Dear Sundog,Ìę

Last September, in California’s Malibu Creek State Park, a mountain lion pounced on a five-year-old child. The father managed to save his kid by fighting off the cat, and soon after, officials euthanized the cougar. Isn’t this immoral and outrageous? The lion was behaving just as nature intended.Ìę— People against he Unethical Murder of Animals

Dear PUMA,

This is not the only recent alarming attack on humans by a cougar. In 2023, an eight-year-old boy was while camping with his family in Olympic National Park; his mom chased off the cat, and he escaped with minor injuries. Last April, two brothers were out in looking for shed antlers when they encountered a cougar. It attacked both young men, killing one.

As a professional arbiter of ethics, my job is to see at least two sides of any given issue. However, as the father of a five-year-old who I regularly take to the woods and canyons, I am unable to access the other side here, to find what John Keats might have called the “negative capability” to tolerate the mystery that falls outside of reason. My take is strictly Old Testament: I say smite the beast. If an animal tried to drag off my child, my notions of animal rights and equality among the species would go straight out the window. I would try to kill it even if it escaped, assuming that, if left to live, it would try the same thing again.

I seem to be in line among people in positions of responsibility—at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as wildlife advocacy groups. “We don’t have a mountain lion jail,” Beth Pratt, the California state director of the National Wildlife Federation, told the after the Malibu Creek incident. “As much as it pains me, I think the officials made the right decision here.”

The conundrum is not new. But we might say we’ve had a respite. After a cougar killed a human in California in 1909, the state went more than 80 years without another fatality. In 1990, fearing the lion was going extinct, voters passed a ballot initiative to protect the animal. The past four decades have seen mountain lions acting more aggressively. Even so, it’s still a small number. According to the , there have been 26 verified cougar attacks on humans since 1986, four of them fatal.

These ethical dilemmas about what an animal is “allowed” to do pre-date the United States, of course. During the Middle Ages, animals were put on trial for crimes ranging from caterpillars stealing fruit to pigs who committed murder. “Here were bears formally excommunicated from the Church,” writes Mary Roach in her book Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. “Slugs given three warnings to stop nettling farmers, under penalty of smiting.”

And yet, buried in my psyche, was the belief that killing a cougar for being a cougar was just . . . wrong? I turned to an expert in the field to see what I was missing. Christopher Preston is a professor of environmental ethics at the University of Montana and author of the book . Because mountain lion attacks are still so rare, Preston thought there wasn’t much official protocol. Bears, however, attack more frequently. When a bear kills or eats a human, it will be euthanized. But if a bear attacks a person while demonstrating what authorities consider natural behavior, it will be spared. “If you surprise a bear with cubs or on a kill, and it attacks you, then the bear can be let off,” Preston told me. “It’s not a pattern of behavior that demonstrates unnatural instincts.”

It’s unclear if the behavior of the Malibu Creek cougar was natural.Ìę The event that you refer to, PUMA, involved a young lion approaching a group of humans in a picnic area and dragging off a child, a particularly brazen act. Yes, it’s perfectly natural for a mountain lion to haul off a smaller creature in hopes of dining on it. But, said Preston, this cougar had left its natural environment and entered a human environment: a picnic area in a state park. “Where do you draw the line when natural behavior starts to impact us pretty severely?” he asked. We have no problem cracking down, he adds, when forms of life like bacteria and viruses exhibit their natural behavior of infecting our bodies.

Preston made another point: humans are constantly expressing their dominance over the natural world, and if we just kill anything that makes a problem with us, then we’re not learning anything. But in his opinion, even this line of reasoning doesn’t merit a puma pardon. “Someone can feel sympathy for the lion for doing what lions do, but that probably won’t get you a non-shoot order.”

“We need to dial back our dominance, but this case brings it into sharp contrast,” said Preston. “I don’t know how many environmental ethicists would say, ‘Yes, let’s just let lions keep dragging kids out of picnic areas.’”

Preston and I decided to find out. He sent out a note to a handful of colleagues. The first to respond was Philip Cafaro, a professor of philosophy at Colorado State University:

The way I see it, mountain lions and people have a right to live in California (and elsewhere). But there are way too many people in CA (~ 40 million) and way too few mountain lions (probably less than 5,000). It’s way out of balance, way unjustly tilted toward us hogging most of the habitat and resources. So, speaking strictly to the justice of the situation, mountain lions that attack and even kill people should be left alone. We can spare a few people from our teeming hordes, while there are precious few pumas left.

But even he shied away from cougar clemency:

Pragmatically speaking, people are too selfish and cowardly to act ethically in such cases. So, the next best thing is let them kill some mountain lions in the hope that they will leave the rest alone.

A second Colorado State professor of philosophy, Katie McShane, raised other important questions, which perhaps explain why we no longer drag beasts before a judge and jury:

I’m not sure we blame animals very much at all; but in any case, killing the mountain lion isn’t conceived of as punishment, but rather, keeping people safe.

Maybe there’s an animal ethics question about whether killing the lion is the best way to protect people? Given mountain lion behavior, I can’t imagine that confinement would go well. Are there sanctuaries? I don’t know; they’d need to be huge. Anyway, my guess is that killing the mountain lion is the most humane option as well.

The short answer to that is, mountain lions require too much terrain to be placed in sanctuaries. And relocating an animal that’s attacked a human doesn’t mean it won’t attack again. I find myself agreeing that killing is the best option in this difficult situation.

Before Preston signed off, he also speculated that there might be something in the human psyche that calls for harsher punishments for pumas than for other predators—bears, for example. “There is something singular about the lion,” he said. “You get stalked. You don’t know it’s coming. Bears kind of look like people when they stand up on two legs, so we know what they are about. The lion occupies a different place in our cultural imagination: the stealthy undesirable ghost in the forest that we don’t want to empathize with.”

Mark Sundeen lives in a canyon in Montana where cougar sightings are frequent, yet in his four decades of exploring and guiding in the West, he’s never seen one in the wild. Sundeen’s new book, Ìęcomes out February 18.

The post Should We Spare a Cougar That Attacked a Child? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

I recently saw a Reddit thread that started with a deceptively simple question. On the subreddit r/bitcheswithtaste, : “Are we wearing Uggs this year? I wanted Uggs so badly in high school and never had them but after seeing them come back last year I am considering getting a pair for this fall. Are they back in style for good? Or was this just temporary?”

To understand this question—and all the weight it carries—we might need a short history lesson. In the early aughts, socialitesÌęParis Hilton and Nicole RichieÌęruled the small screenÌęon The Simple Life. The slender, flippable Motorola Razr phone reigned supreme (sorry, Nokia brick) and found its place in the back pockets of teenagers the nation over. Trucker hats, dresses over jeans, Juicy Couture tracksuits, hair scrunched with so much Aussie mousse that it continuously looked crunchy and wet: this was the aesthetic of many a millennial in their prime. I would know. I was there.

Circa 2007, Uggs were expensive and hard to get your hands on. I remember scouring the aisles of a Nordstrom Rack in the Cleveland suburb of Westlake, Ohio, until I finally foundÌęa pair of mint green, size 6 Uggs. I, too, could participate in the trend. And at a discount!

