Don’t miss Steven Greehut’s article in City Journal on environmentalists waging war on rural property owners. Greenhut explains how he fell in love with California the moment he crossed the Colorado River into the Mojave and how he understands the desire to protect these landscapes.
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike,” wrote John Muir, in one of his many celebrations of the majesty of the Yosemite Valley. The Scottish-born founder of the Sierra Club recognized that man does not live by bread alone. His latter-day followers, however, seem to have forgotten that man cannot live by natural beauty alone, either.”
As Greenhut points out, “Californians need to strike a better balance between protecting the land and allowing productive enterprises to make use of it. Otherwise, our rural residents won’t be the only ones facing a tough economic future.”