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Show Now what? . So what is the point of all this? It’s simply that an expanding and overgrown population has created this materialistic society we now endure and has pushed us farther and farther away from those so-called traditional values that we now remember so fondly and long for so nostalgically. The things that we had to create, manufacture, and sell, if our economy was to grow, were necessary for the burgeoning work force to survive. As for the consumer population, we are now collectively one trillion dollars in debt to the companies and corporations and businesses that have offered us the plethora of things...of stuff, that we now think are indispensable parts of our lives. Ironically, most social conservatives who lament the loss of "family values" also see an unlimited growth economy as crucial to the vitality of the country. It’s just plain wrongheaded, but it continues to be the centerpiece of American politics, and no one in the _ political arena today has the courage or the insight to realize that never-ending growth will destroy us all. Our government had expected projections of higher-than-expected growth as a way of reducing our enormous national debt. Yet no one will acknowledge that 100 million more Americans in this country in the last 45 years has put an incredible strain on the nation’s infrastructure, its environment, and the well-being of its people. We cannot improve the ' quality of our lives by a bigger Gross National Product. It’s lunacy. The lunacy manifests itself in every aspect of our lives. From out-of-control crime in our cities and foul and unbreathable air, to the stress and congestion of our‘highways and the devoured by development. By 2018, the state's population is expected to approach 3 million (Grand County’s population for the year 2020 is 20,000, up from about 7000 in 1995). But the Growth Summit concerned itself with the effects of growth without ever addressing the cause of it. The governor and other public officials talked about adding lanes to freeways and introducing light rail to the Wasatch Front and barely paid lip service to preserving Utah’s dwindling open spaces through land trusts and government incentives. The latest legislative version would allow the state to provide limited amounts of money to cities and counties who want to protect open space from development. But where would most of the funding come from? And who could afford it? Locally, consider what used to be a five acre field across from Dave’s Corner Market on 400 East in Moab. That land went on the market for $125,000 in 1990. The owner offered the City of Moab first shot at the property, hoping they would maintain the open space as a park. But the Council passed on the offer and a private party grabbed it. Three years later, the same parcel sold for $375,000. Four years ago, the horse pasture became the Mill Creek Pueblos—each pueblo sells for well over $100,000. How can any land trust, private or public, ever be able to come up with the necessary funding to pay for such projects when the value of the land continues to rise at an almost exponential rate? The answer is: they can’t. It’s another simple case of supply and demand. There is a limited amount of land and a lot of people who want to buy it. The market will determine what happens to the land, and with so many people clamoring for it, it’s not too difficult to see our remaining open spaces disappear under a layer of asphalt and a rash of new commercial and residential construction in the very near future. The consumer population eventually consumes all. “The driving force of modern industrial civilization hasbeen individual material gain, which is accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy on the grounds that private vices yield public benefits. It’s long been understood that a society based on this principle will destroy itself. It can persist only with whatever suffering or injustice it entails, as long as it’s possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an infinite resource, and the world is an infinite garbage can. Either the general population will take control of its destiny...or there will be no destiny to control “ Noam Chomsky The world’s population continues to expand at an extraordinary rate. In developing nations, multi-national corporations look at the masses of poor people and see nothing but unlimited cheap labor to assemble and manufacture products for the consumer population...for us, expending what remains of the earth’s dwindling. natural resources along the way. And we keep buying, diverting our attention from the crisis that engulfs us. How do we deal with the ‘Rats in a Box Syndrome?’ Put on the Walkman and turn up the volume...solace through ignorance. It's still possible to find quiet places in the West. It’s still possible to see sunsets of Fields give way to condominiums near Moab... ..BY 2040, IT MAY EXCEED 400 MILLION. destruction of our harassment by our At a time when and increase profit federal, state and remaining wild lands, to the frustrating red tape, confusion, and state, local, and federal bureaucracies, it only gets worse. corporate America is downsizing its work force to maximize efficiency margins (ALWAYS the bottom line!), the vast bureaucracies of the local governments are the last work-force bastion of mediocrity in America. I do not mean to suggest that all or even most government employees are giving less than their best to their employers...us. But the government is the last place where workers can claim to be indispensable while contributing very little to the general wellbeing of the public it-serves. Many of government's frustrating rules and regulations exist solely because there are so many bureaucrats who have nothing else to do but write them. Critics say: Get rid of them! Streamline government! Throw out all those lazy bureaucrats. And do what.with them? Private enterprize is firing these days, not hiring. Closer to Home... "We are blessed with extraordinary economic prosperity. We can take care of education, meet our needs in the area of human services, spend more money on building highways and cut taxes all at the same time." Utah Governor Mike Leavitt indescribable beauty. I can still immerse myself in the wildness of the land and almost thinkI was the only human to inhabit it. I can feel a kinship to the animals that makes me think we're not that different. ; But we are different; I know their fate rests in my species’ hands. We have the knowledge, the technical skills, and even the understanding to do the right thing. What we lack is the will. And without it, we could lose it all. LSCO COMPUTER SERVICE “Twenty Years of PC Experience” REPAIRS UPGRADES MAINTENANCE SOFTWARE LYNN SHAFER 259.4171 lynn@lsco.net With that kind of unrealistic and delusional rhetoric, Governor Leavitt convened Utah's much ballyhooed and media-hyped Growth Summit a few years ago. Utah’s population reached 2 million people last year, 16 years earlier than the U.S. Census Bureau expected. In the last decade more than 300,000 acres of open space and farmland in Utah have been DAVE WAGSTAFF CONSTRUCTION New Construction. Re-models "High Quality at a Fair Price * CALL (435) 259-5077 after 5 PM ‘Tcan make a web site sing.” Web Site ~ Design G Maintenance _ By Alexandra L. Woodruff (The Zephyr's new webmaster) sashinator|@yahoo.com SOLGALIAA2 — |