Seriously. Has anyone else noticed that you can just about always justify destroying the environment with "property rights," but it absolutely never holds up as an argument for protecting it?

What the hell's up with that?

Whatever, your intention is clear enough, Wolverine.  And in principle I quite agree with you.

Still, the ethical and anthropological questions surrounding the concept of private property, and how to define the rights of individuals over against the claims of society, are ancient ones, not at all easily negotiated.

Over against those who would argue vigorously in favor of the rights of landowners to include ownership of subsurface minerals, we certainly cannot imagine them to believe that each landowner owns a vaguely pyramid-shaped or cone-shaped sliver of the planet, the apex of which is the center of the Earth and the base of which is the real estate on the surface.

And at least one good result of the legal arrangement, whereby landowners in Western states do not own certain valuable minerals present within the borders of their land, is that the spectacular fossil skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex named "Sue," found on Euro-American-owned private land located on an Indian reservation in South Dakota, eventually found its way to a good public-access home, in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Well coined, Wolverine, if you were in fact the one who coined it.

Moving on, canis, you bring up an interesting dilemma--but, I'm afraid, there's a simple answer to it, and that answer is still that Mr. Mars got screwed. You see, it's not just a question of ownership of the minerals; if they could teleport the fuels out of the ground and into their tanks, then it would be a simple question of ownership. But it's Mars' land they're going to be drilling through, and that is unquestionably his.

Unfortunately, the good people at Associated Press report that the law says private land is still subject to mining leases, with one or two very low and comfortable-looking hoops to jump through. The judge ordered Pinnacle to set aside $10,000 to cover any damage to the land; I wonder if he knew or cared what a bull$%!! ruling that is? Even in the event that Mars gets it all, that money is negligible to both Pinnacle *and him, and even if it is somehow enough to undo the damage to the land itself, it won't bring back the animals and plants that will be destroyed, nor will it replace the millions of gallons of groundwater that will be used in coalbed methane extraction. (Which was actually Mars' primary objection to drilling--I swear, this guy is the coolest NIMBY I've ever heard of.)

So, my verdict stands. Mars got screwed, the environment got screwed, if there's a drought this summer, all the farmers in the area will be MASSIVELY screwed, and oh, yeah... "Property rights" only works when you're looking to gut the Endangered Species Act.

Yeah, rulings like this make me bitter. If it were legally in the wrong, it would make me angry, but when book law backs it up, it makes me bitter instead.

On a happier note, talking about new words, this is pretty cool. :)

I actually intended that section to be read with a tone of cynical resignation.

Oh, well.

Re the legal aspects:  Looking at this STRICTLY from a legal standpoint using our enviropathic legal system, when you buy a parcel of land, you generally own everything above and under it, to infinity.  (I never asked or learned about the consequences to those on the opposite side of the planet, as this is not my area of law.)  However, for some reason people are allowed to own mineral rights to land, so that when you buy certain land, you only own what's on the surface and above it.  Somewhere in the title history of Mars's land, an owner sold the mineral rights, either directly to Pinnacle Gas Resources, or Pinnacle Gas Resources bought the rights from someone.  And of course, the title history only goes back as far as white people stealing the land from the Native Americans who lived there, as the latter did not recognize land ownership.

As to Pathos's comment, this WAS a property rights claim by Pinnacle Gas Resources; they own the property rights to the minerals under Mars's land.