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Show THE ZEPHYRIOCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2008 Where are the Truthsayers? Don’t look to politicians... Wouldn't it be refreshing to see a presidential campaign where the candidates leveled with the voters—challenged them, dared them to think differently, even scared them a bit—instead of the pandering we hear now from both men? John Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Can you imagine a president having the aa to ee somethin, like that today? The man would be booed off the inaugur platform in 2008. Or more realistically, that kind of admonition would have left a JFK-type stalled and out of the THE CANYON COUNTRY ZEPHYR take it Ol'..sleave it PO BOX 327 MOAB, UTAH 84532 JIM STILES, PUBLISHER WWW. com uv uv e race in New Hampshire. It isn’t going to happen. vy Don't look to environmentalists... They behave as if it’s still 1985. They rant about the en- eczephyr@gmail.com moabzephyr@yahoo.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ken Sleight Martin Murie Ned Mudd Scott Silver Doug Meyer David Cremean & a multitude of Zephyr Readers THE ARTIST John Depuy HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS Herb Ringer (1913-1998) ZEPHYR PILOT & AERIAL RECONAIGSANCE Paul Swanstrom ZEPHYR TRANSPORTATION FLEET SPECIALISTE Gene Schafer Tom Wesson vironmental consequences of oil and gas exploration while saying little or nothing about their own out-of-control consumptive lifestyles. Their organizations, often funded by BY WEBMASTER some of STILES THE ELECTION: (DISASTERS IN FUTURE MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR) As the presidential election approaches, consider these facts: ; Last week the U.S. Census Bureau revised its projec- tions for our swelling American population. Ten years ago ago, the Bureau predicted a U.S. population of 400 million in the decade after 2050 (We reached 300 million in Octo- ber 2006). Now that date has been revised. Expect us to hit 400 million by 2039, the experts project, almost two decades ahead of schedule. g As the global population approaches 7 billion, global consumption of natural resources also oe ahead at an unprecedented rate. Americans once boasted we had a lifestyle envied by the rest of the world. Regrettably, we may have been right. In the first decade of the 21st Century, more than half a billion Chinese stand to become the largest middle-class consumer group on the planet. In India, the story is similar. And in Indonesia. In Brazil. The - list grows. r ravenous American Lifestyle worked well as long as we were the only pigs at the trough. But the American Dream is contagious—we now face Global Gluttony. Meanwhile, Gary Henderson spankme2times@excite.com JIM James Hansen, one of the world’s most respected climatologists, gives the planet 20 years to get its act together before the effects of human-caused global warming create irreversible consequences. He predicts mass extinctions and global eco-system collapses in our lifetimes if we refuse fo seriously and immediately deal with the crisis that most of the world’s scientists agree is a real and critical threat to this planet. SUBSCRIPTIONS & TRANSCRIPTIONS Linda Vaughan CIRCULATION Lance Lawrence Jose Churampi Doug Meyer THE ZEPHYR, copyright 2008 The Zephyr is published six times a year at Moab, Utah. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of its vendors, advertisers, or even at times, of its publisher. All photographs and cartoons are by the publisher, unless otherwise noted. This country is finished. It’s been sliding downhill for a long time. _ But everybody’s got a cell phone that makes pancakes, so they don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to make any trouble. People have been bought off by gizmos and toys in this country. No one questions ANYTHING anymore. (“Yes, let’s cut down some more tamarisk this week- end...that DASTARDLY plant. We’re ALL so excited about our exotics removal program! But jeez, I guess we’ll just have to live with that ol’ Desert Rock coal fired power plant. But then, what's just one more coal-belching obscenity in the Four Corners anyway? It'll mean more jobs for the Navajos—if they can breathe long enough to seek employment.”) _ To paraphrase The Man: “What good is a tamarisk-free canyon, without a decent planet for it to flourish in?” What do environmentalists do now? With almost threequarters of the country ready to do an about-face on oil and gas exploration in some of the most fragile parts of America, they’ve already abandoned any opportunity to show jeaderhiy by example. ere is no grassroots environmental itself anymore, but rather, to the network of well-financed WHEN CANDIDATES HAD CAJONES... (EVEN WHEN THEY WERE CROOKS) It may seem impossible in 