Full Transcript for Walking Post podcast 59: Trails in the US under threat?

of the 00:04:26.279 --> 00:04:29.720 United States. I've been to 43 of our 63 national 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:32.259 parks in the United States. I've been going to 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.899 national parks for over four decades now. And 00:04:34.899 --> 00:04:37.279 I've worked in two of them, Denali in Alaska 00:04:37.279 --> 00:04:40.899 and Grand Teton in Wyoming. And yes, for those 00:04:40.899 --> 00:04:43.480 of you wondering, it is and always has been Denali 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:45.800 and never should have been the other name. And 00:04:45.800 --> 00:04:48.819 I enjoy natural places. I was on a hike here 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.240 yesterday with my friend here near Bucamanga. 00:04:51.579 --> 00:04:55.680 I enjoy exploring both cities and natural places 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:58.399 wherever I am. I don't really know a lot about 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:01.560 Colombia. I guess being from the UK and having 00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:04.100 spent most of my life in North America, Colombia 00:05:04.100 --> 00:05:07.100 to me is soccer and a little bit of baseball. 00:05:07.339 --> 00:05:11.779 So what's it like for hiking? I would correct 00:05:11.779 --> 00:05:14.480 that. It is soccer and then soccer and then soccer 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.139 and then maybe a little bit of baseball. It is 00:05:18.139 --> 00:05:20.720 really football, of course, as they call it here. 00:05:20.819 --> 00:05:24.779 It is a passion. My friend plays at a local league, 00:05:24.819 --> 00:05:27.220 so I went to his game last night. It's always 00:05:27.220 --> 00:05:30.019 going on somewhere, somehow. Every bar, every 00:05:30.019 --> 00:05:32.519 restaurant has a television on with the football 00:05:32.519 --> 00:05:35.959 game on for the day. One thing, I am learning 00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:40.079 so much here because our... world is so Europe 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:43.459 North America centric that I didn't realize how 00:05:43.459 --> 00:05:45.920 massive these countries are you know on a map 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:48.519 they look so tiny but you could drive I mean 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:50.620 part of it's the bad roads but also the size 00:05:50.620 --> 00:05:53.160 of the country you could drive for 25 hours and 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:55.480 still be in Colombia I mean it's a very large 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:59.540 country and very diverse I learned for instance 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:02.720 once I was here that the By some arguments, the 00:06:02.720 --> 00:06:05.040 deepest and largest canyon in the world, but 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:06.600 I guess it depends how you're measuring, where 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:09.139 you're measuring from, is here. I went to Chikamucha. 00:06:09.529 --> 00:06:11.910 It is up there with the Grand Canyon in terms 00:06:11.910 --> 00:06:15.689 of grandeur and depth and scope and scale. I 00:06:15.689 --> 00:06:17.910 had never heard of Chicamocha. There are these 00:06:17.910 --> 00:06:20.689 beautiful little mountain towns dotting the hillside 00:06:20.689 --> 00:06:22.810 that haven't changed much since the Spanish built 00:06:22.810 --> 00:06:27.110 them in the 1600s. It's a much more diverse country 00:06:27.110 --> 00:06:29.569 than I would have thought. And spending time 00:06:29.569 --> 00:06:32.329 in Peru, all we ever learned about as far as 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:34.910 ancient cultures there was the Inca and Machu 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:37.939 Picchu. But I went to the town of Corral, which 00:06:37.939 --> 00:06:40.819 is the oldest town in the Americas. It was built 00:06:40.819 --> 00:06:43.680 over 5 ,000 years ago, 4 ,000 years before the 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.480 Incas showed up. And they had pyramids and all 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:49.079 of this infrastructure. And so there are many 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:51.360 things like that. Unfortunately, of course, when 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:53.759 the Spanish got here, disease and other things 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:55.939 wiped out most of the people. But one of the 00:06:55.939 --> 00:06:57.920 places I went to here in Colombia was Guane, 00:06:58.060 --> 00:07:01.120 which is the name of an ancient culture here 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:05.110 that, again, had amazing... technology for 5 00:07:05.110 --> 00:07:10.970 ,000 years ago. So it's a much more diverse country 00:07:10.970 --> 00:07:13.170 than I would have thought and has a very rich 00:07:13.170 --> 00:07:16.470 history. And I guess beyond the human history, 00:07:16.670 --> 00:07:19.569 I would imagine that the flora and fauna are 00:07:19.569 --> 00:07:23.100 very different too? Yes. I'm surprised how many 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:25.240 animals somehow made it from South America, North 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:27.879 America, or vice versa. But yes, I've seen some 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:30.560 very strange birds here and some other interesting 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:32.800 animals here. And of course, they have llamas 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:36.860 and alpacas and other things like there are wild 00:07:36.860 --> 00:07:38.639 guinea pigs here, which, you know, in the United 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:40.939 States, they're just domesticated pets. But also 00:07:40.939 --> 00:07:44.079 people grow them on their farms as food. It's 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:46.160 a rather expensive meal in a local restaurant 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:48.459 to order guinea pig. And there's not much meat 00:07:48.459 --> 00:07:50.800 on the bone from what I understand. I was a little 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:53.199 grossed out by the concept because I didn't think 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:56.180 to eat one. But yeah, it's a meal here. Sand 00:07:56.180 --> 00:07:58.300 Hill, which is a few hours south of here where 00:07:58.300 --> 00:08:01.620 I was, the big local snack is ants. You can buy 00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.199 little containers of ants and snack on them like 00:08:04.199 --> 00:08:06.579 you would peanuts. Is there much of an infrastructure

00:08:06.579 --> 00:08:10.209 for hiking? I mean, are there lots of... marked 00:08:10.209 --> 00:08:14.490 trails and that kind of thing? Yes and no. I 00:08:14.490 --> 00:08:16.189 mean, there are trails, but they're not like 00:08:16.189 --> 00:08:18.689 you would see in a national park in the United 00:08:18.689 --> 00:08:22.930 States. There are wilder places. A few of the 00:08:22.930 --> 00:08:25.490 hikes I have been on were like skirting people's 00:08:25.490 --> 00:08:28.189 farms. You know, you're walking next to a barbed 00:08:28.189 --> 00:08:30.350 wire fence half the time, or you have cows coming 00:08:30.350 --> 00:08:32.960 up to you because you're actually... on someone's 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:35.659 ranch or farm. But then there's wilder places, 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:37.139 you know, to go up into the mountains, which 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:39.600 I'm doing on Sunday going to. They have a special 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.360 kind of mountain lake here that exists only in 00:08:42.360 --> 00:08:46.759 the Andean highlands, which has its own plant 00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:49.940 and animal ecosystem around these lakes. So I'm 00:08:49.940 --> 00:08:52.440 curious to see that. And that looks from the 00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:53.779 pictures and what I've heard from people who 00:08:53.779 --> 00:08:55.860 have been there is very isolated and rugged. 