Schreiner’s Media Landscape

Testimony to the power of media is that for the last three days in southwest Montana- one of the most naturally gorgeous and spectacular places in America- I’d couldn’t stop singing “Going to Montana soon, gonna be a dental floss tycoon.” Why Frank Zappa’s nonsense lyrics should have that kind of hold on me after more than thirty years is a crime. But my brain was able to separate the media from the magic without too much effort thanks to pure power of Nature.

Our friends Bill and Pat are building a log cabin south of Sheridan, Montana just a couple hours west of Yellowstone. We were there to help sand, chainsaw, screw and glue the logs into place. The weather was a little windy and cool but it made working during the day more tolerable and sleeping in our tent nicer. Sandhill cranes, whitetail deer, buffalo (more-than-slightly domesticated) and wildlife roamed throughout the valley which is mostly BLM land and private ranches. Everyone was happy under the big, cloud-dappled sky.

During this time, I was also editing a web ad on my laptop running off the X5’s car battery and setting up shooting assignments with a new client located in the UK. I got the ad finished just in time to burn it to DVD and drive it five miles into town to catch the FedEx pickup at noon Friday (pickup times are normally around 5 p.m. but rural areas must get picked up earlier depending on how far they are from a big airport). My cell phone didn’t work so well but we were able to book my trip to Chicago and set up a Salt Lake shoot before the weekend descended. You just have to be flexible and patient, I told myself: something I’ve never been good at but living in the country apparently teaches you.

After running power tools all day, carrying 1,000 lb. logs around and surviving a smashed toe, only one thing will satisfy you: a massive Montana steak. No matter how big this state is, you can’t swing an expired marmot without hitting a steakhouse. A New York strip the size and weight of a dictionary topped off our perfect trip. Well, not REALLY perfect but when you’re flexible and patient either every thing is perfect or nothing is. Either way, you deal with it better.

Now, we’re back home in Salt Lake. Time to get back to work, catch up on the bills, pull the log glue out of my leg hairs (ouch!), and re-adjust to urban life. But the flexibility and patience I learned after just two days in Montana have sunk in. Whether it’s Utah, the Rockies or the desert, The West is home.

The controversy over how- or even whether- to save Great Salt Lake from mercury and other toxic substance pollution, is heating up again after the discovery of even greater levels of killer chemicals. What the announced or written controversy is really doesn’t matter. Kennecott and other mining, energy and big polluters to blame for the problem continue to dodge their responsibility for keeping their work areas clean.

The root of the problem is that for years, these companies have been allowed to operate with comparative impunity in the name of commerce. Now that the environment is eclipsing commerce in the minds of many Utahns, and even a handful of our political and religious leaders, our big polluters are struggling with the concept of stewardship, even while the LDS Church- who runs the place- embraces stewardship more and more each day. I even expect to see President Monson out at the Downtown Farmers Market tomorrow.

When I lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan from 1997-99, my house was near a small lake which no one ever used. So I bought a boat. But not the kind you think of as a “boat”: the one with beds, a kitchen, room for eight, motors, sails, radar, 12-inch cannons. This was an inflatable boat: a German model by Sevylor called, appropriately, the “Fish Hunter.” It looks like either a bizarre cartoon character or a Navy Seals assault craft. Back then, it cost about $100. Their website says it’s now $158 but it’s $110 on eBay.

After a long week of TV non-news-sense, I would blow a Saturday afternoon just paddling around, letting the sun fry the sociopathy out of my ethically-abused body. I could float along shore to see how close I could get to the great blue herons and other beautiful birds that lived there (pretty close, actually though herons are pretty skittish). After I left Kalamazoo, I only used the Fish Hunter a couple of times during my stops in Burlington, Vermont and Champaign, Illinois. But recently on a week vacation in Park City, I hauled it out again.

After MacGyvering a way to inflate with our bike tire compressor instead of the foot pump, saving about an hour of leg exercise, Abbie and I paddled around nearby Jordanelle Reservoir and- ironically- had a gas. We watched as the intolerable loud and smelly Jet Skis and motorized craft zoomed past us, creating big wakes that tossed us around and added to the fun. I’d forgotten how fast and maneuverable the Fish Hunter is. Most of all, I’d forgotten how much fun it is just floating around on a hot, lazy afternoon not producing any greenhouse gases or other pollution, working my upper body by rowing, and seeing more of Utah’s spectacular scenery from a different perspective.

