...so emissions generated by road vehicles and car ownership in the last 20 yrs have decreased? You not ‘getting out into nature away from others’ if crowds of others have the same idea. It’s only ‘safe’ if you don’t call out any emergency services miles to a remote location if you have an accident or breakdown when they could be saving the lives of those who are seriously ill.
Your preaching about evil vehicle emissions is not the point here at all. Getting out into nature in large numbers is perfectly safe if you're all well away from one another, which is easily done, as I observed myself this weekend. Emergencies would be so rare that they would have no measurable effect on the coronavirus outcome. You could wind all this moral agitation down many notches without any meaningful loss, unless you just enjoy it too much.
The only ‘denial’ at work here is yours apparently - people are dying, mostly, but not exclusively, the elderly. Your comments give the impression that restrictions in place in the Rocky Mountain NP, is nothing but an inconvenience for you and your desire to go birding. You even seem to be harbouring animosity or some kind of resentment towards those elderly folk who quite rightly want to protect themselves? Are these people under some kind of moral debt to you because you buy your gas in their town?
I'm only pointing out the contradictions and absurdities in the present situation. Fomites (e.g. gas pumps) are not thought to be a major route of transmission for coronavirus, especially with precautions that everyone should be taking already. (The town had already shut down motels etc, and the government has encouraged people to get out into national parks, even waiving fees, as you may not know.) You would do well not to try to guess at my motives; you might not like the sound of what I'm imagining about yours.
I might turn to John Locke to answer that one if this were a political seminar ...’liberty’ comes with a proviso don’t you know ...
I don't recall requesting a seminar. If you wish to exercise your right of self-defense, just stay home yourself. And none of this moralizing justifies your remark about why no one else should enjoy getting out into nature, far away from you, if you can't. Care to try again, or will you leave me to my imagination?
The question is definitely being asked now, can we justify throwing such resouces at people who are nearing the end of their natural lives anyway and in doing so, risking the future prosperity of the generations below them?
Oh, I wish you wouldn't put it that way. It really makes the whole idea of any debate at all look bad, and it's not just the elderly dying anyway.
Something I've been pondering is this: instead of universal lock down, identify every person who is known to be in a vulnerable class. Invite them to self-isolate, and provide as many resources to them as possible (shopping deliveries etc) to keep them safe and sound, but otherwise let everybody else get on with their lives as normal and let the virus run its course.
An eminently logical suggestion. Unfortunately, beyond the obvious elderly etc we don't know who's at greater risk and needs protection. The ICUs are too full of surprises.