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:58.919 So when you go to these places, do you write 00:08:58.919 --> 00:09:01.120 about them? Do you take photos? What's the... 00:09:01.370 --> 00:09:05.409 Or is it just for the heck of it? I enjoyed the 00:09:05.409 --> 00:09:07.730 moment and the heck of it. But I also, yes, I 00:09:07.730 --> 00:09:10.710 do take a lot of photos and then write about 00:09:10.710 --> 00:09:12.909 them for my own enjoyment. But then, as I said, 00:09:12.929 --> 00:09:15.190 I just created my own YouTube channel, Walt's 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:18.669 Wanderings, which is everything from places I 00:09:18.669 --> 00:09:21.830 have been, people I have met. I did one a few 00:09:21.830 --> 00:09:24.769 weeks ago on my last trip to Europe. I discovered 00:09:24.769 --> 00:09:27.750 that a ancestor of mine created the Statue of 00:09:27.750 --> 00:09:30.049 Liberty, which just blew me away that no one 00:09:30.049 --> 00:09:36.000 had ever mentioned this. my Waltz Wanderings 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:38.340 episodes about discovering that about the Statue 00:09:38.340 --> 00:09:40.700 of Liberty and then learning all about the Statue 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:42.620 of Liberty and the importance it's played in 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:45.879 America and the world as a symbol of freedom 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:48.500 and liberty. But that was kind of amazing. So 00:09:48.500 --> 00:09:51.840 I did that episode and I'm working on one now 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:54.159 about a book that I'm working on about American 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:56.799 conservationists who nobody knows anything about. 00:09:57.259 --> 00:09:59.700 So I wanted to go ahead and do a Waltz Wandering 00:09:59.700 --> 00:10:02.340 episode about Margaret Murie. who I think should 00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:04.980 be up there with John Muir in terms of people 00:10:04.980 --> 00:10:08.340 who did so much to save wild lands in the United 00:10:08.340 --> 00:10:11.779 States. When she was up in her 70s, the Alaska 00:10:11.779 --> 00:10:14.840 pipeline was being built, and she was thinking 00:10:14.840 --> 00:10:18.299 she was over her crusading conservationist days, 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:20.720 but then President Jimmy Carter called a conference 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:23.919 at the White House with a bunch of environmentalists 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:26.659 and do -gooders, people like John Denver, and 00:10:26.659 --> 00:10:29.690 said, What can we do to make sure that Alaska 00:10:29.690 --> 00:10:33.009 does not become just a vast oil field with this 00:10:33.009 --> 00:10:36.350 pipeline being built? And who could we send to 00:10:36.350 --> 00:10:39.049 Alaska? And then we went, Margaret Meary. And 00:10:39.049 --> 00:10:41.909 so up in her 70s, she got in a small plane with 00:10:41.909 --> 00:10:43.929 a pilot, although she hated flying, and flew 00:10:43.929 --> 00:10:46.990 around Alaska for months marking up maps of land 00:10:46.990 --> 00:10:49.690 she said should be saved. And then she went and 00:10:49.690 --> 00:10:52.320 argued those maps through Congress. And thanks 00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:54.419 largely to her efforts, obviously other people 00:10:54.419 --> 00:10:58.419 did stuff, but she created seven new national 00:10:58.419 --> 00:11:01.159 parks in Alaska. There are now eight. Tripled 00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:04.240 the size of Denali and saved an area of Alaska 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:07.500 larger than the state of California. And yet 00:11:07.500 --> 00:11:11.259 no one's ever heard of her or given her due for 00:11:11.259 --> 00:11:14.779 all that she did to save wild spaces. Speaking 00:11:14.779 --> 00:11:19.230 of wild spaces, that... narrative, I guess, going 00:11:19.230 --> 00:11:23.250 way, way back, has it always been built towards 00:11:23.250 --> 00:11:26.409 improving these all the time? Or has there been 00:11:26.409 --> 00:11:30.009 kind of an up and down where it's been under 00:11:30.009 --> 00:11:32.549 threat, and then it's good again, and then it's 00:11:32.549 --> 00:11:36.409 under threat? Is it constantly changing? It is 00:11:36.409 --> 00:11:38.830 constantly changing. It's constantly been a seesaw. 00:11:39.090 --> 00:11:42.129 And we've gone through some really good periods 00:11:42.129 --> 00:11:44.269 of people like President Theodore Roosevelt, 00:11:44.350 --> 00:11:47.460 who did so much to save so many wild spaces when 00:11:47.460 --> 00:11:49.759 he was president, really pushed things forward. 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:51.960 Although he was no longer president when the 00:11:51.960 --> 00:11:54.200 National Park

Service and National Forest Service 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:56.539 were created, you can draw a pretty straight 00:11:56.539 --> 00:11:58.620 line from all the work he did to those things 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:01.700 happening. There's always been a conflict even 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:04.139 within the national parks of are they here to 00:12:04.139 --> 00:12:06.980 be saved or are they here for the tourists, for 00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:09.799 people to visit? And Margaret Murie's argument 00:12:09.799 --> 00:12:12.940 in Alaska was we have enough places where visitors 00:12:12.940 --> 00:12:15.620 can go and tourists can take pictures. There's 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:17.620 a number of national parks in Alaska that have 00:12:17.620 --> 00:12:21.720 no access whatsoever unless you fly in or hike 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:24.519 in. I went to Gates of the Arctic National Park, 00:12:24.639 --> 00:12:27.100 which is the least visited national park there 00:12:27.100 --> 00:12:29.879 is. You have to hike five miles from the nearest 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:32.799 road just to get to the park. And once you're 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:35.179 there, there is nothing. It's wilderness. There 00:12:35.179 --> 00:12:38.279 is no restroom. The visitor center is 200 miles 00:12:38.279 --> 00:12:40.299 south. Even the visitor center doesn't want to 00:12:40.299 --> 00:12:43.879 be in the park. And it's just space. And her 00:12:43.879 --> 00:12:46.019 thing was, we've got enough places that, you 00:12:46.019 --> 00:12:48.620 know, people could be. We need places that wild 00:12:48.620 --> 00:12:51.100 things can be. And so that's always been a conflict. 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:54.320 At times, people have wanted to drill here or 00:12:54.320 --> 00:12:56.740 mine there or, you know, change this whole thing. 00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:00.100 Oh, we need more motels in Yosemite. Things like 00:13:00.100 --> 00:13:03.840 that, which most of the parks now. the hotel 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:06.019 has been grandfathered in but if it weren't already 00:13:06.019 --> 00:13:07.899 there they would never have permitted another 00:13:07.899 --> 00:13:10.480 hotel or another restaurant in most of the national 00:13:10.480 --> 00:13:13.100 parks saying no we should just leave what we 00:13:13.100 --> 00:13:16.200 have here alone so it's always been a conflict 00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:19.299 sometimes worse than others the murray family 00:13:19.299 --> 00:13:22.320 had been fighting the alaska wildlife refuge 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:25.740 since 1956 they first proposed setting aside 00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:29.000 this chunk of land And then just recently, again, 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:31.720 this administration proposed opening it to oil 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:34.100 drilling again. But that oil drilling argument 00:13:34.100 --> 00:13:37.820 with the wildlife refuge has gone on since 1956. 