The problem is the mindset that there is no need to conserve, our
society as a whole is wasteful and is squandering resources. State and local governments tell us conserve water but don't practice what they preach. Parks are watered daily and grass is cut short, while they tell us to water twice a week and cut the grass long. The touted shale sources cannot be developed without laying waste to areas people already call home. There are numerous examples in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico add Pennsylvania. The oil and gas in the shale in the Eastern Utah can only happen by reducing water available to 40 million people and growing. It is a waste to use natural gas to produce electricity, and the pollution emitted by fracking makes it no better than coal (methane, carcinogens, and neurotoxins). The "halliburton exemption" is proof of its polluting nature. Many of these like Tar Sands uses nearly as much energy as it produces. Erik
My opinion is that if someday we need to use every last drop of oil, then I guess it will happen. But that time is literally hundreds of years away, based on known energy reserves. Meanwhile, it's vital that we protect some vital resources, our pristine environment, clear skies and the water we need. Those oil tracts wouldn't make much difference in our overall energy use, but nobody can truly restore nature once it's plundered and we aren't about to magically get more water. -- Joe
------------------------------ On Sat, Aug 24, 2013 9:05 AM MDT Siegfried Jachmann wrote:
I agree about the water. We're being asked to conserve already. We're trying to spread the same amount of water to a growing population. There is an ongoing advertising campaign asking us to conserve. That affects the quality of life. What we need currently is more water infrastructure. We need more dams.
Whether we need the oil and gas RIGHT NOW becomes a mute point. As Chuck and I said, in the face of an ever growing population, and that is world-wide, sooner or later we will need to tap all available resources or become a third-world world. We can exist on less than what we consume but as a nation, do we really want to?
Oil and gas are still the best resources for our country. We have not developed a more efficient fuel for cars than gasoline. The additives currently being used add cost and decrease efficiency. We have an ever increasing demand for these resources. I'm not saying I like the alternative, not at all. I'm looking to the future and saying, this is the face of reality, this is the road we're going down.
On Sat, Aug 24, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Erik Hansen <erikhansen@thebluezone.net>wrote:
It is a false assumption to say we need these resources now, renewable sources are being largely ignored. Water is a more important resource than oil and gas in the SW, this shortage is here now.
At some point in time as the population continues to grow, we will need to
access those resources. I think it's a false sense of stewardship to protect some of the areas now protected. We have need for some of those resources now.
On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com>wrote:
You are mixing up wilderness protection with national parks, Chuck. Parts of national parks are managed for wilderness values but the NPS is also charged with providing for visitors as well as protecting resources. There will be no industrial development in national parks, as mandated by the Park Service's Organic Act. The tracts proposed for development are not in parks. But many of them have been found to have qualities of roadlessness, solitude, and other factord that could qualify them for wilderness protection. One of Utah's most precious resources is its pristine wilderness, which should be protected for the future. -- Joe
------------------------------ On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 8:13 PM MDT Larry Holmes wrote:
Chuck, that could almost apply to any place in Nevada. 73
Sent from my iPad
On Aug 23, 2013, at 4:42 PM, Chuck Hards <chuck.hards@gmail.com> wrote:
Affordable energy is an actual need for a lot of people, too, Joe.
Look, I'm not a "drill, baby, drill" advocate. But likewise I haven't found a lot of solitude in most of the National Parks I've visited, at least during 3 seasons of the year. I'm sure you would be mostly alone in January in most of them. They are typically crawling with thousands of people, all crammed into small spaces around the edges of the cordoned-off vistas. The places where visitors are allowed are not wilderness anymore.
You want solitude? Let's go to an isolated place here in the west I know of, about 70 miles north of Battle Mountain, Nevada. Not a foreign tourist, group of bicyclists, or family of of loud kids and dogs, for miles. Just the occassional cow and coyote. And no drilling rigs. No amazing red-rock formations either, but the sky is pretty darn dark.
On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 3:06 PM, Joe Bauman <josephmbauman@yahoo.com
wrote:
And someday the sun will become a planetary nova. But looking at everything from that sort of standpoint is not helpful for our
generation's
real dilemmas. Wilderness and solitude may be actual needs for some people, including me. -- Joe
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