Creative solutions needed

by Doug Crowe
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 1:55 PM MDT

There was a story in the Star-Trib a while back quoting "administration officials" claiming huge amounts of America's oil and gas reserves on public land are inaccessible to producers "because of environmental and other restrictions."

Further, these officials believe we should rush to utilize these untapped resources which, according to them, total an estimated 31 billion barrels of oil, as well as many trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

One of these guys, an assistant secretary of Something or Other, proclaimed we must be willing to use these resources as part of a "balanced and rational energy policy."

He went on to justify invasion of the public domain by pointing out that, with reference to oil alone, the U.S. currently imports about 10 million barrels per day, and if we want to lower the cost of energy, "we must be willing to use our own energy resources."

Really? That is not the way I see it. If, for example, there are indeed 31 billion barrels of oil beneath our public lands, and if we drill for and recover every bit of it at a rate of 10 million barrels per day, it will be gone in 3,100 days!

In other words, were we to begin extraction of that oil right now and manage to suck every last drop of it out of the ground, it would be totally exhausted in eight years!

Our national parks, monuments, forests, grasslands, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, public hunting and fishing grounds and wide-open vistas will, to various degrees, have been trashed, roaded, eroded, denuded, pillaged, polluted and/or desecrated.

Yet the problem of inadequate domestic oil supplies and skyrocketing prices will remain.

The plain, unvarnished, un-spun truth of the matter is that we cannot drill our way out of the fossil fuels dilemma.

We have to think, innovate, invent, conserve and recycle our way out of it. Thinking, innovating, inventing, conserving and recycling all are things at which we as a nation excelled prior to becoming cheap oil junkies.

As I see it, we have to kick the habit and break out of our fog of complacency. We can no longer afford to continue marching to the beat of weak-minded politicians and strong-willed oil cartels.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower said it best: "We n- you and I, and our government -n must avoid plundering for our own use and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.

“We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage."

For me, much of the Wyoming I knew as a young man -- places like the Green River Valley or the southern Red Desert -- are already degraded beyond recognition.

In these places, and many others, relatively few people are making a great deal of money stripping the rest of us of our wild heritage, and then buying for themselves any remaining unspoiled parcels.

As this takes place, we stand like the “Wizard of Oz's” Cowardly Lion, trembling at the feet of The Great God Progress.

But nothing ever stays the same and, as many of my friends tell me, "We just have to adjust."

I know that is true. I also know, true or not, I don't have to like it!

So I find myself increasingly assuaging my grief with elegiac thoughts along the line of, "At least I can be glad I saw Wyoming when I did."

I also find solace in knowing that I'm not alone.

I’m sure Jim Bridger felt the same way. And wherever he is now, I'd be willing to bet the ol' mountain man is not happy someone named a smoke-belching power plant after him!

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