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:41.399 How does that resolve or does it not? Does it 00:13:41.399 --> 00:13:45.019 just keep going backwards and forwards? pretty 00:13:45.019 --> 00:13:47.000 much keeps going backwards and forwards. People 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.179 along the way try to do things to protect these 00:13:50.179 --> 00:13:53.320 areas more than they have been. But I find it 00:13:53.320 --> 00:13:55.899 interesting that when this administration opened 00:13:55.899 --> 00:13:59.159 the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling contracts, 00:13:59.460 --> 00:14:03.100 no one bid. The oil companies are kind of tired 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:05.759 of this, you know, back and forth. And are you 00:14:05.759 --> 00:14:08.059 going to spend $10 million or whatever to... 00:14:08.379 --> 00:14:10.460 investigate where you should be drilling there 00:14:10.460 --> 00:14:12.820 when the next administration or the next Congress 00:14:12.820 --> 00:14:14.779 might go, no, you're not drilling here. What 00:14:14.779 --> 00:14:16.919 are you thinking? And they can't be bothered 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:19.059 anymore. There's a number of mines in Alaska. 00:14:19.259 --> 00:14:22.360 Alaska has a ton of resources. And when I was 00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:24.039 there, there was a controversy over the Pebble 00:14:24.039 --> 00:14:26.259 Mine, as it was called, where they could get 00:14:26.259 --> 00:14:29.360 a lot of the rare earth metals that we use in 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:31.820 cell phones. And people were like, we shouldn't 00:14:31.820 --> 00:14:33.500 be so dependent on other countries for these 00:14:33.500 --> 00:14:36.559 things. We should be doing our own. And the Alaskans, 00:14:36.559 --> 00:14:39.330 who are an interesting dichotomy in and of themselves 00:14:39.330 --> 00:14:42.570 most of them are like hunters and republicans 00:14:42.570 --> 00:14:45.929 but also into saving their beautiful state and 00:14:45.929 --> 00:14:47.690 they're like no you're not coming to our state 00:14:47.690 --> 00:14:50.730 to rip out our resources leave these places alone 00:14:50.730 --> 00:14:54.909 so it's an interesting contrast between what 00:14:54.909 --> 00:14:57.289 we're trying to save and the resources that are 00:14:57.289 --> 00:15:00.210 you know sitting under our feet but i like the 00:15:00.210 --> 00:15:03.809 attitude of well you can get your magnesium or 00:15:03.809 --> 00:15:05.590 whatever it is someplace else, you don't have 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:07.789 to come and rip up this pristine wilderness to 00:15:07.789 --> 00:15:10.429 do that. Or maybe we should be making cell phones 00:15:10.429 --> 00:15:14.009 with something not quite so rare. Is that something 00:15:14.009 --> 00:15:17.769 that's more important in some places than others? 00:15:17.870 --> 00:15:21.509 Is Alaska under more threat than, say, Arizona 00:15:21.509 --> 00:15:25.529 or California? I would say because Alaska does 00:15:25.529 --> 00:15:28.590 have so many resources. Obviously, a lot of oil. 00:15:28.850 --> 00:15:31.090 I was amazed when I was there. I

learned how 00:15:31.090 --> 00:15:33.769 carefully and cleanly they did the pipeline. 00:15:34.269 --> 00:15:36.870 It's an amazing marvel of engineering to make 00:15:36.870 --> 00:15:38.629 sure that they don't have oil spills and they 00:15:38.629 --> 00:15:41.269 don't have problems. But then, yes, other areas 00:15:41.269 --> 00:15:43.629 now, you know, under threat in southern Utah 00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:48.039 are. Bears Ears National Monument and the Escalante 00:15:48.039 --> 00:15:50.820 Staircase National Monument because somebody 00:15:50.820 --> 00:15:53.639 thinks there's rare minerals under that. But 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:56.639 again, I wonder what company is going to spend 00:15:56.639 --> 00:15:59.860 millions of dollars starting a mine there, knowing 00:15:59.860 --> 00:16:03.299 how outraged everyone is over that. And plus 00:16:03.299 --> 00:16:06.759 the PR fallout from that. People have enough 00:16:06.759 --> 00:16:09.299 reason to dislike oil companies. Exxon does not 00:16:09.299 --> 00:16:10.720 want to be the ones going, yeah, we're the ones 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:12.840 ripping up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Blame 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:16.500 us. There is some accountability to the public 00:16:16.500 --> 00:16:19.320 for certain things, not often, but it does happen. 00:16:19.440 --> 00:16:22.100 So I think that might help protect some of these 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:25.059 areas. But in terms of what is being done to 00:16:25.059 --> 00:16:26.700 protect, one thing that the Biden administration 00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:30.940 did was give joint titles, so to speak. put their 00:16:30.940 --> 00:16:33.279 names on the title for several Indian tribes 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:36.159 in the area, thinking that that would add a layer 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:40.259 of protection to Bears Ears and Escalante, saying, 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:42.779 you know, this is now tribal land, which does 00:16:42.779 --> 00:16:46.100 have more protection under the law in many instances. 00:16:46.399 --> 00:16:48.639 But what they are finding out with the current 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:50.320 administration is they don't much care about 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:53.320 the law. So they're still wanting to bulldoze 00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:55.700 over this. And the tribes are filing lawsuits 00:16:55.700 --> 00:16:59.509 and trying to set up, you know. I think it was 00:16:59.509 --> 00:17:01.629 a smart move to try to include them in this because 00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:04.930 often federal lands can be bulldozed faster than 00:17:04.930 --> 00:17:08.549 tribal lands can. But still, there's a bumper 00:17:08.549 --> 00:17:11.130 sticker that I saw on the Indian reservations 00:17:11.130 --> 00:17:14.049 in the Dakotas and I've seen in Arizona that 00:17:14.049 --> 00:17:15.710 says, of course, you can trust your government. 00:17:15.789 --> 00:17:19.460 Just ask any Indian. And so they have kind of 00:17:19.460 --> 00:17:21.519 a history of getting, how can I put this politely, 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:23.900 screwed over by the U .S. government. So it wouldn't 00:17:23.900 --> 00:17:26.220 be the first time, but they are fighting it. 00:17:26.259 --> 00:17:28.400 Obviously, other groups, the National Resources 00:17:28.400 --> 00:17:31.240 Defense Council and League of Conservation Voters, 00:17:31.319 --> 00:17:34.160 Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, all those groups 00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:36.940 are fighting this as well. And with some of this 00:17:36.940 --> 00:17:40.259 stuff, all we can hope is that they will file 00:17:40.259 --> 00:17:42.559 enough lawsuits and the Indian tribes will file 00:17:42.559 --> 00:17:44.980 enough lawsuits that it'll run out the clock 00:17:44.980 --> 00:17:47.589 on this administration. And whoever comes in 00:17:47.589 --> 00:17:50.130 next will go, no, no, no, you can't. No, don't 00:17:50.130 --> 00:17:53.430 even think about it. And I'm hoping that also 00:17:53.430 --> 00:17:56.690 the governor of Utah was in favor of this. The 00:17:56.690 --> 00:18:00.349 senator from Utah was in favor of this. But no 00:18:00.349 --> 00:18:02.849 one else in Utah is. Again, like the Alaskans, 00:18:02.849 --> 00:18:05.480 they tend to be. you know, conservative voters, 00:18:05.599 --> 00:18:07.319 supporters of the Republican Party and things 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:09.740 like that. But they still value their beautiful 00:18:09.740 --> 00:18:12.940 land more than mineral reserves. And they're 00:18:12.940 --> 00:18:15.380 like, no, there's a huge opposition in Utah to 00:18:15.380 --> 00:18:17.700 this. So it could happen that the governor and 00:18:17.700 --> 00:18:21.160 the senator get voted out because of their support 00:18:21.160 --> 00:18:23.839 for ruining parts of Utah. I don't know how much 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:25.680 time you spent in Utah, but they are famous for 00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:28.539 having the closest cluster of national parks. 00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:31.119 The Big Five, as they're called. There are some 00:18:31.119 --> 00:18:35.519 amazing lands in Utah. And I have said driving 00:18:35.519 --> 00:18:38.420 around like Moab, Utah, you could pick like any 00:18:38.420 --> 00:18:40.420 40 square mile area and go, that's a beautiful 00:18:40.420 --> 00:18:42.759 national park. You know, it's like most of Southern 00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:45.240 Utah, you could just draw into national parks 00:18:45.240 --> 00:18:47.960 because it's all spectacular. Escalante certainly 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:51.859 could be, Bears Ears could be. So I hope that 00:18:51.859 --> 00:18:55.079 we get some people in who will try to protect 00:18:55.079 --> 00:18:57.460 these areas rather than just look for minerals. 00:18:57.660 --> 00:19:01.720 Is the opposition to it just in... areas where 00:19:01.720 --> 00:19:05.099 they have the parks? Or does it include, you 00:19:05.099 --> 00:19:09.220 know, like people in Chicago, are they outraged 00:19:09.220

