Whether it's just one individual, or an organized effort, national park superintendents are being inundated with emails urging them to keep disposable plastic water bottles out of their parks/Kurt Repanshek file
Since the National Park Service's ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in national parks was dropped, some groups are bottling up superintendents' inboxes with emails urging them to resist.
Subject: Stay strong and go bottled water free!
Park Superintendent,
Dear superintendents:
No one person has the right nor smarts to overpass the evidence on many fronts of what bottles, their productions and discards do to my environment.
I call on you to resist the bottled water industry and the Trump administration’s corporate agenda: Continue upholding the National Park Service’s legacy of sustainability and make your parks bottled-water-free.
Thank you.
s n
harris
weston, Maine 04424
According to one superintendent, about 300 or so emails like this filled his inbox the other day.
Comments
The clear message to me is that whoever decided to recind the ban recognized the ban was having no beneficial effect and was in the meantime inconveniencing visitors and putting lives at risk. In other words, he cared more about the people and less about some ideological symbolism. I would say it was those that put the ban in place that were acting much more political.
Unabashed racism, misogyny, and narcissism. But he is still revered by those who can't imagine the author of Desert Solitaire being a drunken slob who trashed every rule--he believed that they just didn't apply to him.
people tend to stick with what is familiar to them. Familiar is what they have in their home and city. change is difficult. no need for me to go on. I work for the feds.
Kathy, You're right about Edward Abbey breaking every rule. Would you then ban his book from sale in the national parks? Your comment above suggests you would.
As Abbey reminded us, we all break the rules. That is the difference between his time and ours. We admitted it then, but don't admit it now. As for "drunken slobs," you do realize, do you not, that alcohol is sold in the national parks? What "example" does that set for visitors, or are water bottles the villain of choice?
The ideal, as Edward Abbey expressed it, was to keep the parks free of civilization, especially and including cars. Without that, I fail to see how water bottles make any difference, other than to make us "feel good" that we are doing something. We pick the simplest problem and beat it to death rather than tackle what really matters. That's America, and not just Donald Trump. In the 150-year history of our national parks, all of us have shown feet of clay.
We can be polite about it. Abbey was not polite. That is why his book still sells. He gets under your skin, which is what great writers do. And until we tackle Industrial Tourism head on, we will continue to need Edward Abbey.
No, I don't like lifting the ban because it was Republicans that did it - - I dislike because it doesn't make any sense, and is just a spiteful action.