SOME WISE WORDS FROM ‘BASIN & RANGE WATCH’

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Here is an excerpt from a letter we just received from  Kevin and Laura at Basin & Range Watch. I urge you to check out their web site (posted below) and we hope to include more coverage of this very critical issue in the next Zephyr…JS

Seems like 20 or 30 years ago, folks were concerned about protecting their local places, that specific mountain, the river nearby, those particular named canyons near where they lived, and the wilderness they hiked in. Today the shift among environmentalists has highlighted the global, the abstract, even the corporate model of “saving the Earth.”  We are often lectured by this new hybrid of industrial green energy environmentalists about how our attempts to slow down these large industrial energy developments will expedite the warming of the planet and the extinction of the polar bear. We find it ludicrous that these same people would support actions that could lead to the extinction of species like the desert tortoise in an attempt to save the polar bear. Who told them that they were justified in choosing which species get to survive and which do not? Our position is that the destruction of desert ecosystems, which have been proven to be excellent resources for storing vast quantities of carbon, will only speed up the potential habitat loss for the polar bear. Climate is, after all, a global system. 

Kevin Emmerich  & Laura Cunningham

Basin and Range Watch

www.basinandrangewatch.org