--> 00:19:11.319 about what's happening to the national parks? 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:14.019 Or is it, well, it's not in my backyard, so I 00:19:14.019 --> 00:19:17.160 don't care? It depends. I mean, obviously, a 00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:18.740 lot of people in Chicago are going about their 00:19:18.740 --> 00:19:20.619 lives, but the people in Chicago who value the 00:19:20.619 --> 00:19:24.490 national parks and travel to them care. And there's 00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:26.509 another problem that's going on in our national 00:19:26.509 --> 00:19:28.950 parks is that they have really cut back on the 00:19:28.950 --> 00:19:30.869 number of rangers they have. They've really cut 00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:33.450 back on the services they've had. They've really 00:19:33.450 --> 00:19:36.569 kind of messed up the national parks. And I talked 00:19:36.569 --> 00:19:38.950 to some park rangers who, you know, can't say 00:19:38.950 --> 00:19:41.029 this officially, but they actually think that 00:19:41.029 --> 00:19:44.130 this is deliberate to so screw up the national 00:19:44.130 --> 00:19:46.470 parks. Like, it's full of garbage anyway, and 00:19:46.470 --> 00:19:48.170 it's a mess, and it's just a traffic jam. We 00:19:48.170 --> 00:19:49.789 should go ahead and drill for oil in Yosemite. 00:19:50.349 --> 00:19:52.750 That it really is a deliberate attempt to so 00:19:52.750 --> 00:19:56.190 ruin the parks that they are not the valuable 00:19:56.190 --> 00:19:58.849 asset they once were. And then nobody will care 00:19:58.849 --> 00:20:01.410 if they become an oil field. So, yes, there is 00:20:01.410 --> 00:20:03.670 outrage about that all over the place. And when 00:20:03.670 --> 00:20:07.230 I went to Yosemite this past spring, just a one 00:20:07.230 --> 00:20:09.509 day trip, I was cat sitting for my cousin in 00:20:09.509 --> 00:20:11.490 Sacramento and I took a day trip to Yosemite. 00:20:11.630 --> 00:20:14.490 It was already a nightmare. The traffic was horrible. 00:20:14.609 --> 00:20:16.289 There was trash because no one was picking it 00:20:16.289 --> 00:20:20.589 up. I heard the shuttle bus driver. on uh swearing 00:20:20.589 --> 00:20:22.990 at our dispatcher about how bad things were like 00:20:22.990 --> 00:20:26.130 i can't take this anymore and if it's that bad 00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:27.690 in april i'm thinking what is it going to be 00:20:27.690 --> 00:20:30.829 like in august but obviously everybody on that 00:20:30.829 --> 00:20:32.630 bus and the other people i encountered in the 00:20:32.630 --> 00:20:35.950 park were there from chicago or kansas or alabama 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:38.349 or whatever who came to enjoy the beauty that 00:20:38.349 --> 00:20:41.450 is yosemite and it's hard to enjoy it when it's 00:20:41.799 --> 00:20:43.680 You couldn't find a parking place because the 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:46.000 traffic was bumper to bumper. And I couldn't 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:47.839 do most of the hikes I wanted to do because I 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:49.819 couldn't even get a shuttle bus to the trailhead, 00:20:49.920 --> 00:20:51.859 let alone drive to the trailhead because the 00:20:51.859 --> 00:20:54.799 traffic was already so bad. Is there also, you 00:20:54.799 --> 00:20:58.940 talk about things like minerals and oil, is there 00:20:58.940 --> 00:21:03.119 also the potential for land being taken away 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:06.400 for settlements and for expansion of housing? 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:10.019 Much less of that, because most of the national 00:21:10.019 --> 00:21:12.839 parks are far enough away from big cities that 00:21:12.839 --> 00:21:15.359 the chances of them getting encroached upon by 00:21:15.359 --> 00:21:17.920 housing developers, whatever, are small. But 00:21:17.920 --> 00:21:20.519 as I said, for years, it's been, you know, sacred 00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:22.519 space that you don't build more hotels there, 00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:24.720 you don't build, but that could happen where 00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:27.559 they build a resort in a national park. There's 00:21:27.559 --> 00:21:29.920 been talk of that. This administration is big 00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:33.339 on that as well, building resorts. So I could 00:21:33.339 --> 00:21:35.359 see that happening more than a housing development, 00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:38.680 but a big resort being built in some of these 00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:42.359 places that have for so long been set aside to 00:21:42.359 --> 00:21:44.640 not have those things. I found it interesting 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:46.660 in the research I'm doing about the Murie family, 00:21:46.740 --> 00:21:48.559 who, as I said, Margaret Murie helped create 00:21:48.559 --> 00:21:50.339 so many of the national parks in Alaska. But 00:21:50.339 --> 00:21:53.119 she and her husband, Olaus, moved to Jackson 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:56.160 Hole, Wyoming, before Grand Teton National Park 00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:58.779 was there. And within two years, the park was 00:21:58.779 --> 00:22:00.819 created. We're on the right side of that one. 00:22:00.900 --> 00:22:03.579 But it was getting developed. And John Rockefeller 00:22:03.579 --> 00:22:06.559 Jr. decided it shouldn't be. And he started buying 00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.000 up land to make sure that it never got developed. 00:22:09.339 --> 00:22:12.339 And I thought that was an amazing contribution 00:22:12.339 --> 00:22:16.039 for a really wealthy person. And if I were Elon 00:22:16.039 --> 00:22:18.940 Musk or Peter Thiel, I would rather have a big 00:22:18.940 --> 00:22:21.359 chunk of Grand Teton National Park named after 00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:24.849 me as John D. Rockefeller Jr. does. than have 00:22:24.849 --> 00:22:27.009 another zero in my bank account. You know, that 00:22:27.009 --> 00:22:29.069 to me would mean a lot more to be able to take 00:22:29.069 --> 00:22:31.529 my grandkids down this road and go, see this? 00:22:31.690 --> 00:22:34.690 I did this. I saved all this. And I

