I have been trying to assess not so much what has gone wrong with environmentalists’ approach but what needs to be done about it. I have always thought the most important advice I ever got was "Be careful what you ask for." In hindsight, the argument for recreational development instead of extractive development was far too successful, perhaps because we held a nostalgic and archaic view of tourism and recreation.

The game has changed and who could have predicted things like computers, the Internet, the equity refugees, the new millionaires and all the other factors that have turned tourism into a nightmare? Like many people I came to the west in 1975 to spend a few years as a ski bum. I became part of the conservation movement when I saw what was happening on the public domain and even got involved in land use planning when I testified for the Jackson Hole Scenic Area Bill in 1977.

The first wilderness activists I met were anti-futurists. 1984 and 2001 hadn't happened yet, and these people were pretty sure civilization, as we knew it wouldn't exist by the end of the century. I remember being asked at an international Greenpeace meeting a few years ago what the mission statement for Earth First! was. I had to think, because we didn't really have one, but my response was that we were trying to preserve as much of the natural world so that it would survive when our civilization collapsed. Their European jaws dropped as they pondered that statement. They knew what we were talking about, but were amazed by its audacity.

You can see this philosophy clearly in the earlier statements of Dave Foreman and other apocalyptic ecologists. He wanted us to buy an old mine shaft for a bomb shelter for the coming nuclear war. Of course until the 70s, people didn't usually move into the wilderness, they just went for a visit, even if that visit, like mine, lasted for eight years. By the time I decided to leave Jackson in 1983, I owned two trailer houses and a half-acre in Driggs Idaho, where I was building a house, two cars, a truck and a motorhome. I was engaged to be married and was planning to move to Pinedale to escape the influx oh high-end recreators, trust funders and a third grand jury into the local marijuana trade. Even though it was the law I was fleeing, I did feel guilty for my attempts to get a piece of the Rocky Mountain pie, even though everyone was doing it.

The real irony of it was that all of these happy go lucky ski bums were now working two jobs and had little time to enjoy their surroundings. They abandoned time-consuming wilderness experiences for weekend gravity sports. These sports attracted more and more people. The wilderness became a playground for the wealthy, and the player made a bundle in real estate. The latest fad here in Missoula is "flipping" houses, and it resembles the day trading fad of a decade ago. Easy Money! No risks. Yeah, right.

We can blame John Denver and Ed Abbey for all of this if we want, but this is happening world wide, with summer homes being built in the forest of Kazakhstan where wild relatives of the apple family were first discovered. I watched them going up willy-nilly in Vladivostok a few short years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Everyone since Jesus who has any money wants to have a place in the country, but now with cheap air travel and more roads the sky is the limit when you consider location. Utah, Wyoming, and Montana are now on the outskirts of New York and Bombay. All you need is the dough, and the planet is awash in money these days. I remember having to save a year for a Mexico trip, now I can afford to go down to Cancun for a weekend even on a meager environmentalist salary.

So now what? I just turned fifty-one and most of my friends in the wilderness movement now own property, drive big cars, many have kids and some have second homes. The last generation of activists grew up on Pew grants, and now they have boring jobs and were pretty much worthless anyway.

There is a big gap now between Ed Abbey's generation, my generation and the present generation of spoiled, over parented activists. Forever the optimists, I do believe the war in Iraq and the growing consensus on Global Warming will have an effect on this situation.

I no longer have faith that our civilization will collapse in time, but I do think the world is on the brink of discovering the limitations of the planet’s ability to withstand the abuse of the past ten thousand years. We certainly are seeing the limits of our military power, and in China we see a looming threat to our economic superiority. It will be almost impossible for Americans to continue to live the subsidized lifestyle made possible by the suffering of others and the plundering of the planet.

It's only a matter of time. I still believe that going gonzo on their Asses is still the best medicine. Environmentalists will never take political power. If we do, we will cease to be environmentalists. Ed Abbey is still the best example of what is good about our movement. While it is important to work on solutions, such as more wilderness legislation and habitat protection, our greatest power is the strength and force of our message. This will never be a populist message, but it can and does resonate with a growing number of people around the world. The greatest danger I see is our becoming complicit in this whole mess, and this is just what I see happening and I am glad Stiles had the courage to point this out in his "Greening of Wilderne$$" story.

We need not wear sackcloth and flog ourselves, but we must always remember how important our message is. The future is impossible to predict, but even if we finally get our flying solar cars, this too will cause more problems for wilderness. We need to go back to Aldo Leopold's vision of wilderness not as a playground, but as a sanctuary for nature and a place for solitude, and the source of our very existence.

It may not work, but its still the right thing to do.