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Comment by justatdotin | Hacker News Reader

> make it to coastal regions and hit the beach

just don't. beaches are for turtle nests.

In most developed countries driving on the beach is illegal, except for specific areas.

This is true, but your statement makes it sound like it's unusual. In the USA there are a lot of beaches you can drive on. When there are endangered species they usually block it for certain location or certain times of year. For example, in New England you can't drive on the beach in the summer, but you can all other seasons. All other times they have it roped of to protect the piping plover nests. In Florida you can almost all year round.

I'm about 5km inland and it's still hella sandy. No turtles for a while.

they mark a lot of the turtle nests in Florida.... also don't cut down trees on your new lot, they are for birds even if you would like to build a home... also don't boat, you might hurt the manatees.

Yeah, turtles are on every beach on the planet /s

Your probably right, though we can argue the wider point still stands:

Beaches are populated by all sorts of life, some of which probably needs protecting.

Choose your recreation spots carefully.

Enlighten me if I'm mistaken, but are there recreation spots that are not harmful to some animal life or the ecosystem? I suppose there are forms of recreation that cause less harm than others, but if you enjoy offroad driving, you're going to hurt something. Pretty much all the things I enjoy are unsustainable and generally harmful for the environment(motorsports, winter sports, eating meat) and at some point it becomes hard to care. I fear that there is no way to keep my conscience clear if I do not live in denial. I wonder how common this is.

Skydiving perhaps

Includes airplanes, which I hear have a terrible carbon footprint.

I guess if you optimize for avoiding a specific form of harm you can succeed. But if you want to avoid all harm it seems a very narrow tightrope.

Ah yes, the sport with the largest carbon footprint per minute of practice.

yes, but if enough people tried it without the parachute, ...

> Choose your recreation spots carefully.

I probably meant something like: stick to the designated areas, and if you're going to trailblazer just be aware of what to avoid to at least try to minimise impact.

Fair enough. It's possible to minimize harm by making good choices, and being good isn't an all or nothing game.

BASE jumping for the win.

You'd be surprised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_turtle#Distribution_and_ha...

Also, many deserts are very fragile ecosystems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_soil_crust (of course there are deserts which are so inhospitable that there is virtually no life to be found, like the sand dunes in the Arabian deserts - there, offroad driving may be ok)

This doesn't feel like sarcasm for some reason.

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