think that's, 00:22:34.690 --> 00:22:36.849 you know, an important thing. But there was a 00:22:36.849 --> 00:22:38.950 fight over Grand Teton. There were ranchers in 00:22:38.950 --> 00:22:41.029 the valley who did not want to move. They did 00:22:41.029 --> 00:22:43.730 not want a prohibition on hunting predators. 00:22:44.410 --> 00:22:46.150 You know, wolves and bears in particular. They 00:22:46.150 --> 00:22:48.690 had a lot of things they did not like about this. 00:22:48.789 --> 00:22:51.029 And the governor of Wyoming fiercely opposed 00:22:51.029 --> 00:22:52.789 putting this park there and what it would do 00:22:52.789 --> 00:22:55.809 to the ranching and things like that. And there 00:22:55.809 --> 00:22:58.289 is in the visitor center there reproduced part 00:22:58.289 --> 00:23:00.130 of a letter that he eventually wrote saying, 00:23:00.269 --> 00:23:02.890 I'm sorry I ever opposed this. This is the best 00:23:02.890 --> 00:23:06.049 thing that ever happened to Wyoming. So when 00:23:06.049 --> 00:23:09.109 people realize the benefits, one more little 00:23:09.109 --> 00:23:12.630 area to graze cattle versus preserving this incredibly 00:23:12.630 --> 00:23:16.140 beautiful. pristine spot, there's lots of places 00:23:16.140 --> 00:23:18.200 you can graze cattle. There isn't another set 00:23:18.200 --> 00:23:22.319 of Tetons anywhere on earth. And that's the priority 00:23:22.319 --> 00:23:26.279 that Alaskans and Utahns are given to their wild 00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:29.859 spaces now is we can drill for oil and we can 00:23:29.859 --> 00:23:32.079 look for minerals somewhere else, but where can 00:23:32.079 --> 00:23:35.000 you ever recreate this? It's taken a while to 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:36.839 clean up some of the national parks that had 00:23:36.839 --> 00:23:38.740 gone the wrong direction, including Yellowstone. 00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:41.660 If you look at pictures from the late 1800s, 00:23:41.660 --> 00:23:44.680 it's a mess. But they took down most of the buildings. 00:23:44.799 --> 00:23:47.539 They really restricted tourist activity. They 00:23:47.539 --> 00:23:49.680 certainly don't let you walk through a mud pot 00:23:49.680 --> 00:23:51.559 anymore, which there's pictures of people playing 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:54.519 in bubbling mud pots. And it saved the space 00:23:54.519 --> 00:23:57.960 for all of us to enjoy the way it was when it 00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:00.579 was found hundreds of years ago. Found by white 00:24:00.579 --> 00:24:03.079 people, I should say, obviously. The indigenous 00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:06.480 people knew about it long before that. So I think 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:09.579 we have an obligation to... not only ourselves 00:24:09.579 --> 00:24:11.740 to be able to go to Grand Teton or Yellowstone 00:24:11.740 --> 00:24:15.140 or Yosemite and enjoy what it is, but a bigger 00:24:15.140 --> 00:24:17.480 obligation to the people who come after us that 00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:19.819 in 100 years, people will be able to go to Yellowstone 00:24:19.819 --> 00:24:23.400 and still see the natural beauty and not have 00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:26.059 a shopping mall there. Every once in a while, 00:24:26.180 --> 00:24:29.140 I see a story or an article that I put in the 00:24:29.140 --> 00:24:34.299 news about friends of and different trusts buying 00:24:34.299 --> 00:24:37.700 up land for preservation. Is there Much of that. 00:24:37.759 --> 00:24:39.799 I mean, you mentioned Elon Musk. He could probably 00:24:39.799 --> 00:24:43.299 buy three states and turn it over to conservation. 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.819 There is some of that still. Not enough, obviously, 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:49.920 but there is some of that still. And as I mentioned, 00:24:50.019 --> 00:24:51.500 you know, when millionaires used to do stuff 00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:53.500 for national parks, the first director of the 00:24:53.500 --> 00:24:55.599 National Park Service was a guy named Stephen 00:24:55.599 --> 00:24:59.420 Mather, who made millions in California borax. 00:25:00.380 --> 00:25:02.819 in what is now death valley national park but 00:25:02.819 --> 00:25:05.500 he used to write letters to the director of the 00:25:05.500 --> 00:25:07.680 interior and other friends he had in washington 00:25:07.680 --> 00:25:09.079 going you know your national parks are pretty 00:25:09.079 --> 00:25:10.799 bad you really need to do something about this 00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:12.880 and finally the secretary of the interior said 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:15.079 stephen think you know a better job you can be 00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:17.180 director of the national park service and so 00:25:17.180 --> 00:25:19.819 he became the first director and he at times 00:25:19.819 --> 00:25:21.819 when he saw like wait it would be so much better 00:25:21.819 --> 00:25:23.720 if we had a road over here they're like well 00:25:23.720 --> 00:25:25.019 that's not part of the national park he's like 00:25:25.019 --> 00:25:27.430 fine I'll buy that land, give it to the National 00:25:27.430 --> 00:25:28.849 Park, and then we can put the road over there. 00:25:28.950 --> 00:25:31.250 So he would encourage his rich friends to buy 00:25:31.250 --> 00:25:33.670 and donate land. He would buy and donate land. 00:25:33.970 --> 00:25:36.930 So there has been that history over time, and 00:25:36.930 --> 00:25:39.609 there still is some of that now where coalitions 00:25:39.609 --> 00:25:41.910 will come together and try to preserve another 00:25:41.910 --> 00:25:45.480 chunk of land. But obviously, the amount of money 00:25:45.480 --> 00:25:47.880 that the Wilderness Society has versus the amount 00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:52.119 of money that Elon Musk has are not exactly equal. 00:25:52.420 --> 00:25:54.819 And yes, if he wanted to buy and build a data 00:25:54.819 --> 00:25:57.779 center right outside the gates of Yosemite, he 00:25:57.779 --> 00:25:59.480 has a lot more money to do that than the

Wilderness 00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:02.039 Society has to buy that land and try to set it 00:26:02.039 --> 00:26:04.200 aside. So that can't happen. But yes, it still 00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:07.299 goes on, but on a much smaller scale than the 00:26:07.299 --> 00:26:08.940 days when the robber barons used to actually 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:10.940 help us out instead of the other way around. 00:26:11.359 --> 00:26:14.700 Ted Turner. started buying huge tracts of land 00:26:14.700 --> 00:26:18.259 and not giving them the park service. He's keeping 00:26:18.259 --> 00:26:23.039 them, keeping them wild. And you can go and this 00:26:23.039 --> 00:26:25.460 is kind of like setting aside a national park 00:26:25.460 --> 00:26:28.420 for rich people, but you could go and spend a 00:26:28.420 --> 00:26:31.039 week or a month or whatever in one of these kind 00:26:31.039 --> 00:26:33.630 of private. parks and have it pretty much to 00:26:33.630 --> 00:26:35.329 yourself because not a lot of people can afford 00:26:35.329 --> 00:26:38.170 to do that. So I do have a little bit of an issue 00:26:38.170 --> 00:26:40.369 with that. Like it's a national park only for 00:26:40.369 --> 00:26:42.450 people who can afford to pay thousands of dollars 00:26:42.450 --> 00:26:44.910 to go there. But on the other hand, there are 00:26:44.910 --> 00:26:48.150 so few people going there that the wildlife can 00:26:48.150 --> 00:26:51.109 thrive. Because there aren't a lot of tourists 00:26:51.109 --> 00:26:53.750 and it's being left in a pretty much natural 00:26:53.750 --> 00:26:57.450 state where the bison can roam and the deer and 00:26:57.450 --> 00:26:59.950 the antelope can play. So it's like, is it necessarily 00:26:59.950 --> 00:27:02.890 a bad thing that we have private game reserves? 00:27:03.069 --> 00:27:04.970 But, you know, you mentioned being in the UK, 00:27:05.130 --> 00:27:06.930 that's how it used to be with the king and the 00:27:06.930 --> 00:27:10.049 duke. All these private game reserves, they could 00:27:10.049 --> 00:27:12.549 hunt their deer and stags there, but the common 00:27:12.549 --> 00:27:16.309 people couldn't. So I guess Ted Turner's argument 00:27:16.309 --> 00:27:19.710 is, well, anybody can go to Yosemite. Only certain 00:27:19.710 --> 00:27:21.670 people can go here, and that preserves this even 00:27:21.670 --> 00:27:25.269 better than the traffic jams in Yosemite. And 00:27:25.269 --> 00:27:28.309 you hope that over generations that gets turned 00:27:28.309 --> 00:27:32.930 over anyway to either the national parks or to 00:27:32.930 --> 00:27:36.129 the people or the states or whatever? Perhaps, 00:27:36.129 --> 00:27:38.650 you know, maybe that is the long term goal here. 00:27:38.789 --> 00:27:41.750 But I like the idea that Wallace Stegner called 00:27:41.750 --> 00:27:45.349 the national parks America's best idea. And it 00:27:45.349 --> 00:27:47.829 has been copied in so many other countries. I 00:27:47.829 --> 00:27:49.690 was amazed to find out, for instance, Colombia. 00:27:50.130 --> 00:27:52.289 We have 63 national parks in the United States. 00:27:52.289 --> 00:27:55.190 Colombia, a much smaller country, has 58 national 00:27:55.190 --> 00:27:58.710 parks. And that more and more countries, you 00:27:58.710 --> 00:28:00.690 know, set aside more and more land. And there's 00:28:00.690 --> 00:28:02.849 certainly in the UK a lot of land that used to 00:28:02.849 --> 00:28:04.630 belong to the prince or the duke or whatever. 