Ken SchreinerTibet, Utah and Freedom of Choice
After four days in Big Cottonwood Canyon skiing and snowshoeing, I was overcome by what I first thought was a touch of altitude but what turned out to be accute nostalgia. Not for Utah, Colorado, Vermont or the other incredible mountainous regions I’ve lived in or visited- but Tibet. I spent four weeks shooting a documentary there last spring: an account of my older brother’s and my journey to Mount Kailash, the holiest natural landmark in Buddhism and Hinduism, and a study of the ironic and inconsistent relationship between religion and Nature. Upon returning to the U.S., I moved to Salt Lake City from Illinois one week later for my wife’s new job. The documentary was put off to re-establish my video business, work on the new house and find my place in this strange new world.
Tomorrow, I finally start editing. In anticipation, a flood of memories- good and bad- is running through me, informing my creative process and helping me understand the true significance of my visit to the much stranger Land of Snows. Under 56 years of brutal, dictatorial rule by China, this peaceful, religious, and nature-loving nation has been tortured, its people, religion and culture marginalized, its natural beauty exploited and irreversibly damaged. The quiet, spiritual place we have known for centuries is being reconstituted in the image of the crass, commercial/political Gargantua that is China. Rare wildlife like the Tibetan antelope, black-necked crane and wild yak are poached. The pristine streams and air are contaminated with chemicals, sewage and the exhaust of uncountable motorized vehicles and dust from construction and drought. I remembered thinking about the meaning of this tragedy while hiking in Tibet, but had forgotten my conclusion over the past eight months.
This weekend, in the shadow of Mount Millicent it came back to me. Tibet did not ask for this. If given the choice, would they accept their oppressors’ concept of “progress?” My experience there told me “no.” Then I wondered: if the people of Utah were occupied by a foreign power, ordered to pointlessly befoul our precious air and water, destroy our mountains to extract the ingredients for aluminum foil and luxury cookware, would we obey in resignation, agree and celebrate our “liberation” (which is what the Chinese call what they did to Tibet), or stand and fight the power that seeks our complicity in our own destruction? If our occupiers forced us to breathe the effluvium of their stupidity and excess, would we do it gladly- like we do now by our own choice?
Tibet proves that no “intelligent” civilization would tolerate the deteriorating environmental conditions we’ve created unless we were forced to. But we’ve fooled ourselves- and allowed our so-called leaders to brainwash us- into believing our sickening shroud of killer air is the price of progress or, even worse, a glowing, sienna symbol of our work ethic and desire to be recognized as a “real city.” Remembering the people of Tibet, I’m sad. But I’m also inspired by their courage and strength. They did not have a choice and if they did, their world would be much better. For the people of Utah, who have a choice, I’m just sad.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Ken, the situation in Tibet is heart breaking, worse because it is the head-waters of such a number of great rivers, making the environmental damage so much more profound to everyone, including those living downstream. That is the way it works. My hopes come in ‘peak oil’, and the adjustments to lifestyles that will need to occur related to the declining supply of petroleum. Forced localization. Someday, whether there’s a ‘die-off’ of some percent of the population, environmental collapses, or simple exhaustion, the planet and the survivors will get a break and a spot of rest while they catch up on thier survival skills. We’ve been hitting the earth pretty hard these last hundred or two years, and with greater and greater numbers. So given that this ‘way’ we’ve come to know, is in many ways, a loser, the inevitable rewrite of human culture is likely to be a good thing (though intensely difficult and scrappy).
Regarding the influence of outsiders on the great state of Utah, that’s been going on forever. Only lately, with the increasing speed of change caused by our pressing numbers and the stupidity of our way of politics, have the impacts of such things as waste deposition, air and water quality reared up so ominously. This too will be altered by peak-oil and the subsequent downsizing of the Global corporate connectedness. More localizing. Given this inevitable reconfiguration, it would do us all well to protect our local environment and to insure that we’re not burdoned with the long-lasting effects of allowing our west desert to become the nations / worlds dumping ground. If only for those survivors that adapt to life without petrol. The longer we put off attempts to adapt to the two biggies, Global warming and the post-petroleum inevitability, the tougher the struggle for survival will be.
I hope that makes some sense. Thanks, C.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Chains not visible, are very bit as incarcerating, as the real thing.
The brown clouds bigger, older cousin occasionally crosses the Pacific to visit. They both have the same parent, consumption. Consumption, isn’t that what they used to call the wasting disease of tuberculosis?
Caveat, don’t worry about running out of oil, it won’t happen in our lifetimes. There is plenty, it is just talked scarce to rise profits. The issue of burning it is another controversy, but surely we will. You can make fuel out of coal, Germans proved that, and the coal reserves in this country are simply staggering, on the order of centuries.
All hail the brown cloud!
February 12th, 2007 at 8:20 am
I want us to run out of oil. I want these gouging f*cks to have the rug pulled out from under them and for a new, ’solar’ economy to develop. I see this going hand in hand with a ‘real’ democracy. I’ll grant there’s plenty of energy around, it’s just those corporate bill collectors that make it seem unaffordable.