And then, like so many other artifacts of the increasingly fast-fast fashion cycles that we inhabit, Uggs were out and branded as “cheugy” by the late 2010s. The shoes remained relegated to the margins of fashion until 2023, when model in a pair of tiny white shorts that resembled men’s underwear and a pair of Ultra single-handedly reviving the aughts staple. .

But there’s another response to the Redditor’s question that flitted through my mind as I read the original post. Did Uggs really ever go away? Or were they always there, lurking unfashionably, stalwartly serving practical purposes for outdoor enthusiasts? I’d been happily packing Uggs for car camping trips for well over a decade by the time Bella Hadid performed the resurrection. And I knew from talking to other folks at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű that they found all manner of uses for Uggs in the adventures they were having.

So, what gives? Did Uggs die? Or had they just been hiding in the woods?

The Original Departure of Uggs

To be fair, the initial rise and fall of the Ugg boot wasn’t solely driven by changing aesthetic preferences, although they played a big part. Delving into recent history suggests that concerns over the production of Uggs—along with some high-profile celebrity campaigns—brought legitimate skepticism to the animal welfare component of their production. One such highly memorable non-endorsement came from Pamela Anderson who, after wearing Uggs on the set of Baywatch and subsequently learning they were made of sheepskin, told in 2007: “I feel so guilty for that craze being started around Baywatch days—I used to wear them with my red swimsuit to keep warm—never realizing that they were SKIN! Do NOT buy UGGs!”

The animal welfare group PETA has long campaigned for that uses real hide, and they’ve taken Uggs to task over the years for their use of real sheep.

The Ugg brand states on their website that, for them, “it is essential that all animal-based materials we use are sourced from animals that have been raised humanely using sound animal husbandry.” To ensure this, they say they “use an internationally-accepted welfare standard for livestock” called the .

And, Uggs actually do come in vegan options now, which .

But What If They Never Really Went Away?

I never got rid of my Uggs despite being told by my much-hipper younger sister that they were no longer cool, because, well, I wasn’t wearing them to be cool anymore. My once-cutting-edge mint green Uggs had gone the way of the minivan: their functionality usurped their image. I didn’t don them for an early morning dog walk on a snowy day to impress my friends and neighbors with my sartorial sensibility. I wore themÌębecause they were warm, and I didn’t need to worry about socks. I could go directly from slippers to Uggs with little friction.

I asked my colleagues at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű to share a little on their relationship with Uggs if they had one, and it seems I’m not the only person who has worn them regardless of the trend cycle.

Fellow millennial Abigail Wise, digital director of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, told me: “For years, my climbing partners have made fun of what we call my ‘approach Uggs.’ But even the relentless teasing couldn’t stop me from slipping on my favorite crag shoes. They’re easy to pull on between climbs, which gives my toes a break from restrictive climbing shoes, and they keep my feet warm on chilly mornings without having to bother with tying laces—or even socks.”

Mary Turner, senior brand director for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, has also been letting Uggs keep her feet toasty for adventure. “I live in my ankle-height Uggs all winter. No socks needed, just slide ’em on and head to yoga
 Makes life so easy!”

And, Teaghan Skulszki, social media editor and a card-carrying member of Gen Z, says that she first started wearing Uggs in elementary school.Ìę“As a little girl, I remember going to school with everyone matching their Uggs, instantly creating a connection and community. Today, that community has transitioned to my friends in the outdoor community. With all of the different styles that have come outÌęrecently, I’ve been able to accommodate my different pairs of Uggs to different versions of myself. I have my comfy slip-ons that I throw on after a long hike to relax or my thrifted knee-high leather UGG boots that have survived several Coachella festivals. Uggs are reflected in all different areas of my life and match all of my different personas and styles. They are timeless and adapt and grow as I have.”

So there you have it. We may not all be wearing platform Uggs with men’s underwear, but we’re wearing them. And we have been for some time.

Ryleigh Nucilli is a digital consultant and The Pulse columnist who started her love affair with Uggs in a steeply discounted pair of mint greens. Now, she owns some Baileys for outside and some Cozy Slippers for indoors. She’s writing this bio wearing said slippers. They are cozy.

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Dear Sundog: Am I a jerk for not owning an electric vehicle yet? I live in a city, commute to work, and like to get outside. I have a decent car that gets decent mileage, but feel like I would be doing better for myself and the planet with an EV. Should I buy one? —Looking for Environmental Alternatives that are Friendly

Dear LEAF,

Let’s say you’re the average American who commutes 42 miles per day round-trip to a job that you find moderately soul-sucking. Maybe your labor serves a corporation that enriches its execs and shareholders while doing ill in the world. Maybe you work for an idealistic school or nonprofit, but are expected to work nights or weekends without additional pay. Or perhaps you simply sense that your one and only life on this gorgeous Earth is slipping past while you compose reports and gaze at Zoom.

In any case, you want to lead a more principled and less wasteful life than your vocation allows—you don’t want to be a jerk—so you upgrade your Corolla for an electric vehicle. Where will you find that $35K or $75K? If you can pull the funds directly from your savings or trust fund, then God bless you. Otherwise, you’ll borrow the money and make a monthly payment. You’ll have to keep doing your job in order to afford your green ride.

You will likely be paying interest to some bank. Will that bank use your hard-earned dollars to manifest a better society? More likely, their profits will go for millions in dividends to stock owners, or they’ll be loaned out again to finance all kinds of hideous adventures, from oil pipelines across to deforesting the .

So by reducing your dependence on the gas station—one tentacle of the fossil fuel industry—you’ve now become a partner to some other tentacle. Also, much of the electrical grid from which you’ll power that EV is still burning coal and gas to make electricity, so unless you’re charging from your own rooftop panels, you haven’t fully escaped even one tentacle.

So, no, LEAF, you’re not a jerk should you choose a different path. And yes, if you’re buying a car—especially to replace a gasoline car—it should probably be an EV. But there are so many variables.

You will no doubt have heard about the of using rare-earth elements like cobalt and lithium for electric batteries. It’s true: mining is bad. But this alone is not a valid reason to pass on buying an EV. The damage required to extract these miracle elements is much smaller than the alternative—drilling for oil and gas, and digging coal to produce electricity. If you can’t stomach the exploitation of nature and humans that is inherent to the industrial economy, let me gently suggest that you make a more radical lifestyle change than getting an EV—and try giving up your car altogether.

Sundog does not give advice he would not heed, so here’s my full disclosure: even I—literally a professor of environmental studies—do not own an EV, not even a hybrid. My family’s fleet consists of a 2005 Toyota Tundra that gets an alarming 15 to 22 miles per gallon, and a 2012 Subaru Outback that does only slightly better at 21 to 28.

As a matter of principle, I don’t think the only way to save the planet is by transferring billions of dollars from regular citizens to the corporations that build cars. As a matter of budget, I have never owned a new car. All my vehicles have cost less than $10K, except the Outback, which was $16K. I’ve actually never even sat in a Tesla, but I imagine driving one to be like having an orgasm while watching a looped clip of Elon Musk declaring: “I’ve done more for the environment for any other single human on earth.”

Let me state on the record that I love cars and trucks. They’ve provided much joy in my life, usually along a lovely lonesome stretch of two-lane blacktop or at the terminus of some rutted old ranch road. But those sort of experiences likely account for less than one percent of overall driving. In the past century, we have built American cities to accommodate people using cars for the most mundane of outings like commuting, shopping, and bar-hopping. The tradeoff is not just carbon emissions and pollution, but also sprawl, isolation and streets unsafe for walking and biking.