00:28:05.180 --> 00:28:08.839 have become national parks. And it's our land. 00:28:09.019 --> 00:28:10.640 And that's one of the things that bothers me 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:12.900 about what's going on with the boundary waters 00:28:12.900 --> 00:28:15.819 in Michigan or Bears Ears or some of these other 00:28:15.819 --> 00:28:19.200 places under threat is that we own them. It should 00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:21.779 not be up to any one individual who decides what 00:28:21.779 --> 00:28:24.180 happens to them. If you and I and a bunch of 00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:26.519 other people are sharing a house and we decide 00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:29.680 to chip in and buy a big TV. When you move out, 00:28:29.740 --> 00:28:31.400 you don't get to take the TV or you don't get 00:28:31.400 --> 00:28:34.160 to break the TV. That's joint property of everybody 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:37.019 in the house. And you could ask our permission 00:28:37.019 --> 00:28:39.900 to do something with the TV or if you break it, 00:28:39.940 --> 00:28:42.359 it should be your responsibility to fix it. But 00:28:42.359 --> 00:28:45.700 taking the TV when you move out is theft and 00:28:45.700 --> 00:28:49.640 stealing natural resources that belong to the 00:28:49.640 --> 00:28:52.480 entire United States. The people of the United 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:54.900 States, not the government, the people of the 00:28:54.900 --> 00:28:58.319 United States is theft. And we have a right and 00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.740 an obligation to demand that you leave our TV 00:29:01.740 --> 00:29:04.619 alone. It's not yours to take. And one thing 00:29:04.619 --> 00:29:06.660 I learned in my researching about the Statue 00:29:06.660 --> 00:29:09.180 of Liberty that I didn't know before I went, 00:29:09.220 --> 00:29:11.059 there's a museum in Colmar, France, dedicated 00:29:11.059 --> 00:29:13.900 to Auguste Bertolti, the guy who built the Statue 00:29:13.900 --> 00:29:16.259 of Liberty, whose grandmother was from my family. 00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:18.579 He could not get the French government to pay 00:29:18.579 --> 00:29:21.380 for the statue. So he took up a collection among 00:29:21.380 --> 00:29:25.160 the French people to pay for the statue. And 00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:27.880 they did. And then when it came time to build 00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:30.420 the plinth, the base fort in New York Harbor, 00:29:30.619 --> 00:29:32.859 some wealthy people, including Andrew Carnegie 00:29:32.859 -->

00:29:35.640 and Joseph Pulitzer, offered to pay for it. And 00:29:35.640 --> 00:29:37.819 he goes, no, if the people of France paid for 00:29:37.819 --> 00:29:39.839 the statue, the people of the United States should 00:29:39.839 --> 00:29:43.359 pay for the base. And they did. So it was a gift 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:45.759 from the people of France to the people of the 00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:48.059 United States, not a gift from the government 00:29:48.059 --> 00:29:50.519 of France. to the government of the United States. 00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:54.039 And I like that concept. We often think the government 00:29:54.039 --> 00:29:56.240 and the people are interchangeable, but they're 00:29:56.240 --> 00:29:59.500 not. As I said, in Utah right now, the government 00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:02.180 of the state of Utah is like, yeah, let's drill, 00:30:02.519 --> 00:30:05.759 let's mine. And the people of the state of Utah 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:09.079 are like, no, not on our land. It is our land. 00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:12.099 Leave it alone. One of the big things with that 00:30:12.099 --> 00:30:15.740 is that once you start doing those things, reversing 00:30:15.740 --> 00:30:18.769 it becomes extremely difficult. How many years, 00:30:18.809 --> 00:30:20.490 as I said, I mean, they weren't even like drilling 00:30:20.490 --> 00:30:22.910 in Yellowstone, but how many years did it take 00:30:22.910 --> 00:30:26.309 to turn Yellowstone's clock back to where it 00:30:26.309 --> 00:30:29.329 was in a much better natural state than it was? 00:30:29.529 --> 00:30:32.410 And so, yes, if you were to mine, if you were 00:30:32.410 --> 00:30:35.710 to drill, how many decades, how many generations 00:30:35.710 --> 00:30:38.289 would it take to get it back anywhere near that? 00:30:38.369 --> 00:30:40.549 And there are certain things that cannot be replaced. 00:30:40.890 --> 00:30:42.809 I was talking to a friend of mine who's worked 00:30:42.809 --> 00:30:45.410 in Glacier National Park and is a big environmentalist 00:30:45.410 --> 00:30:48.799 guy. And he said. In that part of Utah, where 00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:51.640 it only rains, it is a desert, there is a thin 00:30:51.640 --> 00:30:54.559 layer of dirt that develops that helps seal in 00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:57.460 the moisture. So whatever water comes, stays, 00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:00.200 and nourishes the plants and the animals and 00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:03.319 things there. When they did some uranium mining 00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:06.200 in part of that part of Utah in the 1950s and 00:31:06.200 --> 00:31:09.180 60s, it destroyed that top layer, and you can 00:31:09.180 --> 00:31:11.220 still see the tire tracks from trucks from the 00:31:11.220 --> 00:31:16.279 1950s. destroys that top layer, which means it 00:31:16.279 --> 00:31:19.039 will take how many hundreds, thousands of years 00:31:19.039 --> 00:31:22.859 for that soil to be able to do its job nurturing 00:31:22.859 --> 00:31:25.839 the plants

and animals that are there. And all 00:31:25.839 --> 00:31:27.759 you're going to get is a little puddle in one 00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:30.480 spot instead of it spreading out the way it should 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:33.180 to nourish everything. I led hikes in Denali 00:31:33.180 --> 00:31:36.160 National Park. When I would get a group of people, 00:31:36.259 --> 00:31:38.519 I would say to them, how many of you have ever 00:31:38.519 --> 00:31:40.569 been to Phoenix, Arizona? And, of course, someone 00:31:40.569 --> 00:31:43.250 had. And I'd say, and when you got off the bus 00:31:43.250 --> 00:31:44.849 here today, didn't you look around and go, boy, 00:31:44.930 --> 00:31:46.990 this looks like Phoenix? And they'd be like, 00:31:47.130 --> 00:31:51.109 no, not at all. But it gets the same rainfall 00:31:51.109 --> 00:31:55.069 as Phoenix. Being a desert, the water lands, 00:31:55.230 --> 00:31:59.490 and most of what comes to Denali is snow. Same 00:31:59.490 --> 00:32:02.190 amount of precipitation, but it takes a very 00:32:02.190 --> 00:32:06.549 slow time to settle in. But being a desert, once 00:32:06.549 --> 00:32:09.309 you destroy what's there or it gets damaged, 00:32:09.849 --> 00:32:12.450 It's going to take a long time to heal. And that's 00:32:12.450 --> 00:32:14.049 why I would say to people, please stay on the 00:32:14.049 --> 00:32:16.410 path. You step off this path. It doesn't look 00:32:16.410 --> 00:32:18.690 that bad, but you have crushed the lichen and 00:32:18.690 --> 00:32:21.329 you have crushed the other underbrush there that 00:32:21.329 --> 00:32:23.950 literally could take 100 years or more to heal. 00:32:24.009 --> 00:32:27.250 You're one bootstep there. And I would point 00:32:27.250 --> 00:32:30.450 out there's a bad fire there in 1924, and you 00:32:30.450 --> 00:32:33.029 could still see fire damage that looked like 00:32:33.029 --> 00:32:36.349 it happened last week. It's not going to heal 00:32:36.349 --> 00:32:39.109 for a very, very long time. And yes, that is 00:32:39.109 --> 00:32:41.650 a big problem in Utah. It's a big problem in 00:32:41.650 --> 00:32:43.829 Alaska. It's a big problem in lots of places 00:32:43.829 --> 00:32:45.890 that it's not like, oh, I'll just, you know, 00:32:45.890 --> 00:32:48.069 flip over the soil and plant some flowers here. 00:32:48.170 --> 00:32:50.789 No, it's going to take a very long time because 00:32:50.789 --> 00:32:54.089 the ecosystem has developed in such a way to 00:32:54.089 --> 00:32:56.809 provide water for the plants and animals over 00:32:56.809 --> 00:33:06.319 a long period of time. Things changing all the 00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:10.119 time. Are you optimistic long term that the people 00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:15.119 will win and the national parks and the land 00:33:15.119 --> 00:33:19.299 will win? It's hard to be optimistic at times 00:33:19.299 --> 00:33:22.180 like this, I will admit. But I do like what I'm 00:33:22.180 --> 00:33:24.500 seeing in Texas. You know, Big Bend National 00:33:24.500 --> 00:33:26.440 Park is under threat from a different reason, 00:33:26.519 --> 00:33:29.079 which is building a border wall, completely unnecessary 00:33:29.079 --> 00:33:31.500 border wall, but a border wall through Big Bend. 00:33:31.599 --> 00:33:34.619 And the vast majority of the Republican politicians 00:33:34.619 --> 00:33:37.500 in Texas are standing with the Democrats to oppose 00:33:37.500 --> 00:33:40.819 it. They're like the Alaskans and the Utahns. 