Protecting the places we climb.....

I wanted to pass this along to the forums to be aware of what's going on in Washington where a resolution has been introduced which "eeks to repeal updates to the National Park Service’s “9B” rules. The rules require detailed planning and set safety standards for oil and gas drilling inside the more than 40 national parks that have “split estate” ownership, where the federal government owns the surface but not the subsurface mineral rights."

https://www.npca.org/articles/1462-house-moves-to-encourage-drilling-in-national-parks?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=pressrelease&utm_medium=socialmedia#sm.0000ez7b5ioi7fsosf21sc6r7mwm7

Interesting article on The Ringer today
(this site is run by Bill Simmons, ex-ESPN/ABC/Grantland, spectator sports)

theringer.com/who-stays-sil…

Who Stays Silent When the Wilderness is Threatened
National parks, rangers, and even outdoor lifestyle brands are scared to speak out against Donald Trump's administration

Thanks Nick. I suppose I don't need to point out that an administration which promised so much for the public good is quietly undermining established policy and laws with so much subtlety and subterfuge.

OMFG! I CANT! I just can't anymore!

Sadly, this thread will get only a few post, while the stick clip thread went 34 pages and the thread on comfortizing holds will go on for days as well. Priorities.

Thanks for posting this info.

Outdoor Alliance has some good info on their protectourpublicland.org site, even though it's a little old:

protectourpublicland.org/ne…

send a message to your lawmaker

Jon W wrote:Sadly, this thread will get only a few post, while the stick clip thread went 34 pages and the thread on comfortizing holds will go on for days as well. Priorities. Thanks for posting this info.

I suspect that there are more people on this site who voted for Trump than we'd assume. And because he's behind it, it must be good right?

Perhaps.

I know hunters, off-roaders etc that thought all of this was a good idea. They voted republican to protect their forms of recreation/rights etc..

...irony....

Greg Welsh wrote:Outdoor Alliance has some good info on their protectourpublicland.org site, even though it's a little old: protectourpublicland.org/ne… send a message to your lawmaker

Thanks for posting this. I hope everyone sends some messages and spreads the word. That Outdoor Alliance link is great too.

Several measures now pending in House of Representatives to privatize or restrict heretofore public lands..not good. here's your bump

I'm very upset by the request to repeal the 9B rules.

Surely we can come together to protect our lands for all current and future use?

I'm signing more petitions than ever before, I called my senators and representatives, I watch twitter storms each morning. Unfortunately Dean Heller (arch conservative) is one of Nevada's senators. He just sponsored a bill to exempt the Antiquities Act in Nevada. You know the one that made Gold Butte and Canyonlands. Heller is owned by mining and oil interests. Only good news is his seat is up for grabs in next congressional election

Jon W wrote:Sadly, this thread will get only a few post, while the stick clip thread went 34 pages and the thread on comfortizing holds will go on for days as well. Priorities. Thanks for posting this info.

Challenge accepted. Let's get this thread to 20 pages. But seriously, let's get this thread popping and demand that REI speak up about this shit. If the NPS can't do it, then somebody has to. REI has a responsibility to support public lands and outdoor recreation, at least if they want to retain any street cred.

Hear that, REI?!

Nice. Stay informed. Call your representative. They say calling reps in other districts/States is not persuasive, but given the money climbers and other outdoors people spend on their travels, I'm not convinced that's entirely true. We've (re)joined several advocacy non-profits. Check out and follow the alt national park service, which is the rogue NPS employees who post climate information, et al., that Trump removed from their websites.

Check out congress .gov it gets worse. The bill that will order the secretary of interior to sell public lands. congress.gov/bill/115th-con…. The bill that will end law enforcement in BLM and Forest Service land congress.gov/bill/115th-con…

Eli. I love your challenge to REI but what about Big Agnes, Outdoor Research, Black Diamond, and countless others.

congress.gov/bill/115th-con…

Yes get REI to notice.

Get a hold of your congress persons.
house.gov/representatives/f…

Perhaps a preview of what's to come.
brookings.edu/blog/africa-i…

How about
washingtonpost.com/news/pow…

parkplanning.nps.gov/projec…

Again
theguardian.com/environment…

I'm down with this.

I don't mind filling out a few forms and most of the rangers I meet are righteous. I respect the spirit of the law, I don't care about politics.

From there the door opens into a wide wide world where none of that matters.

Then I come home, then I do it again.

I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that the American people/public own the national parks. At the same time, I believe Donald Trump owns seven golf courses in the United States. Would it not be unreasonable then, for the American people to start drilling on Donald Trump's golf courses? I'm up for it. While we're at it, we might as well run some leaky pipelines through them as well. Finally, let's run some plumbing from those deregulated mining streams directly to the White House.

The problem I see with this is that our current economy requires fossil fuel or else some other source of comparable energy, and the world is in the process of ensuring that we no longer have unfettered access to all the oil all over the world.

Given that, we have choices. The best choice would have been to follow the advice of people such as myself who saw this painfully obvious shitshow coming, and who gave specific advice regarding what politicians general vision to support leading up to and in the last election (not Hillary). Since hardly anyone took that advice, due largely to ignorant faux social identity issues promoted, with respect to the climbing industry, by specefic individuals, here we are. We could have had a political coalition which spanned numerous social groups and sought to push our country toward both energy independence as well as clean energy, but instead democratic voters gave that giant gift of power to Trump, whose voters the democrats have gone out of their way to alienate and thus who could care less about what they see as the dems "pet issues" due largely to democrats cultivated and apparently hard wired intellectual dishonesty and sense of entitlement.

At this point holding the MIddle East in some iron grip is a lost cause, and thanks to the lack of Americans getting along in order to put a large number of their future energy eggs in one basket green energy as a viable replacement is still some time off, and as a result we are going to have to use some local fossil fuel resources, unless someone can find a huge supply of oil on private land.

That being the case, what I suggest interested parties do is instead of blindly fighting this stuff in a way which will earn you disrespect from the oil companies we need to work with as well as other Americans, find ways to work with what is there while steering us toward cleaner sources of energy. This will involve a different tactic than angrily messaging your representatives, as doing so at this point leaves them in the position of having to cuddle up to the military and try to start WWIII. What we need instead is the oil to be extracted as cleanly as possible and as much of the profits from it as possible to be funneled into investment in sustainable energy. The way to accomplish that is to focus on the rewriting of the regulations which are coming and in general be on your toes with respect to midterms in two years.

In my option this should be front and center the most prioritized issue within this community; at least at this juncture.

There must be a block call to action.

Interesting podcast from Outside Mag with the former Secretary of Interior:
outside.prx.org/2016/11/the…