If you want to look down on other people, climbing a tree is a good start. You just perch yourself in a makeshift crow’s nest and smugly survey the earthbound working stiffs whose livelihoods you’re disrupting.

Out in the Elliott State Forest, a band of itinerant environmental swashbucklers has blocked a road, making sure no logger earns a living in the area. Their stated purpose is to protect the forest as a “carbon reserve,” thereby combating climate change.

The protesters no doubt believe fervently in the rightness of their cause. A devout belief in one’s rightness, however, does not excuse sanctimonious disregard for the rights of others.

The people of Oregon own state forests for the specific purpose of supporting our schools. The forest in question is neither wilderness nor old growth. These are second-growth trees, regrown and ready for what most people would consider a responsible harvest.

But Cascadia Rising Tide, one of the two protesting organizations, solemnly describes them as “future old growth.” The concept of “future old growth” is a handy idea, apparently justifying the consecration of every tree on earth.

The protesters say the state should cancel the timber sale, and replace the lost revenue by raising taxes on private timber lands. This suggestion assumes state revenue is the only benefit of logging. It ignores the income earned by loggers, millworkers and others in the wood-products industry; the individual taxes they pay; the families they support; and the rural communities they help sustain through the goods and services they buy. Do these people matter to the swashbucklers?

Environmentalists have a right to protest peacefully. But they don’t have a right to prevent working people from doing lawful jobs — especially in Douglas County, where unemployment has reached a crushing 18 percent.

Folks, you’ve made your point. You’ve had your picture in the paper. Now go home.