Man’s inhumanity to nature
On my yearly journey to northern Idaho this year, my GPS guided me into southeastern Idaho and around Yellowstone National Park. In spite of the fact that I visited and thoroughly enjoyed Yellowstone many times with my family as a boy, that’s what I wanted. No way would I wish to battle the traffic by going through the park in June.
On the return trip, that same GPS took me right through the heart of Yellowstone, and I paid for it dearly. It took me four and a half hours to traverse the park.
The trek got off to a bad start with a major wreck near the west entrance. A buffalo, barely visible at least a quarter of a mile away, caused a two-mile backup. Why don’t they just go see Ralphie at the University of Colorado Boulder, I thought.
When I saw the sign saying “Old Faithful” next, I dropped one of the many f-bombs I uttered that day. I felt a little guilty about that. I shouldn’t be cursing out a natural wonder like a geyser when it was the invasive incursion of mankind that was creating this mess.
In fact, that’s what was wrong with the whole scene. All of Yellowstone is a natural wonder and here we are sitting, going nowhere in our fossil fuel burners, fouling the atmosphere with our greenhouse gas emissions.
It seemed appropriate when I saw a mule deer doe splattered on the pavement. All she was trying to do was get to the Madison River on the other side for a drink. Nothing in the instincts she developed in the wild prepared her for a speeding vehicle.
Like the Maroon Bells, Hanging Lake and other magnificent sites in the West, mankind is loving Yellowstone to death. It’s hard to tell the nature lovers to stay home, but perhaps we should just leave the internal combustion pollution machines parked outside the attraction and take a tour bus or ride a bike. A bus carrying 30 passengers is less harmful to the environment than 30 cars on the road and bikes are seldom involved in traffic jams.
Fred Malo Jr., Carbondale
Thanks to The Sun
Thank you to Sopris Sun designer Emily Blong for the great ad for the Marble Museum’s Fourth of July opening, and to Dave Taylor for funding it. The advertisement was colorful, attention grabbing and artful.
On a related note, the museum might be adding to its days of operation in July. Right now it’s open Thursdays through Sundays, 11am to 5pm. Stay tuned.
Lynn “Jake” Burton
Docent, Marble Museum
‘Common Sense’
In January of 1776 Thomas Paine published a 47 page pamphlet called “Common Sense.” It contained the following words: “…some Massanello may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.”
Is this not exactly the state we find ourselves in with the former president?
Patrick Hunter, Carbondale
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