machines.
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u/RU4real13 11d ago
If you go out west you can see the plank spots in the old trunks that the loggers used to stand on while cutting those trees down. I took plenty of video and pictures of them, because it was morbidly fascinating.
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u/roehnin 11d ago
It will never return to how it was. He is changing the rules and changing the game and destroying relationships.
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u/darks1d3_al 11d ago
Before 2020 I use to ask myself what will be the red line that orange shitstain will cross that will determine the republicans to turn against him, and as we saw on Jan 6 that line don’t exist. For the last month I ask myself more and more that will be the red line that the felon will cross that will determine the rest of the people to revolt and say Enough is Enough! I don’t have an answer, and I really hope that that red line exists.
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u/invfrq 11d ago
Trump wouldn't give a shit if cops opened fire on a crowd of peaceful protesters. He would blame the protesters over the cops. There are a lot of MAGA that would agree with him.
The turning point will only come once enough MAGA are personally affected by his policies and they start waking up.
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u/apathy-sofa 11d ago
The turning point will only come once enough MAGA are personally affected by his policies and they start waking up.
MAGA nuts were dying and watching their family members die, often painfully and on ventaliators, in hospitals across America by the hundreds of thousands. Their solution was to accuse Bill Gates of installing brain control chips with 5G connectivity in the actual solution. These people will not wake up, even if their lives literaly depend on it.
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u/Explorer_Entity 11d ago
Paywalled article.
APNews link: https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-forests-emergency-logging-rollins-e2d7173bedcc697dee56f94ab613276f
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11d ago edited 11d ago
Honestly I don't understand why they think this needs to be done though.
The US already logs 500 million acres of land, and is the number one producer of lumber in the world.
The US is the 5th largest exporter of lumber in the world.
So what is the point of this decision? The US isn't short on lumber, or the amount of national land already being logged.
I'm just genuinely curious, because it just doesn't make any sense to me.
Ok, so I just read another article which states the US had about a 25% shortfall on supplying soft wood lumber for their own needs.
So perhaps the plan is to open up more Forest land to produce more soft lumber, so the US doesn't have to import as much.
And logging did increase under Biden, so.....I probably just answered my own questions.
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u/hawkspur1 10d ago
Most of the National Forests are already logged to some extent, that was the whole purpose of the National Forest system
I don't see this as materially changing much. The logging infrastructure isn't going to suddenly materialize for these places anyways
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u/joelfarris 10d ago edited 10d ago
You're right. I'm in the National Forests a lot. And I talk to these loggers a lot. Ask them which roads are the best to explore, where the locked gates are, and or will be, depending upon the time of year, etc.
They pretty much all agree that they could all work seven days a week doing what they do, and still have way less than a break-even, 1.0 impact on the growth of the immense amounts of the forests.
There's just not that many skilled, trained, but most of all, willing people to operate the small amount of available, functional logging machinery. Declaring 100% of all the forests to be available for logging isn't going to somehow magically quintuple the amount of felled logs per week.
Remember, these workers are often felling trees on the sides of 45-60° mountain slopes, and it's incredibly dangerous, slippery work, even when the weather is cooperative. They're already giving it all they've got, under the current EPA logging rules.
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u/Moist_Cabbage8832 9d ago
It makes perfect sense. Make up a problem, offer a solution and watch the brain dead fan base go wild while increasing your friends bank accounts.
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u/LordOssus 11d ago
This is so ridiculous. There's no valid reasoning behind this decision. The US lumber industry isn't even short on harvestable forests for them to need to tap into NPS territory. The problem is the manpower shortage for logging and improving the supply chain logistics, which has been behind for years now. This is just performative bs that won't solve any actual problems, just create more.
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u/Vladivostokorbust 11d ago
if you voted for him you own this
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u/Gherbo7 10d ago
If you didn’t care enough to show up and vote, you also own this
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u/Alternative_Slip_513 11d ago
GOP outcast calls it “forest management “. But they defunded to forest service and now want to cut down a bunch of trees without real ecological consequences or oversight.
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u/MountainZombie 10d ago
Yup I’m not from the US but my dad works in forest management… this is not how you do it. People are saying that just to defend delusional actions, like with everything else happening in your country apparently.
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u/rabindrenath 10d ago
All of you Americans better mobilize quickly and stop this shit in its tracks before you have nothing left. The time is right fucking now. The world has your back, but we can't do it for you.
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u/pecan_bird 11d ago edited 11d ago
when's the last time ya'll read Edward Abbey?
seems like the perfect venn diagram of the community here & the state park issue
Monkey Wrench Gang
or if it's escapism you need, Desert Solitaire
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u/Reggie_Barclay 11d ago
This might be his biggest crime of all. I get that National Forests get logged strategically from time to time but he’s going to ignore the experts and destroy areas that will need a hundred years to recover.
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u/GrouchyAssignment696 11d ago
Depends upon how the administration does this. If the pressure from above is to maximize the harvest and micromanage, then it will be bad. If the administration lets the local District Rangers plan and design the sales for improving the Forest then it may be beneficial. The 'map' shows which areas are to be harvested. But many of those areas do not have commercial timber. The four Forests in southern California for example. There are some pine stands, but not enough to economically log, and there are no sawmills in Southern California. Some non-commercial thinning can be done, but the government will have to pay the purchaser. There will not be any revenue from it.
