Chapter 17. Environmentalism

(Emoting over Gaia for Power, Profit, and Self-Congratulation)

Whether liberal or conservative(Demo or Republican), we can all agree on the following two ideas:

The planet we live upon is our home. Only a stupid person would wish to spoil this planet.

Harvesting resources from this home is necessary for survival. Without this harvest, we would cease to exist.

[where we differ among ourselves is on how to keep from spoiling our planet, and whether or not the planet is over-stressed.]

Now, here is a third idea to consider:

Our planet cannot be treated as though it is a museum where all the items are fragile and irreplaceable.

Let’s examine this third idea. In 1992 on a visit to Yosemite, I remember walking over marshy areas(The Tuollumne meadow) on a wooden walkway. Signs were conspicuously posted stating: “Please use walkway. This natural heather is fragile.” I felt as though I was treading a bridge over dinosaur eggs that were about to hatch. I wouldn’t have tromped the “natural heather” in any case, because I did not want mud and dirt on my shoes. About two years later, there came a great flood through Yosemite that swept all that beautiful “natural heather” out and into the Hetch Hetchy reservoir.

This illustrates my point: We should not be so presumptuous about nature. In a match between nature and ourselves we will usually be bested by nature. The so called environmentalists think that they have a special pipeline for communicating with nature to find out her needs. They missed by a mile in Yosemite. All that money spent building wooden walkways in Yosemite would have been better spent upgrading freeways in Oakland.

Among the most important matters in our lives is our stewardship over the land we occupy. This applies to all human inhabitants of the planet, but here in the United States we can set an example for other countries to follow.

Whose plan do we use: millions of chaotic, debating scientists and engineers, practicing valid science, or thousands of organized, greedy, anointed lawyers and politicians ?