Turns out that in cities built before the era of the automobile—from New York to Barcelona to Kathmandu—you can get around without a car. When you remove traffic jams, parking tickets, the endless search for a place to park, the glum designation of a sober driver, and the claustrophobia of being locked in a metal box, city living is just more . . . fun.

When Sundog and Lady Dog set out to design our own lives, it was not to be in some Old World capitol, but rather in a midsized city in the Rockies. We didn’t aspire merely to burn fewer fossil fuels: we wanted to free ourselves from our car. We bought a house less than a mile from the place we work, less than a mile from the center of town. Our kid goes to preschool two blocks from here. Now we get around mostly by foot and bike, and can walk to trails and a creek. Many days go by where our dented guzzlers sit on the street—we drive each vehicle about 5,000 miles per year, about a third of the of 13,500.

The downside is that the houses in this neighborhood are a century old, dilapidated, small, and expensive. It’s a bit of a whack-a-mole game: our heating bills are low because we live in 1,000 square feet, but we can’t afford solar panels or a heat pump. We don’t spend much money on gasoline, but we can’t afford an EV.

Had we decided to live 21 miles from our jobs, we might have had a big new well-designed home and a slick new EV. But we love walking and biking; we want to teach our son that he can do the same, and that his parents are not his chauffeurs.

So why do we bother owning cars at all? For one, Montana is a lovely place to live, but it sure costs a lot to leave. Cheap airfares are not really a thing here. Neither is public transportation. So if you want to take a family vacation within a 1,000-mile radius, you’re likely driving. We bought the Tundra during the pandemic to tow a camp trailer (our “office”) and to haul lumber while we built a permanent office. Now we use the truck for long river trips, which entail carrying heavy loads for hundreds of miles through remote areas and down rutted dirt roads.

I don’t know of any EV that could do this. The Subaru is the town errand runner, and also takes us down bumpy roads to lakes and up icy mountains to ski. If it bites the dust and the cost of used four-wheel-drive EVs drops below twenty grand, I’d be happy to upgrade.

None of this makes Sundog feel particularly righteous. My point is that choosing a car is not a stand-alone decision as you forge an ethical life.

Mark Sundeen teaches environmental writing at the University of Montana. Despite his fleet of internal combustion engines, he refuses to purchase a parking permit and therefore commutes on a 1974 Schwinn Continental, with a ski helmet in winter.

If you have an ethical question for Sundog, send it to sundogsalmanac@hotmail.com

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Dear Sundog: We recently went to a wedding in a mountain resort town. We rented a condo online because the wedding hotel was fully booked. I had qualms because I know that people like us are driving up the cost of living for locals, but didn’t have a better option so I swallowed the qualms. After a flight delay we arrived a day late. We saw a beat-up car parked in the driveway. As we approached, two young guys who looked like climbing bums tossed some gear into the car, took a look at us, jumped in and drove off. My husband thought it was suspicious and asked me to jot down their license plate number, which I did. Inside the condo it was clear that these kids had spent the night. We called the host, who came over immediately, did a quick clean and changed the entry codes. He told us he was not the owner but a professional host who managed a dozen rentals in town. The actual owner lived out of state. It sat vacant during the off-season.

Later, the host messaged us to say that the owner had filed a police report and wanted our help to identify the squatters. My husband thinks we should hand over the license plate number. I disagree. I don’t have much sympathy for the absentee landlord. The kids hadn’t actually damaged the condo, and frankly it’s not my job to get them in trouble. Who’s right? —Very Resistant to Bending Over for Real Estate Barons Exploiting Locals

Dear VRBO REBEL: First let me commend you and your husband’s coolheadedness: you did not gun down these trespassers in cold blood, which seems an increasingly common response in our country of stand-your-grounders. It appears you have an ounce or more compassion for these loafers even if they made you uncomfortable.

First, let’s agree that this owner is fully within his rights to press charges against these guys—if he can find them. They committed a crime against his property. Your ethical quandary, VRBO REBEL, is a more interesting one: must you be complicit in this version of criminal justice, especially when you see ethical qualms in the behavior of the victim. Indeed, the American justice system has long skewed to value property more highly than humanity. Here’s an example: in the days of the frontier, out-of-state cattle barons owned herds of cattle numbering in the thousands that they hired cowboys to tend. It’s worth mentioning that the steers and cows could only stay alive by munching off grasses on lands that did not belong to their owners. The herds were too big to manage, and invariably some cattle wandered off. Along comes some hungry cowpoke or Indigenous person who seizes a beef and slices it up for steaks. Now he’s a guilty of a hanging offense.

In today’s West, now that beef and lumber and mining are past their prime, the most precious commodity is real estate, specifically rentable residences near some National Park or other natural wonder. When the pandemic brought historically low interest rates, speculators could snap up these properties for far more than locals could afford, and still rent them short-term for enough to cover their historically low monthly mortgage payment. Fill the place with some blonde-wood Scandinavian furniture and patterned shower curtains from Target and voilà: an investment that not only yields monthly dividends but will also presumably gain value over the years. The speculator wins, the visitors like yourself wins, while the actual town residents are squeezed.

Getting back to the cattle analogy, if an AirbnBaron owns so many rental properties that he can’t keep them properly protected from the scourge of townies, then so be it. I guess I don’t see using police work and courts to punish the interlopers as a particularly ethical use of taxpayer money. Just as the cattle baron should have hired more cowboys to guard his cows, so should the rental baron hire a rent-a-cop to patrol his vacant structure.

As for your own question about ratting out these dirtbags, VRBO REBEL, I say hell no. Collaborating with police was not in the agreement you signed. By paying your nightly fee, you have fulfilled your obligations, both legal and financial, to the condo owner. You are not ethically bound to join his posse and help him rope the rustlers. Burn that license plate number with a clean conscience.

Got a question of your own? Send it toÌęsundogsalmanac@hotmail.com

(Photo: Mark Sundeen)

Mark Sundeen, aka Sundog, has done his fair share of squatting in vacant buildings, such as this cabin near Death Valley, circa 1998. He’s also had his share of strangers squatting in his un-winterized desert trailer. So it all sort of evens out?

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When I heard the news that a for reckless conduct after someone spotted her ten-year-old son walking alone less than a mile from home, the first thing I did was open Google Maps. I looked up the distance between my house and a nearby middle school that my six-year-old daughter sometimes walks to with a friend her age. They get a thrill from playing at its playgroundÌęwithout a grown-upÌęaround, and I relish the freedom of getting the house to myself for half an hour.

Still, I’m relieved every time I hear my daughter’s voice approaching our driveway after one of her mini-adventures—which, according to my Google Maps search, spans less than half a mile round trip. My relief stems less from my concern that something might actually happen to her, and more from the possibilityÌęthat a neighbor or passerby might judge me to be negligent for letting her walk to a playground on her own.

Even before the story about the Georgia mom blew up the internet, I’d heard similar reports: the Texas mom handcuffed and jailed overnight for making her eight-year-old home; the Maryland siblings by police for playing alone at a playground.

