By Steven Foster – In 2017, as with any new year, following on the heels of the winter solstice, we enter into a period of inevitable change. In 2017, however, we might be wise to spell CHANGE in capital letters. It will likely be a year of positive change if you happen to be associated with the oil industry. Personally, I fear for the collective heritage of our vast lands in the Western United States. Hopefully those in power (I hesitate to call them leaders) will have the foresight to look at the long-term value of keeping lands for public good. That little personal worry, however is just minutia in a sea of uncertainty.
Everything waxes and wanes in cycles. It used to be that conservation was a conservative value. The importance of balancing commercial interests (greed) and environmental and health protection, is inherently conservation as conservatism. Protection of large swaths of wilderness and preservation of culturally important areas is also a Republican idea.
In 1906, the Antiquities Act was created by Congress to give the Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, the power to create national monuments to protect sites for the common good. Before it was a national park, the Grand Canyon was protected under the Antiquities Act. Other national parks whose value was first realized under the Antiquities Act include the Petrified Forest National Park and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, Pinnacle National Park in California, Zion National Park in Utah and Acadia National Park in Maine, to name a few. The creation of public national parks is a uniquely American invention born of conservatism. The conservation-minded conservative, Richard Nixon, created both the Endangered Species Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, because it was the Right thing to do.
These are big, broad sweeping policy concepts that fall under our collective human trust; political persuasion is irrelevant. Be aware of the air you breathe, the water you drink and that thin veneer covering our planet called the atmosphere. Each of the past three years we have taken a giant leap forward in warming the atmosphere with record hot years, one record year after another. We have made baby steps by signing the Paris Climate Accord, working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cutting coal consumption.
This year, 2017, promises to be a record year in uncertain collective human behavior that will determine our fate. In 2017, visit a national park while they still exist. Happy New Year!