THE ZEPHYR/AUGUST-SEPTEMBER wee 2008 eee The Readers Respond... a ane EAEDE ae ee ae saline 466 states swith you my réason fo not renewing my membership in the Natural Resources Defense Council (ancther‘vaunted gaggle of greens down the ceramic hole as ' far as my expendable income is concerned). By contrast I am renewing my subscription to your illustrious publication. Check enclosed. : I thought you might find the following comments from NRDC’s President in the spring 2008 issue of On Earth to be of interest: “Reducing global warming pollution will have an imperceptible effect on economic output....We can stave off the biggest environmental afd humanitarian crisis without disrupting economic growth.” But in all likelihood lowering oour neepective carbon footprints without a societal paradigm shift will simply te the economy’s ultimate¢ ion into oblivion. “OAfi article in thé same issue describes the work of NRDC’s a launched Center for Market Innovation. Its director meets with industry executives “in their corporate offices to discuss the financial upside to addressing global warming, and to persuade them that TaCiiita in a warming world, the environment is a board-room level concern.” Now it doesn’t take an accountant to see where this is headed. I believe that NRDC will not risk losing hefty corporate donations in the future in order to advocate for the drastic changes in our population and life-ways that are necessary for a viable relationship with the natural world. ‘Hundreds of years from now, when historians and archeologists sort through the bones of our ex-civilization,I wonder if they will marvel at the refusal of our leaders, in the face of massive environmental evidence, to accept that the growth economy was doomed and to move toward a new way of life. Keep giving them fits, Scott Thompson Beckley, WV REMEMBERING DEWEY BRIDGE Hi Jim--reading your latest “Leave It” reminded me that I myself stood by the stillsmellin’ ash of the almost smoking ruins of Dewey Bridge a month ago. I never realized that the state highway bridge was built in 1985. I must have been the second or third person across it back in the old 80s and never gave it another thought. For me it had never been any different. I didn’t get there in time to enjoy the dirt road from Cisco to Moab. But like Mr. Greenwood says, the canyon country is an opiate. But so are mountains and I guess I liked mountains more than he did because I never thought twice about staying in Colorado, which was itself a different place in those days. But I know what he means when he advises finding a quiet place to locate the old Moab. I still do it, but that doesn’t stop me lamenting the general decline of the whole front-country scene. The flotillas of RVs, Jeeps, ATVs scooting down every trail they can find, the monster packed campsite at Tombstone Rock, these things all make me just a little bit sad for the red rock country. It used to be a glorious cruise down the main highway from Crescent Junction into Moab, now it’s a traffic-clogged exercise in just getting there, somewhere, wherever and whatever it is. Yes, it’s still a beautiful drive, but damn, wasn’t it truly glorious once upon a time. And although I find the real Moab out back beyond the motorheads and bike freaks’ reach, on foot and for the most part on no trail whatsoever, I cannot be as sanguine about the changes as Mr. Greenwood. But I enjoyed his voice and I agree with more of his words than disagree. | wish he hadn't quantified “me” as amongst those people who desire “easy gold”, though. My once-a-year pilgrimage to the sacred land is very important to me and I’ve been doing it for almost thirty years. I believe my experience and love of the canyon country is every bit as “authentic” as anybody else’s who loves the red-rock country. Yes, as I get older, I do find that I like tenting in the rain less than I used to... I’m not as poor as I used to be, so a $45 room at a crazy fleabit motel in Green River is red-mudding everything in sight. I remember how shocked I was the first time I came into the New Moab after a series of cataclysmic downpours to locate a motel room. The entire city was booked. Arts Festival? Since when did Moab have Arts Festivals? Damn festivals have polluted the entire west, you can’t go anywhere now without researching the freakin’ festival schedules. Damn Mountain Man Days. Maybe I exaggerate... 1 do love to exaggerate. But I also truly love to worship at the fount of redrock country. Sorry to hear that the printed Zephyr ain’t gonna make it. But hey, with you out of the printing and distribution business, maybe Ill have the opportunity to grill you a buffalo burger and hand off cold ones at a select pulloff near the old “Real Moab” sometime in the next coupla years. I'll be retiring from my state service in three years and then I'll be a little more free to hit the desert on my own time, if petroleum prices allow, away from the Memorial Day Holiday, which taking advantage of has been my habit since the early days. Except of course for the occasional glorious autumn trips... Greenwood is certainly right about the fact that we humans and our changes are only a temporary infestation, a kind of surface disturbance if you will. Someday the earth will give us all what we've got coming. Scientists now say there was a time many millions of years ago when human beings may have been reduced to only 2000 in number on the entire planet...imagine all that wide open space. Nobody camped out on the other side of the hill beside an eighteen-wheel Hummer, nobody blaring Ozzy Osbourne from a diesel-generator-powered boombox across Behind-The-Rocks, nobody helicoptering in a third-home-mansion into hidden aspen groves. 1 wouldn't have survived in that era, cuz I was sick little puppy upon emergence, but Gad, what a wonderful mental place it is to imagine and inhabit. As Buddy Holly sang, Well Allright, keep the faith and thanks as always for the Z, Evan Cantor Boulder, CO SOME KIND WORDS FROM AN OLD FRIEND Jim, Sitting here at my computer, I’m on my third gin & tonic of the night. Sunshine in a bottle I call it. I just re-read your message to Zephyr subscribers... and I’m trying to digest it. I’m trying to digest... the passing of the Zephyr, the Iraq war, George W. McCain, the earthquake in China, the cyclone in Myanmar, the twilight of a career, the passing of the USA as a beacon of hope and integrity, four dollars a gallon gas, four dollars a gallon milk, cars that get no more mileage per gallon than the model T. The West is overrun, the nations roads are crumbling, airfare is unreachable, my friends battle prostate cancer, I live with some sort of painful nodule. I don’t know where this is going. Does it have to go somewhere? Hope is an important feature in living. Hope for the planet. Hope for it’s people. Hope for health. Hope for family. Hope for love. I’m encouraged by the upcoming cyber version of the Zephyr. I’m starting to think that perhaps the paper version was just a warm-up act for the real thing... the global voice that you talk about in your letter. Like souls reached in Russia, in Indonesia, in Ireland, in Vietnam. Wow! The possibilities of that. A global forum, a global argument, a global spat about what's right, what's wrong on the planet today. A global lynching of the idiots like Bush that have absolutely no vision for this country or the world. But perhaps some positive dialogue also. Perhaps some ideas. Perhaps some hope. What the hell happened to all the hope that we had in the 60s and 70s. Was that an il- lusion? Are we all so fat & happy in or SUVs that we don’t even recall how much it all meant then? Gosh... I remember hope. attractive when the wind is blowing like hell, sand is gritting between my teeth and I’m OPEN 24 HOURS« SELF SERVE 588 Kane Creek Bivd. “Bring Your Dirty Laundry.” Sore No More! Country Clean Laundromat & Car Wash Behind McDonaids, Next to the Cinema Soothing & Penetrating Topical Analgesic Gel Piataral Pain Relieving Gel provides effective relief from » Arthritis - Over-Exerted & Sore Muscles & Promotes Healing with All-Natural ingredients! 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