I read Tempest Williams book The Hour Of Land: A personal Topography of America's National Parks . It discussed America's National Parks with each chapter discussing her personal experiences in one of our nations parks. Her experience with land is extensive from experiences with her father camping and traveling to her own quests as an adult. She discusses seeing the damage that fracking has done and how so many people visit our national parks and love them. She had so many beautiful quotes in this book about how by saving nature we save ourselves.
Tempest Williams Quotes “Our public lands - whether a national park or monument, wildlife refuge, forest or prairie - make each one of us land-rich. It is our inheritance as citizens of a country called America.” “The irony of our existence is this: We are infinitesimal in the grand scheme of evolution, a tiny organism on Earth. And yet, personally, collectively, we are changing the planet through our voracity, the velocity of our reach, our desires, our ambitions, and our appetites. We multiply, our hunger multiplies, and our insatiable craving accelerates." “This is what we can promise the future: a legacy of care. That we will be good stewards and not take too much or give back too little, that we will recognize wild nature for what it is, in all its magnificent and complex history - an unfathomable wealth that should be consciously saved, not ruthlessly spent.” “The legacy of the Wilderness Act is a legacy of care. It is the act of loving beyond ourselves, beyond our own species, beyond our own time. To honor wildlands and wild lives that we may never see, much less understand, is to acknowledge the world does not revolve around us. The Wilderness Act is an act of respect that protects the land and ourselves from our own annihilation.” "Humility is born in wildness. We are not protecting grizzlies from extinction; they are protecting us from the extinction of experience as we engage with a world beyond ourselves. The very presence of a grizzly returns us to an ecology of awe. We tremble at what appears to be a dream yet stands before us on two legs and roars.” ― Terry Tempest Williams Some of the last chapters in the book are about her home state of Utah and the battles Utah has been fighting to keep Bears Ears National Park. She discussed one Undergraduates students stint in jail because he interrupted an auction to fracking companies bidding on newly available national lands. "The oil lease auction occurred in December 2008, just before President George W. Bush left office. Environmentalists accused the Bush administration of trying to ram through the sale on the environmentally sensitive land before President Obama was sworn in. An economics student at the time, DeChristopher said he was moved by a fellow environmentalist who was watching the sale and weeping. He hoped to delay the fate of 13 parcels, which he'd offered to lease for nearly $1.8 million before officials ejected him from the auction. "I sat there watching one parcel after another going into the hands of oil developers, and I knew the land would be pretty much ruined," he told The Times in 2009. "I got to the point where I couldn't sit there and watch anymore." Obama's Interior Department eventually ruled that its predecessor had incorrectly administered the lease sale and yanked the parcels off the auction block. (A federal judge later ruled that the Obama administration's actions were improper, but did not reinstate the leases.) The energy industry pushed for a prosecution, worried that DeChristopher would inspire future auction-crashers. After his conviction, federal prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to a "significant prison term" to "promote respect for the law." They maintained that he cost oil firms hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher bids for other parcels. In his courtroom address Tuesday, DeChristopher told the judge that prison would not silence him. "You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine," he said. "I'll continue to confront the system that threatens our future."" http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/27/nation/la-na-oil-leases-20110727 Williams discusses her heartbreak that someone who saved our lands from being destroyed was allowed to spend two years in jail. She discusses her reactions and feelings to these events and discusses how she plans to bring more attention to these issues. She has taken her fight not just to the Utah State court but to the National capital. Making National Parks her priority preserving it for all of us. Her Civil disobedience to protect our lands has so far delayed destruction of our lands so that they are currently still available to us but we need to continue her work and vote the right people into office to continue her work.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Myleka Bevans
Classwork for Art 450 Archives
December 2018
Categories |