I haven’t taken it out on Great Salt Lake yet. It’s perfect for getting to those fresh water marshes ringing the lake where all the wildlife live. Yeah, I know it’s a petroleum product. But if you’ve got a choice between a plastic-coated, noise, water and air-polluting pond rocket or a zero-maintenance, zero-polluting bucket of fun, give me the Fish Hunter any day. Especially Saturday.

One thing the oil shale advocates and the nuclear-crazed Aaron Tilton/Mike Noel Axis of Imbeciles don’t talk about is that their energy-producing technologies require LOTS OF WATER. The Bush Regime, while announcing its plans to open Utah’s public lands for oil shale speculation and destruction, hasn’t said where their water will come from because THEY DON’T KNOW. And whenever Tilton is asked the question of where the water will come from to cool his precious nuclear plant, the answer is always- and pretty much has to be- the Green River. Look at the Green River, Aaron. You think THAT will cool a nuclear reactor? If we have a drought, we may have to do what they do in France and what’s being threatened in parts of the U.S.: cut back or shut down reactors for lack of water.

Add the possibility of a uranium leak like the one in France two weeks ago that polluted the local water supply and forced a plant to shut down and you’ve got an undesirable scenario for a major power source. There are already legal battles being fought over water just for homes, businesses, agriculture and other stuff in Utah. Add oil shale and nuclear power into the mix and we will be lucky to have enough water left to brush our teeth.

As a member of The Nature Conservancy, I’m really proud of the research our organization does to show not only how important maintaining our wild places is but how much damage and death is caused by encroachment of humans on our environment. This new study proves the harmful effects of air pollution on Nature, just in time to head off the attempt by the Bush Regime to allow the building of more coal-burning power plants next to wilderness areas and national parks. Of course, Bush’s people never read, listen to or follow even their own research results. This study will likely only be good in dsicouraging yet another disastrous policy mistake that will end up getting overturned by a federal court.

In yet another reversal of a Bush Regime environmental assault, a Montana federal judge has put grey wolves in the Yellowstone area back on the endangered species list. There were any one of a number of reasons for the reversal. The Regime ignored scientific evidence showing that the wolves are not safe now, instead buying the argument of ranchers and state authorities who said a hunt was needed to “thin” the pack. Of course, we all know that the Regime always does this because they have an aversion to anything right and/or good when it comes to Nature and will believe anything or just make it up themselves in order to achieve their reckless goals.

Another argument anti-wolf forces use is that the elk herd around Yellowstone is too small because of wolf predation, threatening ecological balance, and doesn’t leave enough for hunters. But as new and continuous information has shown, the reality is exactly the opposite. The lack of wolves is not only bad for the elk for the ranchers and their precious livestock. The latest shows that the Yellowstone elk herd is out of control, due to the lack of predation, giving rise to a deadly disease that, ironically, is spreading to the livestock that the ranchers have fought so hard to “protect” from the big, bad wolves.

This is what happens when politicians, acting either out of payback to special interests or reckless and ignorant ideology, try to play God. Like everything else Bush and his people have done, they screw it up and someone who really knows what they’re doing has to come in and fix it. Too bad a judge can’t just fix similar Bush decisions on air quality, Iraq, and other monumental policy disasters.

Most Utahns grimace and stick their fingers in their ears every time Al Gore says something. Which is highly ironic because after seven sorry years, it’s clear they’ve been listening to the wrong guy. In his latest speech/warning, Gore says America needs to change its energy ways fast if we are truly interested in helping our economy, helping our citizens, making America energy-independent again and, perhaps least important, avoiding a possible global catastrophe via a super-heated climate. But for a moment, forget global warming, Gore’s Oscar-winning, self-promotion vehicle and the sad fact that, JEEZ- HE SHOULD’VE BEEN PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF THIS LOSER WE GOT.

Al Gore is right- ESPECIALLY FOR UTAH. While our state leaders grasp for new ways to play the same, sad song, Gore is looking for better instruments for a new orchestra. Yes, Utah has coal, natural gas, uranium and all the other fossil fuels that have helped create the environmental crisis we must get ourselves out of. But we also have greater than average supplies of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable fuels. Instead of just a few utilities, oil companies and corrupt political representatives getting rich while the world gets hotter and sicker, more smaller Utah companies providing renewable energy services could share the profits but building a new, sustainable energy infrastructure. The new revenue flow would make not only Utah as a whole richer, but put that energy money in the pockets of local communities, home and business owners instead of a very few utility magnates living in Portland, Los Angeles or wherever.