Each time one of these stories makes headlines, the American public loses its collective shit. People from all sides of the political spectrum are equally outraged, agreeing (for once) that helicopter-parenting culture has gone too far. The same comments echo across the internet: When I was a kid, my parents didn’t care where we were, as long as we were home when the streetlights came on! Or: When I was that age, I walked home from school and babysat my younger siblings!Ìę

The parents I know in real life are similarly supportive of giving our children freedom to roam, and horrified that we might get in trouble for it. One friend has printed out and laminated a “” card for her eight-year-old to carry. If a concerned citizen tries to intervene, the child can present the card, which includes her parents’ phone number and states that she is not lost or neglected.

My sister-in-law, meanwhile, told me that two of her kids, ages 15 and 8, were recently walking home from the library when a nice older woman pulled her car alongside them, begging them to get in so she could give them a ride home. The woman was so distraught over what she perceived as the kids’ risky behavior that she thought asking them to get in a car with a stranger was better than letting them walk unsupervised down a familiar suburban street in broad daylight.

Though such lapses of judgement are well-intentioned, the chances of a child being either kidnapped or hit by a car are in the United States, and certainly lower than they were in the eighties and nineties when I was a kid. Yet in part because media reports tend to amplify violence and tragedy, such incidents can seem more common than they actually are, prompting some people to misjudge the risk of children acting independently.

Anecdotally, many of the people concerned by modern kids walking or playing alone seem to be who themselves had ample freedom growing up but may have watched too much CSI since then. My own peers—elder Millennials, mostly—have absorbed plenty of articles of letting our kids manage risks and build independence, and many of us try to encourage such behaviors.

A 2023 sort of backs this up, finding that only 28 percent of Millennial parents are “very concerned” about their child getting kidnapped. The same study found that Black and Hispanic parents are far more concerned than white or Asian parents about their kids getting shot, which aligns with demographic trends of gun violence and underscores the fact that free-range parenting is a privilege of living somewhere relatively safe.

Personally, I worry more about the societal or legal repercussions of letting my kid roam the neighborhood unsupervised than I do about some stranger snatching her up. But what if my concerns are just as overblown as those of the lady in the car who tried to stop my niece and nephew from walking home? Lenore Skenazy, who coined the term “free-range parenting” and co-founded the childhood independence nonprofit Let Grow, emphasizes that it’s for parents to face legal action for letting their kids play outside or walk home alone—so uncommon, in fact, that when it does happen, it becomes national news.

In other words, just as the risk of a child getting abducted is minuscule, so is the chance that someone will call the police if I let my six-year-old explore outside with a friend—especially now that more states are passing free-range parenting laws.

Parenting is inherently risky. The world is not and never will be fully safe. But instead of being influenced by stories of what could go wrong, maybe the best thing we can do for our kids and ourselves is to focus instead on all the things that are still OK—like my daughter, skipping up the driveway with her best friend, her cheeks flushed from cold and excitement, coming home just as the streetlights are turning on and I’m pulling a hot dinner from the oven.

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In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and then things got really shitty real quick for Indigenous people. The European colonization of America began the centuries-long murderous legacy of trauma and displacement of Native people under the guise of expansion and elitism. This legacy isn’t just historical but persists in institutionalized racism, public actions, and everyday language, which many communities continue to experience today. Picture a spectrum with voter suppression, unfair lending practices, severe disparities in health and health care, and disproportionately high rates of being killed during a police encounter on one side and white Instagram models wearing headdresses to Coachella on the other.

But that legacy of trauma is also perpetrated in more insidious ways, even in the crunchy, GORP-eating, COEXIST bumper sticker world of the outdoor community.

Earlier this fall, Black Diamond posted a video of skiers arching turns on an untouched powdery slope on its Instagram account. It was a dreamy ski clip that ended oddly when someone off camera said, “We own this range.” When who is Lakota, saw the clip, he felt hurt and confused that a brand would want to represent themselves with aggressive, combative, domineering language. He commented as such on BD’s post. He remixed the video to his own , placing text over the footage that read: “POV: A ski brand or publication says some colonial BS like ‘we own this range’ or ‘conquered a peak’
we don’t let people talk about mountains like that in ski culture anymore.”

During the first few hours of posting, Connor received thousands of likes and hundreds of supportive comments. He also received polite requests for a nuanced explanation of the harm caused, with some commenters pointing toward long-celebrated quotes from famous outdoors people, like Sir Edmund Hillary’s, “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” Connor engaged with these comments openly and honestly. “Intention and impact are not the same thing,” he told me during a recent phone call. “I’ve worked with Indigenous kids and women, who all say, ‘I’m so put off by the culture of skiing that I don’t want to get into it, because it’s all, conquer this, own that, shred it, stomp it, and the language just feels very violent, and how I feel about skiing isn’t violent.’ And so, I get someone who’s like, ‘I don’t think conquer is a violent word.’ Yeah, well, from your lens it isn’t a violent word. There was no violence experienced on your end of the barrel of the gun. But for the people who were in the crosshairs, that all comes off as violent. If you’re Native American and someone says, ‘we conquered this place, we own this place now,’ that recalls memories of violence, of trauma.”

In the comment section of his post, during those first few hours, folks were receptive to Connor’s explanation of word choice in ski culture, and the exchanges were civil. To their credit, Black Diamond acted quickly—they deleted the original post within 24 hours, issued a public apology, and their social media manager personally apologized to Connor.Ìę Black Diamond emailed Connor an apology and requested his consulting rates and availability to lead a DEI athlete training (at the time of publication, Connor had not been officially hired for the training and was still awaiting a response from Black Diamond). It was a quick and sincere response to Connor’s feedback, showing that even brands can model responsiveness in building a more inclusive community. Unfortunately, comments on the post devolved into a hellscape of sun-cooked porta potty thrown atop a tire fire.

An accurate number of the racist and bigoted comments Connor received on his post and in his direct messages is hard to calculate. There were so many that he had to block and report accounts, delete comments and messages, turn off comments on the post, and scrutinize new comments on pre-existing and unrelated posts. Friends and followers who stood up to trolling in support of Connor would later tell him they received racist and/or bigoted messages, even death threats. I contacted close to 20 accounts who commented on Connor’s post in a questionable way to hear their perspective, maybe even change it. Four responded. One told me that my Irish ancestors would hang me for “picking that side.” One responded with a series of memes suggesting they’d burn down my house and that they sexually pleasure themself to photos of my face. One admitted they could understand how “conquer” is a harmful word to an Indigenous person and that language can be damaging but saw no issue with calling Connor a homophobic slur. I did have a civil exchange with the fourth respondee, who identified as white and male (he did not feel comfortable sharing his age), but he ultimately doubled down on his belief that words cannot cause harm, even slurs. It was not a great day to go interneting.

The concept and impact of harmful language can, at times, be difficult to grasp for white skiers. A simple change could make a big difference. If ski enthusiasts embraced language that reflects a relationship of respect with the land, it might feel more welcoming to skiers from all backgrounds. To contextualize it, I asked Connor if a fair comparison for outrage would be white folks taking issue with an Indigenous skier creating a reel of a jib session filmed on the grounds of a Catholic church in which someone could be heard saying, “I just crucified this!” He told me a more apt comparison would be if he filmed himself skiing in Germany using “holocaust” as a descriptor for skiing. Connor was quick to tell me the motivations for his post and how he interacts with people in person and online. In general, it is not about calling folks out but rather in. Connor figures the skiers in the BD post most likely won’t have a combative relationship with the mountains. They probably are grateful for them, even love them. But we’ve been conditioned to describe skiing as having dominion over the land. And in any other circumstance, that type of language would be ridiculous.

