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“It is impossible to provide unlimited visitation and the essential qualities of an unconventional, non-urban experience simultaneously. Here too a compromise is called for: a willingness to trade quantity for quality of experience. There is nothing undemocratic or even unusual in such a trade. The notion that commitment to democratic principles compels the assumption of scarcity is one of the familiar misconceptions of our time. We need a willingness to value a certain kind of experience highly enough that we are prepared to have fewer opportunists for access in exchange for a different sort of experience when we do get access.”
― Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks
― Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks
“Even in the pages of the New York Times and The New Yorker, it seems the epithet 'virtuous,' when applied to an act of personal environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically. Tell me: How did it come to pass that virtue - a quality that for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue - become a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar, that doing the right thing by the environment - buying the hybrid, eating like a locavore - should now set you up for the Ed Begley Jr. treatment.”
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“It was puzzling to me that not once did the ultra-wealthy I spoke with wax romantic about the working poor in the large city where they had once worked or lived. The working poor in New York City or Houston were one thing, but the working poor in Teton County were another – even though members of both communities share a struggle to keep their heads above water, facing low wages, high rents, and dim prospects overall for scaling the socioeconomic pyramid. Why was one romanticized as a paradigm of virtue and happiness, and the other not? The difference, it turns out, is that the working poor in Teton County have become a vehicle for escapism for the ultra-wealthy, in large part because their struggle takes place in a locale that is geographically remote and environmentally exotic.”
― Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West
― Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
―
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
―
“At one time areas along the roadways [in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park] were carefully cut and trimmed, creating a lawnlike appearance. When a new superintendent was appointed, he ordered this practice stopped, which engendered a good deal of complain from visitors. The roadsides had been so attractive, they said, so neat, and now they had a rough and ungainly appearance. On this small but significant point the superintendent was adamant, however, and for exactly the right reason. Visitors to the park were reacting to a conventional, familiar, and deeply ingrained image of beauty - the trimmed and landscaped lawn. The goal should not be to stimulate that familiar response, but to confront the visitor with the less familiar setting of an unmanaged landscape. The mild shock of a scene to which there is no patterned response, and the engendering of an untutored personal response, is precisely what national park management should seek, even in such seemingly small details.”
― Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks
― Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks
Macmillan Publishers Embargo
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— last activity Jan 01, 2020 06:54AM
A place for GR members to discuss & implement ways to encourage Macmillan Publishers to change their policy regarding ebook lending by libraries. In ...more
TerraCorps
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— last activity Sep 02, 2020 12:38PM
This group is starting out as the books recommended during the TerraCorps 2020-2021 orientation (Under "Bookshelf" on the right-hand side of this grou ...more
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— last activity Feb 26, 2015 04:05PM
Books for the amateur and professional on germs, disease, disease tracking, medicine, public health, history, and public policy. Non-fiction and ficti ...more
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A group to discuss food writing. No cookbooks, but anything from memoir to nutrition to agriculture to food travel.
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Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
Kate’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Kate’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
3,131 books
|
203 friends
560 books
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125 friends
399 books
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13 friends
1,009 books
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56 friends
1,200 books
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148 friends
1,355 books
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138 friends
452 books
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24 friends
192 books
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10 friends
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