West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature.
The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain.
All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.
Well, the wealthy get to take time off of work to go camping and hiking, and the poor people get to dynamite the hills their ancestors settled. Surely they're equivalent.
I’m not an expert on top chopping but I’m pretty sure the employment opportunities for local residents are slim to none and that’s the whole point. I went to school in North Carolina where about a 2 mile drive around the side of a mountain would bring us to an overlook of a valley full of peaks that we gradually watched disappear over those 3 years I was there. The machinery was utterly massive. I think the logging crews employed more people than the earth movers but I think logging on those hillsides qualifies as one of the most deadly jobs in America. They made a TV show about it.
West Virginia is precisely an example of only the wealthy enjoying nature.
The wealthy retreat to Greenbrier or go skiing at Snowshoe Mountain.
All the while, the working class turn to nature to build squatter camp in the summer to pinch and save for winter shelter since the mines went out of business. In many valleys (not the wealthy ones), nature cannot even provide decent water, the result of contamination from modern top chop mining (by the wealthy). Things have only deteriorated recently, unless you consider not dying young of black lung disease “enjoying nature”.