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Show An Interview with Ed Abbey A 1982 conversation with Abbey is even more relevant today than it was then. What follows is the transcript of an interview conducted by Eric Temple with Ed Abbey in December 1982. The interview took place in the cabin behind Abbey's Tucson home and was videotaped for a program produced by KAET-TV in Phoenix, Arizona. Portions of the interview were made into a half hour program called "Edward Abbey's Road" which aired in Arizona and many PBS stations nationwide in 1983. Thanks to Clarke Abbey for permission to print this excerpt. continuing for maybe a few more decades. It might work—and it might not, and even it it does work, I think it does more harm than good. I can’t see that anything is gained for the people who now live in Phoenix by trying to make Phoenix another LA. And I think we in Tucson have much more to lose than to gain by trying to catch up with Phoenix. And Flagstaff wants to be another Tucson, and so on. And I think it’s ridiculous. It’s insane in the long run, rational point of view. ET) What do you see as the major environmental problem in Arizona right now? EA) Progress. Development, Growth, Industry—everything that the politicians and the chamber of commerce loves, I’m against. I think it’s gradually destroying Arizona, and I don’t think it will survive—I think we're using up our resource base, especially water, much faster than it can ever be replaced. Therefore, unless some sort of technological miracle saves us, I imagine that Phoenix and Tucson will be small towns again, and probably very nice places to. live. If we were content to maintain a relatively small population in this state, I don’t know what the optimum would be, we've probably already passed it. But if we were content just to support the number of people we've got here now, I don’t see anybody forced to leave. I don’t want to leave, I still love it here. I think we could probably support the present population of Phoenix and Tucson for a long time, maybe a century or two, while slowly using up our ground water supply. But if we continue this what I consider crackpot . expansion, this ideological growth, why we're going to run up against the limits much I can't see that anything is gained for the people who now live in Phoenix by trying to make Phoenix another L.A. And I think we in Tucson have much more to lose than to gain by trying to catch up with Phoenix. And Flagstaff wants to be another Tucson, and so on... I think it’s ridiculous. It’s insane in the long run, rational point of view. Ed Abbey I was just reading a very good book by Charles Bowden, "Killing the Hidden Waters' which goes into this subject in great detail, historical and geological. He describes how the Papago Indians survived out here simply by living off the land, mainly hunting and quicker, then they’ll start talking about dragging icebergs up from Antarctica and up the Sea of Cortez, through Puerta Punasco, Gila Bend, towing them on giant barges. ET) Something else that goes hand in hand with that is the generation of electricity. Coal and gathering. Surviving on surface water--a few springs and flash floods for farming, and they Nuclear seem to be the substances of choice for the utilities in Arizona. got by for 10, maybe 20 thousand years. ‘Course they didn’t create what most of us would consider a very brilliant civilization, but they had a satisfying way of life and were probably as happy as most modern Americans. ET) What would be the final straw that would make the politicians curtail the growth, or attempt to curtail it? EA) I don’t think they will, they’re in the grip of a kind of ideology of growth, the politicians, the chamber of commerce, most business people in the state. They seem to really believe that growth is a good in itself and more growth is better, so I doubt if this expansion will be curtailed until something very unpleasant happens. Probably we'll discover more pollution in our ground water supplies. The wells for example, some of them, dozens I guess have already been closed in this area and other Arizona towns. And the river water they’re hoping to import from the Colorado river is very low quality water, high salt content and god knows what other junk is in it from all of those uranium mills upstream- So at enormous-cost they’re pumping that dirty river water out of the mountains and into the central valley in hopes of keeping the expansion of Phoenix and Tucson VVVVVVVVVVVYVY 3-D RIVER VISIONS, INC. = Moab, But I realize that the United States for that matter doesn’t take it seriously. The people who run this country assume that technology and science will rescue us each time from our foolishness, and so far it might appear that they’ve been right. However, when we burn up the planet then we'll, I suppose, try to export the human species into outer space. Space colonies. Colonize the moon, Venus, Mars, and that’s utopianism. CANOE OUTFITTING 691 N. 500 West ay c Y (801) 259-5101 UT 84532 From the Musk Ox Team to Cactus Ed... "Here's to you & those like you... "Damn few of us left." And uranium, you mentioned that didn’t you? When they complete the Palo Verde nuclear plant we're going to have the biggest one in the world, is that right? a le SN CNG A . OLED P.O. Box 67 running water. y ie By TEx’s RIVERWAYS What are the pitfalls of that? EA), Well, the disadvantages of coal are pretty obvious. The burning of coal pollutes the air, strip mining destroys a lot of good rangeland depriving ranchers and Navajos of their resource base. And coal too is just a temporary fix, even though we may have an awful lot of it in this country. It too will be used up sooner or later, but we want to create a long term civilization here in the west or in North America, and I think eventually we're going to have to rely on renewable resources, like sunlight and grass and trees, surface water, SHUTTLE SERVICE JETBOAT TOURS |