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"Amen" to this rant about the misuse of the word "pristine." There are no "pristine" places, but something in the human psyche craves them, and so the market delivers.
Several years ago, I was driving from Gunnison to Crested Butte, and a real-estate sign caught my eye. A ranch was for sale, and the sign said it had "pristine hay meadows."
Sure the meadows were gorgeous -- emerald green beneath an azure sky with gray hills rising in back. But those meadows were the result of a lot of hard human labor, from grubbing sagebrush in the 19th century to irrigating in the 21st. Those meadows were as much a result of human construction as the pickup I was driving.
"Pristine" also pops up often in the on-going local controversy about Christo's "Over the River" project. Opponents have said that the temporary suspension of translucent fabric panels over the Arkansas River will destroy the "pristine" valley between Salida and Canon City.
That valley has a highway and a railroad. It is lined with old quarries and kilns. It has its fair share of tourist shops that sell everything from rocks to rafting trips.
The corridor is still quite scenic, but it's about as pristine as Britney Spears.
Felice is right. Let's quit worrying about whether places are "pristine" (with the implication that this makes them worth caring about) and instead respect them for what they are.
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