“It’d be like dancing with your grandma at a wedding and then you jump up and you’re like, ‘Fuck yeah, bitch! Told you I had the moves,’” he described to me. “Everybody would be like, ‘Dude, what’s wrong with this kid?’ That’s how I feel in my relationship with the mountains. This is my respected, cherished elder.” Connor wants skiers to shift our language to represent our true feelings. And that is not a hard concept to grasp. Think about it. We don’t don eyeblack and listen to Jock Jams before we ski. We’re not physically besting an opponent. Skiing is not a football game, so why do we talk about skiing like a contact sport with a scoreboard? Maybe it’s time to embrace language that truly reflects our connection to the mountains— and community rather than a win-at-all-costs mentality. We’d get dumped on our asses if we smooched our significant other and yelled out, “Slayed it!” We don’t use meathead language in our love affairs. Skiing is no exception.

One of the things I love most about skiing is the universal language of the pursuit of joy. Laughter and those barbaric yawps, yippees, and woooohoooos we bark out in communal elation at the bottom of an epic wiggle do not need Google Translate to be understood. Shouldn’t we all want as many people as possible to feel that? The answer is yes. And that means that, at the very least, we need to think about what we’re saying and be open to hearing someone else’s perspective. Unfortunately, the internet is filled with hateful dickalopes. But you don’t have to be a hood-wearing Klan member to say something hurtful.

After Connor and I talked about racism-net, our conversation moved to a subject decidedly less awful: powder skiing. Connor and I are friends, and we’ve shared a handful of frosty days filled with featherlight snow that has risen to our eyeballs. We often joke about “stoke” and “flow” and how we whiff when describing the magic of skiing. I told Connor the person who described it best was mystic, author, and powder skiing legend Dolores LaChappelle. “Did you just hear what you said,” he asked me. “You said something I take issue with.” To describe LaChappelle, I used the word “pioneering.” I hadn’t even realized it. My intention was not to cause any harm, but I had. And I immediately thought, No, no, no. You’re my friend. I’m on your side. I’m a good guy. I felt like I needed to defend myself. But Connor pointed out that we must accept when we’re wrong to be a good guy, for skiing to be more inviting and inclusive.

What is more important to us: the words we use to describe skiing or skiing itself? I think it’s fair to assume that skiing would still be a joy-filled event if skiers everywhere went mute tomorrow. If the community we love is built upon that joy, then considering how our language reflects our shared respect and love for the mountains is a small but worthy endeavor. No one’s getting canceled, the woke police—whatever that is— isn’t going to confiscate your boots and skis, and no one’s ski membership is being revoked. Being wrong is uncomfortable, but that’s all it is. If we get called on something, we are not at risk of losing anything. We only stand to gain understanding.

“I want you to know how I feel when you say this or that,” Connor says. “I don’t just bring it up with the outcome in mind of like, I want you to be different. I want you to know why I’m different, and to decide if that’s a reason worth changing something small about yourself.”

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Dear Sundog: Floating down Desolation Canyon in Utah on a private trip, pulling the oars against the upstream wind, we were passed by commercial rafts lashed together buzzing their motors to snag the primo camps. I know it’s bad form for parties to send a boat ahead to steal a camp, but this situation just demanded some sort of justice. Is it OK to break the rules to combat the commercial guide domination? —Perplexed Rower Offended by Boating Ethics

Dear PROBE: As your letter notes, the practice of splitting up a river group to “camp run” downriver is morally murky. It breeds cutthroat competition, with boaters racing each other for a shady beach instead of chilling the F out while floating lazily down the current the way the Creator intended. On many permitted river sections, the practice is explicitly banned, enforced with the threat of a ticket written up by river rangers—what Sundog used to call “paddle pigs.” What’s more, it’s downright foolhardy: if someone in the upstream group has a medical emergency, a blown valve, or simply can’t hack the wind, then some of the group may spend the night separated from food, groovers, and first-aid kits.

Yet ł§łÜČÔ»ćŽÇȔ’s area of expertise is not legality or foolhardiness—it’s ethics—and the fact of some activity being forbidden and stupid doesn’t make it unethical.

PROBE, these are desperate times trying to get to the river. The COVID recreation boom, combined with the online ease of applying for permits, has made it nigh impossible to win the “lottery” and float the big rivers. Perhaps this onerous process before the launch is what ratchets up the battle for the best camps. The behavior you describe by the commercial guides is, though not illegal, extremely irritating. Motoring past hard-working rowers and paddlers all but guarantees that the loudest polluters get the best camp. Ethical guides would cut their goddamn Evinrudes, and call out, “Hey, which camp were you hoping to reach tonight. We’ll be happy to skip that one so you can have it.”

Likely ain’t gonna happen. So we’re left with deciding how we can best behave. On canyons like the Gates of Lodore where sites are limited, boaters are required to sign up for camps and stick to that itinerary. Sundog finds this a Draconian fix, as it takes away from the sense of spontaneity and timeless drift that attracts him to rivers in the first place.

On the Salmon River, all parties are required to talk it out, perhaps hug, and decide who will camp where on which night. It’s a good idea. Sundog is aware of at least one instance in which commercial guides welched on their word and stole a camp from a private party, who made a point—justified, I’d say—of repaying them in kind the following night. However these shenanigans are precisely what motivates the paddle pigs to write more rules and regulations.

In your case, PROBE, the best practice would be to flag down the motor-rig and have a conversation to try to avoid the steal in the first place. If that fails, and your camp is taken, I suppose it is ethical to break the rules in order to fight what is otherwise a losing battle. But it’s a slippery slope, because when you set out to grab a camp from an outfitter, you’re just as likely grabbing it from another private party in front of you, which makes you the jerk.

Your question does raise another issue, which is why are motors allowed on a stretch of river in a designated wilderness that for at least a portion is labeled Wild and Scenic. The most obvious answer is the first 25 miles of windy flatwater. Difficult, sure, but boaters without motors have made their way through for over a century now. The longer answer is that motors allow outfitters to sell the 86-mile canyon as a 5-day trip, while muscle-powered expeditions take a few days longer. There is some rich irony in the well-intentioned leave-no-tracers straining their dishwater to avoid contaminating the river while a few yards from shore outboard motors spew oil and gas directly into the fishes’ living room.

In a column about being a surfing tourist in Mexico, Sundog suggested re-examining our beliefs about globalization. A reader, Stan Weig, responded:

I was intrigued by your recent column on “Yankee Imperialism” and Mexico travel, as I just returned from a five week drive to Cabo San Lucas and back. I have traveled to Baja since the ‘60s, in everything from a pickup camper to a really nice motorhome. And a 747.

While I respect the need to be nice to the subscribers that write in, I suggest your “middle-of-the-road” was too soft on the self-centered Rich White Yankee Surfer guilt trip of your advice seeker.Ìę

Not everybody likes the huge condos, raucous tourist bars and t-shirt shops of Cabo—I don’t—and if your reader doesn’t like it, don’t go. But it’s more about preferences than an ethical quandary about globalization. I don’t particularly care for Miami Beach either. However, San Juan de Cabo is just to the north of Cabo and has a very different vibe and a well preserved old town—go there and rest easy.Ìę

Tourists are a cash crop, and the folks running the sushi restaurant that she deplores, renting the beach chairs, and driving her around in a rental car made in Mexico and owned by Mexicans, are local entrepreneurs raising and harvesting that crop. Indeed, one could argue that in the good old days when we traveled from the high ground of Yankee prosperity down to “unspoiled” poverty of Mexico we were taking advantage as well.