00:33:40.819 --> 00:33:43.039 Again, Republicans going, no, no, no, no, no. 00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:46.839 Do not mess with our land. And so that gives 00:33:46.839 --> 00:33:49.740 me hope that. So many Republicans in Utah are 00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:51.759 opposing what's happening to Bears Ears. So many 00:33:51.759 --> 00:33:54.099 Republicans in Texas are opposing what's happening 00:33:54.099 --> 00:33:57.119 to Bears Ears that I think the governors who 00:33:57.119 --> 00:33:59.799 oppose this are going to pay the price of the 00:33:59.799 --> 00:34:03.160 ballot box because people would rather have their 00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:07.099 valuable land as is. than used for other purposes 00:34:07.099 --> 00:34:10.360 so that does give me hope and the seesaw you 00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:12.659 know has always gone back and forth in u .s politics 00:34:12.659 --> 00:34:15.400 sometimes amazingly so that you know somebody 00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:17.239 gets elected and i'm finding myself going do 00:34:17.239 --> 00:34:19.539 you remember what happened last time this this 00:34:19.539 --> 00:34:23.239 is an ancient history why is this um and so but 00:34:23.239 --> 00:34:25.440 i'm hoping when that rubber band bounces back 00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:28.559 because it usually does that it bounces way back 00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:32.079 and one thing that i hope will happen is that 00:34:32.079 --> 00:34:35.670 a lot more checks and balances will be put in 00:34:35.670 --> 00:34:38.449 place it never occurred to our founding fathers 00:34:38.449 --> 00:34:41.090 as brilliant as they were that anybody could 00:34:41.090 --> 00:34:45.110 want to do that and now that someone is doing 00:34:45.110 --> 00:34:47.690 it i think we're going to need to take steps 00:34:47.690 --> 00:34:49.769 to say we're never going to let this happen again 00:34:49.769 --> 00:34:52.510 and these are the steps we need to do that and 00:34:52.510 --> 00:34:55.949 i think we need to enshrine even more carefully 00:34:55.949 --> 00:34:59.190 and and forcefully protection of our public spaces 00:34:59.190 --> 00:35:01.309 whether it's the national monuments or national 00:35:01.309 --> 00:35:04.769 parks or whatever so that Any one person or any 00:35:04.769 --> 00:35:07.849 one administration cannot destroy these places, 00:35:07.989 --> 00:35:10.150 which, as I said, don't belong to you or me. 00:35:10.269 --> 00:35:13.469 They belong to the future generations and they

00:35:13.469 --> 00:35:15.929 belong to all the American people. And we should 00:35:15.929 --> 00:35:19.070 have a say. I mean, it takes a huge deal to amend 00:35:19.070 --> 00:35:21.630 the Constitution. It should take a huge deal 00:35:21.630 --> 00:35:24.510 and a vote of the people to mine Yosemite National 00:35:24.510 --> 00:35:27.809 Park and anybody who has been there. I think 00:35:27.809 --> 00:35:29.630 would appreciate that. There'd be a very small 00:35:29.630 --> 00:35:31.349 percentage of the people who would look at the 00:35:31.349 --> 00:35:33.050 Grand Canyon and go, yeah, yeah, I think this 00:35:33.050 --> 00:35:35.570 could use some oil rigs. It's so breathtaking. 00:35:35.670 --> 00:35:38.969 It's so amazing that I don't know how you could 00:35:38.969 --> 00:35:41.329 visit those places and think, yeah, I'd be okay 00:35:41.329 --> 00:35:44.030 with a strip mine right here. And we haven't 00:35:44.030 --> 00:35:47.530 even talked about climate change and how, you 00:35:47.530 --> 00:35:50.889 know, by strip mining and by using more coal 00:35:50.889 --> 00:35:56.719 and making more oil rigs. You adversely affect 00:35:56.719 --> 00:36:00.300 the climate and that affects the parks as well. 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:03.460 Very much so. And again, leading hikes in Denali, 00:36:03.559 --> 00:36:05.519 we actually would give a lecture about some aspect 00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:07.039 of the park and then go into the park to look 00:36:07.039 --> 00:36:09.780 at it. Climate change is hitting Alaska much 00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:13.260 harder than anywhere else. Why shouldn't I say 00:36:13.260 --> 00:36:15.480 Alaska? I should say up towards the Arctic Circle. 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:17.440 The further north you go, the worse climate change 00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:20.099 gets. The average global temperature has gone 00:36:20.099 --> 00:36:22.940 up about two degrees over the last, is it 50 00:36:22.940 --> 00:36:26.119 years, 100 years? Alaska, it's gone up seven 00:36:26.119 --> 00:36:29.340 degrees centigrade, which is a lot. And the reason 00:36:29.340 --> 00:36:33.199 is as the Pacific heats up, the warm air currents 00:36:33.199 --> 00:36:37.739 carry that up over Alaska and it's thawing faster. 00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:40.000 And then by the time it gets back down to the 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:43.360 lower 48, it's already dissipated a little bit. 00:36:43.460 --> 00:36:46.019 And when you talk about climate change, people... 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:49.800 No, it's a farce because, I mean, we get these, 00:36:49.860 --> 00:36:52.199 you know, Arctic blasts, the Polar Express once 00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:54.760 a winter, where it's like 30 below for a week. 00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.500 So the planet's getting colder. And I interviewed 00:36:58.500 --> 00:37:01.219 Michael Mann, who is the Penn State climate scientist 00:37:01.219 --> 00:37:03.320 who came up with the famous hockey stick graph 00:37:03.320 --> 00:37:05.460 that shows how temperatures have gone up since 00:37:05.460 --> 00:37:08.179 the Industrial Revolution. And he said, if you 00:37:08.179 --> 00:37:11.579 want to prove how this works, open your freezer 00:37:11.579 --> 00:37:15.139 door and point a fan into the freezer. In a few 00:37:15.139 --> 00:37:17.260 moments, you will have a puddle of cold air at 00:37:17.260 --> 00:37:19.019 your feet and you go, oh, cool. The kitchen's 00:37:19.019 --> 00:37:21.159 getting cold. This is great. But what is happening 00:37:21.159 --> 00:37:23.800 to the frozen food in your freezer while you 00:37:23.800 --> 00:37:26.119 were doing this? Yes, you're getting colder air 00:37:26.119 --> 00:37:28.639 in Chicago temporarily, but everything in the 00:37:28.639 --> 00:37:31.019 freezer is thawing. And that's what's happening 00:37:31.019 --> 00:37:33.480 in the Arctic right now. And it's creating a 00:37:33.480 --> 00:37:36.320 huge problem. And that the bark beetle, for instance, 00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:40.320 is just devouring. Hundreds of acres of trees. 00:37:40.460 --> 00:37:42.619 They used to freeze to death over the winter 00:37:42.619 --> 00:37:44.559 and only a few would survive and only their larva 00:37:44.559 --> 00:37:46.800 would emerge in the spring. But now it's enough 00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:49.159 warmer in the winter. They survive all winter. 