| OCR Text |
Show *^-r* •-^ ¦ Conservation is not a game: it is a revolution. Those people committed to saving pieces of the garden which once grew here are not the people who drive their cars up the canyon to enjoy nature. They are not socialites who curse the smog between puffs on their cigarettes. They are not the folks who put a brick in the toilet tank to save water and then wash down the sidewalk with a hose. Ecology and conservation have thus far been very "in" things. Politicians talk of their "committment" to it, leading citizens say we must take on a "new awareness," oil companies regear their advertising. Like bortherhood and unity ecology is given universal lip service. And like brotherhood and unity, the basic profoundity of the matter is unrecognized by the great mass of people. Ecology entails a revolution; the awareness it brings dictates a new life style, a new set of goals, a new relation to the soil. Few people realize this. That is why, although legislators like to consider themselves "environmentally conscious," nearly every piece of legislation enacted rapes the soil. No laws are passed to protect the soil. Every penny of gas tax, every inch of concrete, every kilowatt of electricity and every acre-foot of water used, draws us further into the arena of environmental destruction. Today we surmise that we have guarded against future ecological disasters. We have learned our lesson. We think we have stopped the desecration of the wilderness, but we are wrong. Private concerns and the government are already implementing plans to strip-mine the Kaipariwitts Plateau in southern Utah, to stretch power towers and slurry lines across unspoiled deserts, to pipe oil over the Alaskan tundra, destroying the permafrost, and consequently the life balance of the area. Caribou may be prevented from migrating. Plans have been formed to rape the Mineral King area of California, to build a road across the Escalante Wilderness, to string power towers and sewer lines across Canyons and divert streams from their natural courses for the Central Utah Project. Ten years from now, you may be hard |