Your advice to research and support local business was right on. If she doesn’t want to support globalist capitalists, she ought to be doing that here at home too. By the way, the reader may not know that while development along the beach may have been built with expat dollars, the ownership is required to be at least 51 percent Mexican. And she may not be aware of the government mandated efforts to ensure that local interests are at least somewhat protected during development. For example, perhaps the nicest beach in the Cabo area for sunning, swimming, and snorkeling is Chileno Beach. Right next to it is a huge new (and expensive!) resort—but access to the beach is free, there are nice restrooms, showers, and a lifeguard; and any of the locals that want to can take their kids and a cooler down to the beach for the day.

When we visited Todos Santos 35 years ago, the fabled Hotel California was shabby and in disrepair and all the side streets were pot holed dirt. Now the hotel is nice, locally run restaurants abound, local artists successfully compete with Made in China souvenir shops, and the streets are paved—so maybe tourism ain’t so bad.

Got a question of your own? Send it toÌęsundogsalmanac@hotmail.com.

Mark Sundeen, aka Sundog, worked as a river guide for 11 years. These days he thinks young guides have a bit of attitude that they own the whole river, and he is happy to poach their campsites if the situation warrants it.

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Dear Sundog: Decades ago I worked with a close friend as a river guide and we were both complete dirtbags, living in our cars during raft season then traveling around during the winter. Since then, I’ve become financially successful and have a garage filled with rafts, kayaks, trailers, oars, paddles, and SUPs to prove it. My friend has worked as a freelancer and has always been candid about how difficult it is to pay his mortgage and make ends meet. At least once a year he asks to borrow a raft for a multi-day river trip (sometimes with me, sometimes not) and I’ve always been happy to lend it to him. He takes good care of my equipment and repairs or replaces anything that gets damaged. I love to see him taking his children out on the river.

Recently after a few beers around the campfire, he revealed to me that for two decades he and his wife had each been socking away $6,000 each year into their IRAs and investing in tech stocks, and now have a portfolio valued at half a million dollars. Now I feel a bit tricked, like he had the cash to buy his own boat years ago but chose instead to save, and I’d be a dupe for continuing to lend him mine. What should I do? —Loaner

Dear Loaner, I fully understand why you feel duped. You thought you were helping a poor relation; turns out he had been hoarding his dollars all along. While your friend’s behavior may have perplexed or even hurt you, I don’t think he was unethical. He was living frugally and within his means. In a country without a safety net, we know that we likely won’t be able to live off of Social Security, and we have to do our own saving and planning. Ditto that if we’d like to send our kids to college. And let’s face it, whitewater boats—and for that matter, all outdoor gear—is expensive. Former dirtbag guides like Sundog and you and your friend came to believe that the rafts, oars, trucks, and trailers sort of grew on trees: they arrived at the ramp each morning ready for us to use all day. It came as a shock to Sundog to learn that, after “retirement” from guiding, he couldn’t even afford to get back on the river! It would seem that your friend did the responsible thing and did not buy things out of his budget.

What’s more, there seems something inherently virtuous about borrowing in our world of over-consumption and ecological crisis. Rafts are manufactured from a toxic cocktail of chemicals; it’s hard to justify purchasing one that is going to sit in a garage 50 weeks out of the year.

Lastly, was your friend obliged to keep you posted on the status of his retirement investments over the year? I think not.

And yet. You not only chose to invest in fun and adventure—you freely lent your toys to someone in need. It doesn’t seem fair. Loaner, you would be perfectly within your rights to simply tell your friend in the future that you’d prefer not to lend your boat anymore. You don’t even need to supply a reason.

Before you do, I’d recommend that you think deeply about why you have been so generous in the past. Was it because you simply wanted your friend to enjoy the river? Or were there murkier waters? For example, did you enjoy the regular reminder that you were more financially successful than your friend? Here’s a useful thought experiment: what if a similar friend who lived close to the bone asked to borrow your gear, and yet you knew that he had a massive trust fund. Would it feel wrong to give to someone who clearly did not need it? Charity is slippery. Sometimes we give out of true empathy, but sometimes we give to feel good about ourselves, or even simply to give others the impression that we are generous. After all what is more benevolent: a tycoon who gives a million dollars which is a small fraction of his fortune, or a homeless person who gives you his last dollar?

I’d say that what’s more important than the boat here is the friendship, and you don’t want the oar frame to become a proxy battleground for unspoken resentments. Probably what’s best—though not easiest—is before the next spring runoff is that you take your friend for a beer or a walk, and talk this through, not so much the specifics of the loaning, but your deeper values around money, spending, and savings. There is a good reason that people are reluctant to talk about money—there’s a lot of shame both in having too much and having too little. Talking about it will likely make the friendship stronger.

In a recent column, Sundog weighed in on collecting rocks on public lands. One experienced reader suggested that we consider what it is that the rocks want, a position so unexpected and delightful that Sundog wishes he’d come up with it first:

As a field biologist who would like to be a geologist in another life, I enjoyed your reflection. Whenever I have traveled—like your wife—I return with a rock. Well, perhaps more than one. And my garden is littered with these rocks. There are flakes from Vegas mixed with flakes from the Rift Valley. Maybe I thought they could have a conversation.

I too covet rocks. So now, before I take, I ask the rock: “Are you doing a job?” ÌęI am always answered. “My job is to be a part of this hillside” or “My job is to make a striking statement for those who will pass by.” Or “I am here to be found by a child and painted.” ÌęBut sometimes they will say, “I am not doing any meaningful work and have no special purpose, in fact I just find myself with nothing to do that is good for any creature, any rock, or rock bank.” I take those to the rock wall I am building. And they are appreciated regularly. Not that they need that. But I am grateful that they are part of my world and there is something to be said for gratitude.

Still, when my husband and I travel we say to each other: just one! Last trip resulted in one very small piece of bubbly chalcedony. —Robbin

Mark Sundeen, aka Sundog, has been borrowing other people’s rafts since as far back as the 90s. When doing so, it’s a good idea to pay forward the generosity.

Got a question of your own? Mad as hell about something Sundog wrote? Send a note to: sundogsalmanac@hotmail.com.

The post Should I Lend My Gear to a Friend Who Can Afford to Buy His Own? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Politicians in Utah have a long history of trying to sell off your public land to benefit the oil, gas, and other extractive industries that fund their campaigns. This time they’re trying to do it with That lawsuit argues that all Bureau of Land Management acres within the state’s borders should be transferred to Utah’s control.

If they succeed, the public could lose access to millions of acres that we use to pursue our favorite outdoor activities, wildlife could lose its habitat, and the environment could suffer. Worse, if the Supreme Court accepts the theory that states should have control over federal land, the upshot could be devastating. It could create precedent that might allow politicians in other western states to do the same.

