Thursday, January 26, 2012
News Alaska's Pissed Over Drilling Restrictions, Takes It Out On Central Park
Posted by Henry Stewart on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 1:19 PM
State legislators in Alaska have introduced a resolution asking the federal government to take over Central Park—a bit of political satire from drill-baby-drill proponents meant to illustrate to east-coast elitists what it's like to have Uncle Sam making decisions about your open spaces!! The resolution asks Washington to “declare Central Park to be a wilderness area and to prohibit any further improvement or development of Central Park unless authorized by an act of Congress,” the Times reports.
The resolution notes that before Henry Hudson arrived in 1609, Manhattan was ”a remarkably diverse and natural landscape of hills, valleys, forests, fields,” marshes, beaches, ponds and streams that supported populations of gray wolf, elk, black bear and mountain lion.Since then, the measure says, “the unrestrained development of buildings, highways and urban sprawl on Manhattan has destroyed habitat, displaced indigenous peoples and disrupted” ecosystems.
Apparently, it's unfair that they're not allowed to kill off their wildlife populations, devastate their ecosystems, and revert to 17th-century livin'. Many Times commenters, who take this issue very seriously, note the crucial difference is that the United States government bought and paid for Alaska, then handed over some of the land to state control.
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