Foresight is lacking in local developments 

Having read the article about mining in SLO County (“A rock and a hard place,” Aug. 15) or the huge Pismo development and the arguments against them, I am reminded that whenever I hear them, almost always these arguments seem to be geared around things like: We don’t want it because it will create too much traffic, or noise, or will use too much water, etc. While these are all good reasons, there seems to be a reluctance to say what we all feel: Piece by piece, our beautiful county is being junked by developers, Big Energy men, and greedy politicians in their pocket.

They are undemocratically taking what belongs to all of us, the beauty of one of the most lovely places around and either cramming it full of structures or outright destroying it, giving what belongs to the majority—people and wildlife—to a minority of moneyed interests for their personal use and abuse. What’s that old Italian saying? “Feather by feather, the goose is plucked.”

Here’s what John Muir said: “Those reserves are not merely for the convenience and benefit of the people near them, but they are the property of the nation and for its greatest good. It is unreasonable to suppose that they should be destroyed or imperiled for any local convenience, as a mere present to men engaged in one local industry.” And, “These temple-destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar.”

What is sorely lacking is any foresight. We need to have a plan for when enough is enough.

-- Bob Parker - Atascadero