Ironically, Utahns and their leaders should be FOLLOWING AL GORE instead of opposing him if they are truly CONSERVATIVE. But we all know that common sense evaporates into our filthy atmosphere whenever politics get into the details. Utah must wake up and realize the incredible opportunity we have to distribute our energy wealth for the common good instead of handing more and more of our hard-earned money to wealthy fat cats who are no more concerned about Utah, you or your family than they are about our planet or future.

Every once in a while, someone, in this case, someone I won’t name but if you click the link below you can read the whole thread, crystallizes an issue so well there’s almost no way you can argue with it unless you’re not listening, don’t care or are just recklessly suicidal. So I’m stealing this comment from New West about the ORV/ATV controversy:

This issue is as polarizing as the debate around abortion or global warming. We have the ORV users on one side and the wilderness advocates on the other - each are rabidly passionate about their cause. The 95% of the population that lies in between, in my opinion, doesn’t care. The wilderness people will say that the majority of the country agrees with them. I find that unlikely. Of the millions that will visit Yellowstone this year how many are there to commune with nature or worship mother earth’s sacred ground? No they want full hook-ups, asphalt paths, latte’s, wi-fi, and an exciting river rafting ride. And these are normal everyday people.

Equating the creation of a rut on a forest trail to the beating of one’s wife or children is way way over-the-top and not an argument that the general public is going to buy into. You will certainly never convince me of that. Perhaps it is just my rural midwestern upbringing. I believe in conservation (my wife and I just bought a hybrid car). I believe in protecting natural places. I’m all for protecting riparian zones and wetlands as much as any environmentalist. Just ask the ducks in my back yard. I guess where I differ though is that I just don’t believe that every mud hole equates to some sort of horrible environmental catastrophe. I just don’t buy that.

I guess I’m in the distinct minority of people out there that loves to do it all. I love to hike, I love to fish, I love to camp, I love to canoe and kayak. I also love to waterski behind my personal watercraft. I love to ride my ATV. I love to ride my dual sport trail motorcycle. I’m lucky enough to live in a state where I can do all of the above on public lands and waters.

A place for everything when everything is in its place. In my state we have wilderness areas, wildlife management areas, state forests, and state parks where motorized recreation is not allowed and I hope is forever not allowed.

We absolutely need places like that (but for the wilderness advocates it is, of course, never enough). I also hope we can forever provide places for people to enjoy a motorized experience - backcountry and primitive areas where a person can enjoy a Jeep drive or ATV ride. I love exploring roads and trails on my ATV or dirtbike. Sometimes I just want to cover as many miles as possible and see where a road or trail leads to. It is a completely different experience than hiking. I like both.

I do agree that the ORV community has its problems. We have lots of ORV users with an entitlement mentality who believe they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and however they want. It is not just a “few bad-apples” issue. For those who want to “rip it up” with high-horsepower, loud exhausts, and deep knobbies we have places for that kind of activity - called race tracks. They’re all over the place. I know because I go there myself. So I do have a plea to certain ORV users, and that is, “Please, please don’t take your race-exhaust equipped motocross bike or your monster-mudder nitrous equipped ATV to public riding areas. That’s not the place for them.”

The solution is not to unilaterally ban all ORV users from public land. It is very hard to legislate attitudes. I’m committed to help solve the issues and believe we can solve them, so that my kids can take their kids and explore these same ATV trails.

I recently hosted a group of kids taking a summer school course at the University of Utah on the environment and renewable energy. The teacher contacted me through my website and asked if they could all come over to see Solarius. They came over, watched the video I made of the installation very attentively, then came down to the studio where I showed them how much energy I produce and how much pollution it prevents from seeping into their little lungs. They asked great questions (”Why do you need three computers?”), were very concerned about the future and how it was important to start taking care of the Earth. It was a great day.

Yesterday, I got this card in the mail from the kids. They thanked me for showing them my “awesome solar home.” I just about cried. Kids don’t normally make me do that. I usually get itchy.