“The state of Utah’s push for control of public lands is a deceptive ploy to privatize and exploit our cherished landscapes,” says Caroline Gleich, who is running to represent Utah in the U.S. Senate. She says the effort is “hiding behind false promises of local management while lining the pockets of special interests at the expense of Utahn’s right to access and enjoy these lands.”

What Does This Mean for People Who Love the Outdoors?

What’s at stake here for outdoor recreationists is access, and a whole lot of it. More than visited Utah’s public lands in 2023 to recreate and take in the majestic scenery. Since the effort aims to transfer all BLM land in the state—18.5 million acres of it—to Utah’s control, it’d be impossible to list every hiking trail, camping spot, or area of natural beauty that might be lost. But let’s look at some highlights.

Over ride the Slickrock Mountain Bike Trail near Moab every year. The 10.5-mile loop rolls along Navajo sandstone, the remains of ancient windblown sand dunes. The land under the trail is thought to contain significant oil and gas reserves and has been the subject of decades-long attempts to open it up to drilling. In 2020, a public pressure campaign forced the BLM to prioritize recreational access, and ban drilling along the trail’s length. If BLM land is transferred to state control, those protections would vanish.

The encompasses over 900 miles of trails in central Utah, the most expansive network of ATV trails in the entire country. It runs across three mountain ranges, reaches elevations of over 11,000 feet, and stretches through fragile deserts and narrow canyons. The system exists on a patchwork of lands administered by both the Fishlake National Forest and BLM, so any sale would fracture continuous access, and destroy the unique ability for visitors to explore such a vast area of uninterrupted riding.

Visiting Canyonlands National Park or Deadhorse Point State Park (the most visited state park in Utah), and want to camp somewhere a little less crowded? Horsethief Campground is located nearby, and the surrounding BLM land is accessible for dispersed camping. That’s . The BLM has to balance the potential economic impact of that mine with the interests of campers and other recreational users, plus its environmental impacts. By law, Utah would only have to consider profitability if it took over management.

That’s because the legal structures governing federal management of public lands are fundamentally different from the mandates governing state management.ÌęLet’s look at the claims the state is making here, then compare them to the facts.

Utah’s Claim: BLM Land Is “Unappropriated” and Doesn’t Benefit the State

“The federal government controls nearly 70% of the land in Utah,” reads the boilerplate copy on , a website the state launched to promote its lawsuit. “While half of this public land has been designated as national parks, national forests, national conservation areas, or the like, the other half is ‘unappropriated’ land, meaning that the United States simply holds the land without any designated purpose.”

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes that this “prevents the state from making money off of taxes
on those acres.”

The Facts: BLM Land Contributes Billions to Utah’s Economy and Hundreds of Millions to State Coffers

The term “unappropriated” comes from the (and other early acts of Congress), which in 1862 attempted to give away vast swaths of federally-managed land in the west to settlers to encourage economic development. The federal government acquired the area that would later become Utah from the treaty that ended the Mexican-American war in 1848 and in a purchase from Texas.

But not all that land was suitable for the small family farms the Homestead Act sought to establish, so some of it remained unclaimed, except by Indigenous people. The agency responsible for managing that land was at the time called the General Land Office, and along with the U.S. Grazing Service .

Utah is using that “unappropriated” label to imply that BLM land isn’t being actively managed or used. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The Department of the Interior estimates that, in financial year 2021, lands managed by BLM nationwide produced $201 billion in economic output, supporting 783,000 jobs. In Utah alone, .

While oil and gas companies, ranchers, outfitters, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses profit from extraction and recreation on BLM land within Utah’s borders, the state government does, too. Not only in taxing all of that—a study conducted by the University of Utah in 2013 estimated that the state nets from economic activity on BLM and Forest Service land within its borders—but in direct payments from the federal government, too.

And while it’s true that a state government cannot levy property taxes on land managed by the federal government, there’s a program in place to make up for that. In 2021, the BLM paid to Utah in Payments in Lieu of Taxes. represent a portion of the revenues collected by BLM from extraction activities, and Utah uses them to fund roads and schools, and supplement the income and property taxes paid by Utah residents in other state programs. Those payments are guaranteed income for state governments, and come without any cost to the states within which the BLM operates.

Utah’s Claim: It’s Illegal for the Federal Government to Own Land

“Utah has filed a landmark public lands lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to address whether the federal government can simply hold unappropriated lands within a state indefinitely,” reads Stand For Our Land.

“Nothing in the text of the Constitution authorizes such an inequitable practice,” , who is managing the lawsuit, in a press release upon filing suit.

The Facts: It’s Literally in the Constitution

Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 reads:

“The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.”

The Supreme Court has ruled on the legality of federal land ownership several times. Notably, finding that Congress’s power under the Property Clause is, “,” in 1940 and “,” which can be read as “unqualified or absolute,” in 1987.

In 1972, the court ruled on the legality of the federal government’s efforts to protect wildlife on public lands. The decision reads, “the complete power that Congress has over federal lands under this clause necessarily includes the power to regulate and protect wildlife living there.”

During the ratification of the Constitution, Congress had to resolve the often overlapping nature of lands claimed by the states. The royal charters that established the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, for instance, granted them incredibly broad, vague claims to massive swaths of land often running north into Canada and all the way west to the Pacific Ocean. In 1780, : the states would cede their western territories to the federal government, “for the use and benefit of the United States.”

As an aside, this is why there’s so little public land on the east coast, and so much out west—blame King George.

When Utah became a state in 1896, the federal government was land rich, and cash poor, so it was common practice to give new western states a portion of federal land that they could use for development. Utah was given 7.5 million acres, while the federal government retained 37.3 million acres. The remaining 9.7 million acres were private property.

Utah agreed to these terms. states, “The said State of Utah shall not be entitled to any further or other grants of land for any purpose than as expressly provided in this Act.”

“Like other Western states, Utah agreed to relinquish public lands within its borders as a condition of becoming a state,” Randi Spivak, public lands policy director for The Center of Biological Diversity . “Rewriting history and spending taxpayer dollars on a hopeless, expensive court battle is the antithesis of good governing.”

Utah’s Claim: The State Would Be a Better Steward

“Utah deserves priority when it comes to managing its land,” . “And Utahns are best positioned to understand and respond to the unique needs of our environment and communities.”

“If Utah were to acquire BLM lands, the Utah department of Land Management would come into existence and manage them under the Utah Public Lands Management Act, prohibiting the privatization of these public lands except in rare situations,” the narrator says in .

The Facts: Utah’s Constitution Would Force a Sale

The state’s own promotional material, which prominently addresses the sale of public lands, is the elephant in the room.

The is a vague text that contains no financial mandates or duties, and no mention of any mechanism (even what might define or determine that “rare situation”) for the dispersal or sale of lands. It is incapable of governing the management, sale, or dispersal of any public lands the state might take over.

For that, we have to turn to , which says of State Trust Lands (those tracts of land provided to Utah by the federal government which remain undeveloped): “The state shall manage the lands and revenues generated from the lands in the most prudent and profitable manner possible.”

Utah’s constitution also mandates that the state legislature . The state cannot legally operate in deficit.

It’s those for-profit, no-deficit mandates in Utah’s constitution which are the rub. In contrast, the BLM is mandated to manage for multiple use and sustained yield. Should a large expense like fighting a massive wildfire, or dealing with widespread flooding, or a deadly cloud of toxic dust occur, the federal government is equipped with the legal and legislative structure necessary to draw funds from other parts of its budget, and deal with the problem.