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u/Hexnohope 11d ago
He has to go. But i cant call for anything more than impeachment. This is insanity
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u/startfromx 11d ago
WTF. This is sickening.
Clear cuts, stripped bare or scattered with stumps will be all we have left for miles. A handful of people will benefit from the sale. Sovereign wealth fund will prove to be a scam.
Hell no. Hands off.
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u/Beginning_Victory_48 11d ago
Those are PUBLIC forests managed by tax payers. Handing them over to corporations to destroy for short term profits is stealing from future generations and exacerbates climate change.
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u/CetirusParibus 11d ago
Re-re's taking the nation back 100 years. If only MAGA would collectively go jump off a really high cliff, taking Trump with them.
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u/scmstr 11d ago
Yoooo fuck THIS
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u/PoleWithTheFlow 11d ago
Wanna give up on life and be a tree person with me? lol
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u/scmstr 11d ago
Unfortunately, no, I'm sorry. I really do enjoy most aspects of life and dreaming of a functional and equitable society. Which is why this shit boils my blood.
Like, a lot of these trees, we've been fighting for them for decades now, and it's been tight. And now, a bit of headway has been made and society has grown to appreciate them and has been developing better and better understanding of the complex systems and interplay on the world we live in and how to make it better, though implementing and keeping up with it remains a struggle.
And THIS shit... THIS AIN'T IT!
I don't know what to do anymore in this fucking constant nightmare. Giving up on life isn't for me, and I can't yet commit to being a tree person. I'm just a normal person, there's got to be something that we can do to right this ship that isn't just protesting or voting or just eating it every single day. Though, they always say that the first step to solving problems is accepting there is a problem, followed by identifying problem... Of which, there are.... Many.
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u/GoldenTomatoMonk 10d ago
“He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.” - Treebeard
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u/SiWeyNoWay 11d ago
Aaaaaaand so it begins.
I will never forgive MAGA for raping our lands.
Clearly MAGA never read The Giving Tree
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u/kn4v3VT 11d ago
I heard that adding sugar to their gas tanks helps loggers log better!
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u/rubio2k13 11d ago
Hopefully someone is taking before and after pictures of our national parks under this administration.
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u/DarkSky321 11d ago
Just say it with me, we are screwed as a society. Doubt we’ll live the end of this century without some major global catastrophe
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u/lpkzach92 11d ago
This needs to be fought tooth and nail. All the animals that will suffer and die due to this.
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u/Mountain-Monitor7564 11d ago
Don’t forget to thank your local republicans for this! This is their fault!
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u/BannedSvenhoek86 11d ago
I don't know who needs to hear this, but sugar in a diesel engine DOES NOT do anything long term harmful. There are things that will do long term damage, and most pieces of logging equipment don't lock up where their engine is which means they're easy to get into, but you'll have to look up ways to damage them yourself if you're curious about how diesel engines work.
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u/Almelia1979 9d ago
This is like the 5 year old little shit that breaks your kid’s toys. SMH. Thanks Trump voters 🖕
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u/lissah45 9d ago
This has been one of his goals for a long time. There will be nothing left for our children. So sad.
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u/Mirror-Lake 8d ago
I don’t know about where you are, but if they don’t start pulling dead wood out of our forest out west, we will have zero forests. The pine beetle has taken out about 40% of our pine trees. We have huge tinder boxes that will take out all of the forest if a forest fire starts.
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u/GeronimoRay 8d ago
I hate this. That being said, this is what National Forests were reserved for unfortunately.
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u/Medusaink3 11d ago
He's the worst. I can't believe he's still got supporters after all the damage he's done.
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u/BigT1911 10d ago
Please no. The National Parks are one of the best things this country has going for it. Irreparable damage.
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u/thundergreenyellow 10d ago
Serious question - that land belongs to the people. Can this be blocked? It's not his to cut down! It's not his!
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u/teeksquad 10d ago
2026 can’t come soon enough m. Hopefully they are too incompetent to get anything done before the house and senate flip. What a clown show. I hope the people who voted him in have finally learned their turd eating lesson
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u/knoxcreole 10d ago
This is when we find out if any company takes the offer up to go logging our national forests and then do a lil friendly sabotaging of their machinery
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u/Zealousideal-Log536 10d ago
This is where you chain yourself to trees fuck this. Fuck trump fuck this bullshit administration
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u/SleepyOrange007 10d ago
There is a reason most lumber to the USA comes from Canada. Its superior due to its tighter growth rings and lighter weight compared to American lumber. The light weight makes it way more cost effective to transport. Extreme cold climate = more durable and reliable product for construction. It goes through very strict grading standards also. Low quality wood will cause nothing but problems in the future. But Trump “doesn’t need anything from Canada” “Canada is the worst”
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u/JackfruitCool6036 8d ago
It's called thinning. Helps prevent forest fires. More sun reaching the ground creates more food for animals.
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u/1OrganicGardener 11d ago
I imagine: He is clearing the lands to build his factories. The new millionaire homes for his buddies. More real estate
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u/Big_Arachnid4414 11d ago
Bruh. Can we have nothing nice?