00:37:49.239 --> 00:37:51.820 So they start devouring trees the minute they 00:37:51.820 --> 00:37:54.179 wake up. They start spreading faster. They've 00:37:54.179 --> 00:37:57.199 had some incredibly large wildfires spreading 00:37:57.199 --> 00:37:59.739 through these dead trees that didn't used to 00:37:59.739 --> 00:38:01.940 be able to happen because the bark beetles could 00:38:01.940 --> 00:38:04.719 only eat so much. But you would drive for literally 00:38:04.719 --> 00:38:07.480 100 miles in parts of Alaska and see dead trees. 00:38:08.219 --> 00:38:11.179 And I'm not a fire expert, but you don't have 00:38:11.179 --> 00:38:13.559 to be looking there. That's kindling. Anything 00:38:13.559 --> 00:38:15.739 starts a fire here, there is nothing to stop 00:38:15.739 --> 00:38:19.400 it. So, yes, it's a major problem in the north, 00:38:19.420 --> 00:38:22.579 but other parts as well, obviously. And, yes, 00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:26.199 adding more greenhouse gases to the environment 00:38:26.199 --> 00:38:28.699 anywhere on Earth is not going to help the situation 00:38:28.699 --> 00:38:31.760 at all. And when we think about the amount of 00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:33.280 money that we spend, you know, the U .S. government 00:38:33.280 --> 00:38:35.420 spends subsidizing the coal industry, for instance. 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:38.219 If we were to put a small percentage of that 00:38:38.219 --> 00:38:42.199 into renewable sources, wind and solar and things, 00:38:42.340 --> 00:38:44.380 it would make a huge difference. And there's 00:38:44.380 --> 00:38:46.260 a great documentary about coal mining called

00:38:46.260 --> 00:38:48.199 Blood on the Mountain about West Virginia, where 00:38:48.199 --> 00:38:51.019 my brother happens to live. And I didn't realize 00:38:51.019 --> 00:38:53.840 how coal mining has shrunk so much that we're 00:38:53.840 --> 00:38:56.059 doing all this to subsidize coal mines, spending 00:38:56.059 --> 00:38:58.739 all this money. But there are fewer people employed 00:38:58.739 --> 00:39:00.599 right now in coal mines in the United States 00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:03.900 than work in Arby's restaurants. It's like, would 00:39:03.900 --> 00:39:05.739 the U .S. government spend this kind of money 00:39:05.739 --> 00:39:08.440 to subsidize Arby's to keep this fast food chain 00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:11.159 alive? We're doing all this to save coal mines. 00:39:11.320 --> 00:39:14.059 The political fight over that, if you say, I 00:39:14.059 --> 00:39:16.780 don't care about coal miners, don't run for reelection 00:39:16.780 --> 00:39:18.280 because you're not getting reelected in West 00:39:18.280 --> 00:39:20.940 Virginia. That's not going to happen. So we need 00:39:20.940 --> 00:39:24.099 a mindset that says we need to adapt to what 00:39:24.099 --> 00:39:25.840 is coming. You and I were discussing the fact 00:39:25.840 --> 00:39:27.800 that we're addicted to our cell phones now and 00:39:27.800 --> 00:39:30.800 we need to hang on to them at all costs. We had 00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:33.059 to adapt to that. We had to change and accept 00:39:33.059 --> 00:39:35.039 that that technology was a good thing in our 00:39:35.039 --> 00:39:38.179 lives. And I can use my GPS to wander around 00:39:38.179 --> 00:39:40.599 Europe without getting lost, which wasn't always 00:39:40.599 --> 00:39:43.139 the case. We need to say these new technologies 00:39:43.139 --> 00:39:45.199 are coming in and we should do something about 00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:47.599 them. And certainly in Scotland, I keep hearing 00:39:47.599 --> 00:39:49.820 about new wind farms off the coast of Scotland 00:39:49.820 --> 00:39:52.920 where they are doing what they can to try to 00:39:52.920 --> 00:39:56.039 get away from the mines that once dotted northern 00:39:56.039 --> 00:39:59.360 England and Wales. And I think we need more of 00:39:59.360 --> 00:40:02.360 that. Germany, which has a heck of a lot less 00:40:02.360 --> 00:40:05.340 sun than Arizona or California, has had entire 00:40:05.340 --> 00:40:07.940 days where they have powered their entire country 00:40:07.940 --> 00:40:12.579 from solar energy. Why isn't Arizona doing that? 00:40:12.679 --> 00:40:14.519 I've been to both places. There's a lot more 00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.920 sun in Arizona. It would be easier to do there 00:40:16.920 --> 00:40:20.139 than it would be in Germany. All of the reports 00:40:20.139 --> 00:40:22.800 that you read, whether it's from the National 00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:27.119 Park Service or from fitness apps and fitness 00:40:27.119 --> 00:40:30.300 companies. People in the U

.S., the surveys are 00:40:30.300 --> 00:40:32.619 showing they want to get out more, they're hiking 00:40:32.619 --> 00:40:35.460 more, they want to be in the outdoors more. It 00:40:35.460 --> 00:40:38.880 just seems like this is something that is important 00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:42.079 to people, and yet we're ignoring that. For the 00:40:42.079 --> 00:40:43.719 last couple of months, there's been warnings 00:40:43.719 --> 00:40:45.960 in big parts of the United States, don't go outside 00:40:45.960 --> 00:40:47.920 because of the smoke from the Canadian forest 00:40:47.920 --> 00:40:51.280 fires. And rather than sending help to help put 00:40:51.280 --> 00:40:53.659 out the Canadian fires, let's slap them with 00:40:53.659 --> 00:40:56.719 tariffs and blame them for... this environmental 00:40:56.719 --> 00:40:59.219 disaster, which I don't think the Canadian government 00:40:59.219 --> 00:41:02.619 deliberately caused just upset the United States. 00:41:03.380 --> 00:41:06.320 It's crazy to even think that way, but obviously 00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:09.579 people do. But yes, it would be nice to be able 00:41:09.579 --> 00:41:11.960 to have air to breathe that you don't worry about 00:41:11.960 --> 00:41:15.159 breathing in all this smoke. But wildfires are 00:41:15.159 --> 00:41:16.679 getting worse all over the world. They've had 00:41:16.679 --> 00:41:18.599 them in Spain. They've had them in Germany. They've 00:41:18.599 --> 00:41:21.019 had them in Canada, obviously, and all over the 00:41:21.019 --> 00:41:23.090 United States. And they're going to keep happening. 00:41:23.150 --> 00:41:25.170 It's not something the Canadian government did 00:41:25.170 --> 00:41:28.449 wrong. It's just the nature of where we are right 00:41:28.449 --> 00:41:31.909 now. And as I said, we are primed for a massive 00:41:31.909 --> 00:41:35.989 fire in Alaska. There will be hundreds of square 00:41:35.989 --> 00:41:39.989 miles. So the long -term solution to this is 00:41:39.989 --> 00:41:42.190 not tariffs. The long -term solution to this 00:41:42.190 --> 00:41:44.969 is clean up the environment so the trees don't 00:41:44.969 --> 00:41:47.090 keep dying. We don't have all this tinder out 00:41:47.090 --> 00:41:57.429 there waiting to burn. Well, first, let's hope 00:41:57.429 --> 00:42:00.010 that this never happens because we need more, 00:42:00.050 --> 00:42:03.110 not less, land available, even if it's not for 00:42:03.110 --> 00:42:05.949 people to visit, just for nature and to help 00:42:05.949 --> 00:42:09.829 the planet. Is there a connection between increased 00:42:09.829 --> 00:42:12.690 natural disasters and the way humans have treated 00:42:12.690 --> 00:42:15.530 the planet? Well, I think the only people pushing 00:42:15.530 --> 00:42:18.349 back against that argument would be those who 00:42:18.349 --> 00:42:21.210 make lots of money from exploiting the planet. 00:42:21.900 --> 00:42:24.159 But as Walter said, it's not necessarily all 00:42:24.159 --> 00:42:27.119 gloom and doom, as lots of people are fighting 00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:29.539 this. If you do have news or suggestions for 00:42:29.539 --> 00:42:31.940 podcast guests, please do get in touch through 00:42:31.940 --> 00:42:35.960 jim at walkingpost .com. We are always looking 00:42:35.960 --> 00:42:38.820 for guests, whether it's about a new trail, a 00:42:38.820 --> 00:42:42.019 new book, walking festivals, or maybe someone 00:42:42.019 --> 00:42:45.539 you know or you have done an amazing, unusual 00:42:45.539 --> 00:42:49.000 or interesting walk somewhere. So I hope you 00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:51.360 enjoyed this week's walkingpost .com podcast, 00:42:51.420 --> 00:42:54.599 and I hope you have a great week ahead, hopefully 00:42:54.599 --> 00:42:56.940 with a walk somewhere, whether it's in your local 00:42:56.940 --> 00:43:00.539 neighbourhood or a national park. Until next 00:43:00.539 --> 00:43:02.179 time, happy trails!