In contrast, Utah would be legally bound to continue to achieve profits from that land, which may force the sale of portions of it to cover those costs. In the event of a transfer from BLM, Utah would immediately begin losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and with mitigation bills already racking up (fixing that toxic dust cloud alone is estimated to cost ) it’s easy to see why people fear Utah’s politicians might turn to their sponsors in the oil and gas industries for help.

Beyond the possibility of a massive sell off of formerly-public land, there’s the topic of local input in decision making on BLM land. Stand for Our Land references the Biden Administration’s recent Public Lands Rule (which adds for the environment and wildlife conservation to BLM’s legal structure for rulemaking)Ìę and the agency’s as examples of far-off bureaucrats making decisions without local input that end up impacting the state’s economy.

This is an oft-repeated refrain across efforts to steal public land from American citizens, and an argument that is made in bad faith. It may be counterintuitive, but the federal government’s decision making on public lands actually involves more mandated local input from the public and stakeholders that also include state and local governments, plus extractive industries, than state decision making processes would.

That Public Lands Rule was made only after a 90-day public comment period and . The trail closures in Moab were developed , even organizations and individuals who opposed the plan. In contrast, the only thing Utah would have to consider is whether or not its decisions would make money.

What’s Next?

The Attorney General’s office filed the suit on Tuesday, August 20. A judge has yet to review the case.ÌęșÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű will update this story as the court proceedings move forward. In the meantime, Utahns who want to protect their public land can call their state representatives and make their voices heard.

“Once public lands are transferred to the state, they are overwhelmingly sold to the highest bidder and closed forever,” says Gleich. “The best way to keep access to public lands is to keep them public. We must be good stewards of our land for future generations.”

The post 18.5 Million Acres of Public Land Are on the Line in Utah in a New Lawsuit appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Dear Sundog: While on a road trip, I reserved a public campsite online which cost $15. When the day arrived, I saw that we weren’t going to make it that far, so I went to cancel. I did not expect a refund, but learned that I would have to pay an additional $10 to cancel. My rule-following partner wanted to pay the fee, but I said forget about it. Who was right? —K

Dear K: Although Sundog is no couples counselor, this is one instance in which I can confidently say: neither of you is right, neither is wrong. Yes, I suppose it’s better to follow the rules. But throwing away any amount of money, even ten dollars, is of dubious benefit. I mean, when you pay a parking ticket do you feel like you’ve improved society?

But your conundrum wades into the murkier waters of what has become a national crisis: virtually all good campsites are booked solid, while many are half-empty, due to folks like you who either forgot to cancel or refused to pay the cancellation fee or simply got defeated by making yet one more online transaction (forgot the password, etc.) in our lives which seem increasingly dominated by dicking around on the internet.

We arrived at this situation, as usual, by believing that technology would make life easier. And I think we can all agree that going to and clicking a few boxes is much simpler than phoning a bunch of ranger stations across the country, being put on hold, having to call back during business hours, etc. But the unintended consequence is a system that greatly benefits laptop warriors with money to burn, and penalizes the people who actually pack up their gear and get offline and into the woods. Any competent iPhone user can secure dozens of campsites in a few minutes, six months in advance, paying a relatively small fee for the privilege. Many won’t bother to cancel, and won’t be able to arrive. Now the actual campers who roll through the loop at dusk are faced with reserved—yet empty—sites, and must travel on, likely to some undesignated sites where they will poop in a hole and leave a bed of charred sticks in a circle of stones.

Basically online reservation systems have created a moral hazard. We are encouraged to behave badly. The ease of reservations creates a false scarcity, so everything gets booked up within hours of becoming available. And as you note, there is a literal cost to do the right thing. The lack of real consequences for no-showing, combined with fees and hassles, encourages us to do what you did, K, and simply pay for an empty site.

So how can we end this? One solution would be to raise the costs exorbitantly. You’re less likely to eat a $100 per night fee than a $15 per night fee. And yet this would again favor people with the means and energy to waste money.

Sundog suggests an easier cancellation policy with more draconian consequences. It should be free to cancel up to the day of arrival. That would have made your decision, K, a no-brainer. After that, no-shows should be banned from rec.gov or whatever state platform they used for a full year. This doesn’t mean they can’t go camping for a year. Just that they have to show up and wait in line for cancellations like the rest of us. This system is already used for some coveted river permits, where no-shows are not allowed to enter the lottery for two full years. Banning the no-shows from rec.gov would not only discourage bad behavior, but it would also reduce the pressure on the platform, as the worst hoarders who make a ton of reservations would be blocked.

ł§łÜČÔ»ćŽÇȔ’s column on ratting out a neighbor’s Airbnb in a resort town sparked some feverish fan/hate mail. Sundog told the writer to go ahead and tattle. Readers replied in droves, even implying that Sundog supports Vladimir Putin (which, for the record, he does not).

You excoriate the speculator purchasing a property at market price, as determined by an unpressured agreement between a willing seller and a willing buyer. The seller is presumably, based on your article, a local person. Yet there is no mention or castigation of the seller in your article? Is there a reason for this discrepancy in assigning blame, or is it just hypocrisy? Presumably, the sellers are friends and neighbors of the people up in arms about the issue who still live in the neighborhood.ÌęÌę

Are you saying some government overlords should determine who can sell what goods and services and at what prices? Sounds rather Putin-like to me. Perhaps they will next seek to monitor and manage communication and various writings done by people, so as to not sully the minds of the population.

Are you saying the government overlords should dictate who can stay in a rental house? Apparently, per your agreement with the questioner, college kids and dirtbags are OK, vacationing families are not?

I didn’t see anything from the person complaining as to how the change in clientele of the house caused him specific harm. Perhaps that was omitted from the article for the sake of brevity?

I see you complaining about Amazon killing off bookstores and streaming services killing record stores, but you are just fine with accepting payment for on-line blogs with no concern for your participation in the death of print media? I guess it is OK as long as you get yours, eh? ‌·.žé.

Invariably, there were a few readers in ł§łÜČÔ»ćŽÇȔ’s camp:

Very refreshing to read a piece that does not genuflect to the predatory investment tools that are so in vogue by people that don’t want to do actual work… The comment about ski towns stood out because I live in one, Rutland, VT, near the Killington skiers’ paradise. Rutland is selling its soul to the highest bidder under the guise of replenishing population, but resulting in a drastic inequity in income. I am incubating a blistering opinion piece that probably will not see print because it will violate the requirement to be patriotic. —J.±Ê.

And this being America, all paths lead quickly to polarizing politics:

I just read your article on Airbnbs. I sit on the planning and zoning board for my quaint town. I appreciate what you have said and agree with you. However, I live in Florida, where local governments are no longer able to regulate tourist homes if it was not already in their code. The state also recently just passed a law that preempts local governments from banning home based businesses like massage parlors and vehicle repair shops. Just wanted to let you know what our POS governor is doing to us in Florida. He is single handedly making lives of every citizen worse off.Ìę

It terms of poetic brevity, this letter wins first prize:

Why does your article have ads for Airbnb? Pretty weird.

Got a question of your own? Mad as hell about something Sundog wrote? Send a note to: sundogsalmanac@hotmail.com

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