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.That big sky grew on me.After living for so many years elsewhere, Ifound that it took me several visits to Montana to get used to the panoramaof the sky above, the mountain ring around, and the valley floor below toappreciate that I really could enjoy that panorama as a daily setting for partof my life and to discover that I could open myself up to it, pull myselfaway from it, and still know that I could return to it.Los Angeles has its ownpractical advantages for me and my family as a year-round base of work,school, and residence, but Montana is infinitely more beautiful and (as StanFalkow said) peaceful.To me, the most beautiful view in the world is theview down to the Big Hole's meadows and up to the snowcapped peaks ofthe Continental Divide, as seen from the porch of Jill and John Eliel's ranchhouse.Montana in general, and the Bitterroot Valley in its southwest, are a land ofparadoxes.Among the lower 48 states, Montana is the third largest in area,yet the sixth smallest in population, hence the second lowest in populationdensity.Today the Bitterroot Valley looks lush, belying its original naturalvegetation of just sagebrush.Ravalli County in which the valley is located isso beautiful and attracts so many immigrants from elsewhere in the U.S.(including even from elsewhere in Montana) that it is one of our nation'sfastest growing counties, yet 70% of its own high school graduates leave thevalley, and most of those leave Montana.Although population is increasingin the Bitterroot, it is falling in eastern Montana, so that for the state ofMontana as a whole the population trend is flat.Within the past decade thenumber of Ravalli County residents in their 50s has increased steeply, butthe number in their 30s has actually decreased.Some of the people recentlyestablishing homes in the valley are extremely wealthy, such as the broker-age house founder Charles Schwab and the Intel president Craig Barrett,but Ravalli County is nevertheless one of the poorest counties in the state ofMontana, which in turn is nearly the poorest state in the U.S.Many of thecounty's residents find that they have to hold two or three jobs even to earnan income at U.S.poverty levels.We associate Montana with natural beauty.Indeed, environmentallyMontana is perhaps the least damaged of the lower 48 states; ultimately,that's the main reason why so many people are moving to Ravalli County. The federal government owns over one-quarter of the land in the state andthree-quarters of the land in the county, mostly under the title of nationalforest.Nevertheless, the Bitterroot Valley presents a microcosm of the envi-ronmental problems plaguing the rest of the United States: increasingpopulation, immigration, increasing scarcity and decreasing quality of wa-ter, locally and seasonally poor air quality, toxic wastes, heightened risksfrom wildfires, forest deterioration, losses of soil or of its nutrients, losses ofbiodiversity, damage from introduced pest species, and effects of climatechange.Montana provides an ideal case study with which to begin this book onpast and present environmental problems.In the case of the past societiesthat I shall discuss Polynesian, Anasazi, Maya, Greenland Norse, andothers we know the eventual outcomes of their inhabitants' decisionsabout managing their environment, but for the most part we don't knowtheir names or personal stories, and we can only guess at the motives thatled them to act as they did.In contrast, in modern Montana we do knownames, life histories, and motives.Some of the people involved have beenmy friends for over 50 years.From understanding Montanans' motives, wecan better imagine motives operating in the past.This chapter will put apersonal face on a subject that could otherwise seem abstract.In addition, Montana provides a salutory balance to the following chap-ters' discussions of small, poor, peripheral, past societies in fragile environ-ments.I intentionally chose to discuss those societies because they were theones suffering the biggest consequences of their environmental damage,and they thus powerfully illustrate the processes that form the subject ofthis book.But they are not the only types of societies exposed to serious en-vironmental problems, as illustrated by the contrast case of Montana.It ispart of the richest country in the modern world, and it is one of the mostpristine and least populated parts of that country, seemingly with fewerproblems of environment and population than the rest of the U.S.Cer-tainly, Montana's problems are far less acute than those of crowding, traffic,smog, water quality and quantity, and toxic wastes that beset Americans inLos Angeles, where I live, and in the other urban areas where most Ameri-cans live.If, despite that, even Montana has environmental and populationproblems, it becomes easier to understand how much more serious thoseproblems are elsewhere in the U.S.Montana will illustrate the five mainthemes of this book: human impacts on the environment; climate change; asociety's relations with neighboring friendly societies (in the case of Mon-tana, those in other U.S.states); a society's exposure to acts of other poten- tially hostile societies (such as overseas terrorists and oil producers today);and the importance of a society's responses to its problems.The same environmental disadvantages that penalize food productionthroughout the whole of the American Intermontane West also limit Mon-tana's suitability for growing crops and raising livestock.They are: Mon-tana's relatively low rainfall, resulting in low rates of plant growth; its highlatitude and high altitude, both resulting in a short growing season and lim-iting crops to one a year rather than the two a year possible in areas with alonger summer; and its distance from markets in the more densely popu-lated areas of the U.S.that might buy its products.What those disadvan-tages mean is that anything grown in Montana can be grown more cheaplyand with higher productivity, and transported faster and more cheaply topopulation centers, elsewhere in North America.Hence Montana's historyconsists of attempts to answer the fundamental question of how to make aliving in this beautiful but agriculturally non-competitive land.Human occupation of Montana falls into several economic phases [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.That big sky grew on me.After living for so many years elsewhere, Ifound that it took me several visits to Montana to get used to the panoramaof the sky above, the mountain ring around, and the valley floor below toappreciate that I really could enjoy that panorama as a daily setting for partof my life and to discover that I could open myself up to it, pull myselfaway from it, and still know that I could return to it.Los Angeles has its ownpractical advantages for me and my family as a year-round base of work,school, and residence, but Montana is infinitely more beautiful and (as StanFalkow said) peaceful.To me, the most beautiful view in the world is theview down to the Big Hole's meadows and up to the snowcapped peaks ofthe Continental Divide, as seen from the porch of Jill and John Eliel's ranchhouse.Montana in general, and the Bitterroot Valley in its southwest, are a land ofparadoxes.Among the lower 48 states, Montana is the third largest in area,yet the sixth smallest in population, hence the second lowest in populationdensity.Today the Bitterroot Valley looks lush, belying its original naturalvegetation of just sagebrush.Ravalli County in which the valley is located isso beautiful and attracts so many immigrants from elsewhere in the U.S.(including even from elsewhere in Montana) that it is one of our nation'sfastest growing counties, yet 70% of its own high school graduates leave thevalley, and most of those leave Montana.Although population is increasingin the Bitterroot, it is falling in eastern Montana, so that for the state ofMontana as a whole the population trend is flat.Within the past decade thenumber of Ravalli County residents in their 50s has increased steeply, butthe number in their 30s has actually decreased.Some of the people recentlyestablishing homes in the valley are extremely wealthy, such as the broker-age house founder Charles Schwab and the Intel president Craig Barrett,but Ravalli County is nevertheless one of the poorest counties in the state ofMontana, which in turn is nearly the poorest state in the U.S.Many of thecounty's residents find that they have to hold two or three jobs even to earnan income at U.S.poverty levels.We associate Montana with natural beauty.Indeed, environmentallyMontana is perhaps the least damaged of the lower 48 states; ultimately,that's the main reason why so many people are moving to Ravalli County. The federal government owns over one-quarter of the land in the state andthree-quarters of the land in the county, mostly under the title of nationalforest.Nevertheless, the Bitterroot Valley presents a microcosm of the envi-ronmental problems plaguing the rest of the United States: increasingpopulation, immigration, increasing scarcity and decreasing quality of wa-ter, locally and seasonally poor air quality, toxic wastes, heightened risksfrom wildfires, forest deterioration, losses of soil or of its nutrients, losses ofbiodiversity, damage from introduced pest species, and effects of climatechange.Montana provides an ideal case study with which to begin this book onpast and present environmental problems.In the case of the past societiesthat I shall discuss Polynesian, Anasazi, Maya, Greenland Norse, andothers we know the eventual outcomes of their inhabitants' decisionsabout managing their environment, but for the most part we don't knowtheir names or personal stories, and we can only guess at the motives thatled them to act as they did.In contrast, in modern Montana we do knownames, life histories, and motives.Some of the people involved have beenmy friends for over 50 years.From understanding Montanans' motives, wecan better imagine motives operating in the past.This chapter will put apersonal face on a subject that could otherwise seem abstract.In addition, Montana provides a salutory balance to the following chap-ters' discussions of small, poor, peripheral, past societies in fragile environ-ments.I intentionally chose to discuss those societies because they were theones suffering the biggest consequences of their environmental damage,and they thus powerfully illustrate the processes that form the subject ofthis book.But they are not the only types of societies exposed to serious en-vironmental problems, as illustrated by the contrast case of Montana.It ispart of the richest country in the modern world, and it is one of the mostpristine and least populated parts of that country, seemingly with fewerproblems of environment and population than the rest of the U.S.Cer-tainly, Montana's problems are far less acute than those of crowding, traffic,smog, water quality and quantity, and toxic wastes that beset Americans inLos Angeles, where I live, and in the other urban areas where most Ameri-cans live.If, despite that, even Montana has environmental and populationproblems, it becomes easier to understand how much more serious thoseproblems are elsewhere in the U.S.Montana will illustrate the five mainthemes of this book: human impacts on the environment; climate change; asociety's relations with neighboring friendly societies (in the case of Mon-tana, those in other U.S.states); a society's exposure to acts of other poten- tially hostile societies (such as overseas terrorists and oil producers today);and the importance of a society's responses to its problems.The same environmental disadvantages that penalize food productionthroughout the whole of the American Intermontane West also limit Mon-tana's suitability for growing crops and raising livestock.They are: Mon-tana's relatively low rainfall, resulting in low rates of plant growth; its highlatitude and high altitude, both resulting in a short growing season and lim-iting crops to one a year rather than the two a year possible in areas with alonger summer; and its distance from markets in the more densely popu-lated areas of the U.S.that might buy its products.What those disadvan-tages mean is that anything grown in Montana can be grown more cheaplyand with higher productivity, and transported faster and more cheaply topopulation centers, elsewhere in North America.Hence Montana's historyconsists of attempts to answer the fundamental question of how to make aliving in this beautiful but agriculturally non-competitive land.Human occupation of Montana falls into several economic phases [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]