2008, but there was a time when presidential candidates had the courage to confront power and greed in this country, even the crooked ones. Here are some memorable examples: FDR...”and I welcome their hatred.” On the evening of October 31, 1936, Franklin D. Roos: evelt nears the end of the residential campaign. is opponent Governor Alf Landon, is favored by most polls to unseat the first-term president. Before a standing room only crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York, FDR delivers a fiery address to A year ago, as the price hovered at $3, it was gratifyin threshold. Up one dollar in three months. That's all it took. his screaming supporters. First he names his adi “business and financial monopoly, specureckless. and John Mc- Cain, both longtime opponents of offshore drilling, now dience is on its feet. “Never before in over the roar. He continues, “I should like to have it said of my first administration that in it, the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match.” He waits for the din in the hall to abate. ‘Roosevelt looks confidently but grimly at the thousands before him. “I would like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master!” A week later, FDR defeated Landon by one of the greatest margins in American history. RFK on the GNP How does this country measure its wealth? Find a poli- said, “We must save our planet!” a few weeks ago, while _ adamantly o posing ofshors drilling, decided to throw in the oily towel as we d as Americans feel the pinch in their tician today who doesn’t turn tO pocketbooks, immediate broader and the Gross National (Domestic) Product as the ultimate barom- concerns overshadow more long-range issues (like...you know...THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT). Just six months ago, more than 60% of Americans considered global warming ahigh priority issue. That number as plummeted to below 50%. ericans seem to be saying, “Give us cheap gas again, let us live like we did before...THEN we'll worry about global warming.” Se Z all our history,” Roosevelt declares, “have these forces been .so unanimous in their hatred for me—and I welcome their hatred.” support it. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, who economic banking, organized money.” The au- ' The crowd cheers loudly and FDR can barely be heard Opposition to offshore drilling began to collapse. y June, the number of Americans under 30 who supported offshore drilling had climbed to 50%. Imagine that...from not much more than a tenth of that age group to HALF in 120 days. Today, 70% of all Americans favor aggressive offshore drilling. Support for exploiting the oil potential of the Alaska Wildlife Refuge grows ak Presidential candidates, Barack Obama in envirobusinesses across the country, to which they are collectively beholden. ‘ We've been flooded with “green ada uy urged to buy “green” products, Al Gore got the Nobel Prize and praised Wal-Mart for its recycling program and somebody invented an organic condom. We really took the bull by the horns. : ’ Then the price of a gallon of gasoline began to rise. to know that most Americans still opposed drilling for oi in the fragile Alaska Wildlife Refuge. In February a Pew poll showed that a vast majority of us opposed offshore oil and gas drilling on the North American continental shelf. President George H.W. Bush banned that kind of risky exloration almost 20 years ago. Many of us remember the anta Barbara oil spill in the late 60s. But even among the “ander 30” demographic, in February, only 16% supported offshore drilling. A hopeful sign for our idealistic youth. We still favored alternative energy solutions and conservation. Or at least we all paid lip service to those ideas. But a month later, the price of gasoline began to rise... dramatically. By late May, a gallon of regular unleaded crossed the $4 movement America now. The “movement” is driven by a coast-tocoast rash of attorneys and professional environmentalists and a shrinking membership that sends in its $35 as some kind of Absolution for their contradictory lifestyle. The Urban Enviro hierarchy’s dedication is not to the Land How have we responded, here in the U.S.A.? Where is the leadership? Where are the visionaries. George Carlin the world’s wealthiest industrialists, are so com- promised by their own complicity, they can do little but embrace pet projects and offer token resistance to the Big Ones. eter of American prosperity. You must travel back in time 40 years, to April 1968, to find a politician with the courage to speak otherwise. Less than three months before his death, Robert Kennedy noted that if we judged our country’s worth by its Gross National Product (GNP), it would include the cost of the locks on our jails, the “television pro- _gxeeeeesecccscemsas es |