The brown cloud is dead, long live the brown cloud. btw hello Ken an Glenn
February 12th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Sally D: “…don’t worry about running out of oil, it won’t happen in our lifetimes.”
Thanks for commenting but this statement is one root of the problem. As for “You can make fuel out of coal…”: counting on technology to save us from our extravagance is another.
Caveat: The connection between old-school politics, business (globalization), religion and “end game” environmental policies is undeniable. Official propaganda and PR(thanks Sally D for mentioning yet another root problem) is what fools folks into believing everything will be OK, don’t change a thing (the infamous “America’s way of life is not negotiable” comment by King George I). I’m just now reading Jon Krakauer’s “Into Thin Air” about the controversy surrounding Mt. Everest. It’s a coldcock for those who still believe our manifest destiny is to destroy everything.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:36 am
You reminded me of the film “Seven Years in Tibet” (1997). One of the themes was whether the Tibetans ought to have fought the Chinese. To fight would be to go against their traditions, to surrender would be to lose their culture more slowly. Either way, Tibet was done for.
February 12th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Tongue is cheek Ken, tongue in cheek. Right now this very minute Shell, and BP are microwaving oil shale rock formations in place to yield the oil. There is TONS of it, and the projected cost for getting it is 10-15 dollars a barrel. Happening outside Grand Junction Colorado now. Under license of the DOE, the license is to discover the viability.
This is going to go on until it doesn’t. Entropy Ken, and humans are the enzymes, and thereby the agents of Entropy.
February 12th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Sal, right off the bat you have to subtrack microwaving costs and all the connected costs related to nuclear power developement and disposition, that are not even on the cost sheet from that too good to be true $10 to $15 p / barrel.
February 12th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
That is not how it is going to work Caveat. The process will burn the bunker portion of the crude oil immedaintely on sight to generate electricity in a a co-generation scenario. In other words, the oil extraction itself will provide the fuel to keep the operation going. Burn to earn, and then the related carbon and pollution is of no concern, because it mostly blows east on Republican Kansas. This is the scenario byu which Utahns’ operate and get their power and some cash for their profligate coal burning out on the Swell. There is nothing wrong with it. Increased carbon emmissions will just grow bigger trees and plants faster. Hurrah!!
February 12th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
10 -15 dollars to extract the oil, you will still be paying 60-65. It’s going to happen because the profit is soooo good. As I said, the testing is going on now in the backyard so to speak, of the 4 corners.
February 12th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Pardon my scepticism, let me see if I have this right. The extracted oil will be used to generate sufficient electricity to power the microwaver that liquifies the oil that powers the generator, which inturn makes microwaves, and on and on. Is that what you’re writing? For this, we buy the overage, if there is any @ whatever cost the market will bear, and this produces a profit for the operators. The environment costs are just absorbed by the communities affected.
If I have apprehended your points at all, it sounds pretty sketchy to me. I don’t know. Of course, I’m all for bigger trees, but this is one more process that I don’t think I’ll be supporting.
February 12th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Caveat; What you think, they are going to string infrastructure from a power plant out into the Book Cliffs and Roan Plateau NOWHERE? That costs money, and is not recoverable.
Is it somehow unclear? This is the WAY, things are done off the grid, and I assure you, I know a pretty good deal about this.
For example, it is STILL a practice to create compressed air for snow-making, by running diesel powered compressors, and this for the useless frivolity of skiing. We burned 1200 gallons of diesel a night, to run a 16,000 CFM system. No joke. We did this for 67 days flat out.
Almost all remote power is generated by diesel or bunker fuel engine. For example the vessel I described earlier had a 250 Kilowatt diesel genset. Snap, Crackle, POP, if you know what I mean, stack 20 or so of these and you get enough power to run a pretty mean microwave, and the fuel is “FREE”! Yes, they will use the fuel to get the fuel.
When oil production began, the ratio of fuel required to get the crude, was in the area of 50 to 1. It now stands at 5 to 1, the easy stuff being scooped already. This is REALITY!! It works now, as it always has.
Don’t be skeptical, how in the hell did you figure offshore platforms for instance, get the energy to run their incredibly energy intensive operations? Fuel, husbands fuel, husbands fuel, and so on, and so on…
The increased tree growth thing will happen, but it is a joke to be sure. Wait til warming occurs, the forests in Canada, are going to go NUTS!
February 12th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
I understand your descriptions. I guess my disbelief came from having no idea as to the amount of oil that is potentially recoverable from the rock beneath. That’s the crux of the biscuit and where my cluelessness opens me to edumakatin. Thanks.
February 12th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
There is SHITLOADS!!
February 12th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Did you know that the area from Green River over into Colorados’ Garfield countyto Eagle), where they are currently boring the Earth for gas like termites(118,000 gas well approved, 35,000 drilled) was declared a “national energy sacrifice zone” by Jimmy Carter the nuclear engineer, in 1978?
Any issues in the mid east that we can’t blow the hell out of, will result in this CAVEAT coming to fruition. So the choice, kill Arabs, or kill Utah and Colorado. It is really like that.
How many people do you know that drive 6 cylinder SUVs’, or own any form of alternative energy. or even one solar panel? Who do know that owns a solar powered wrist watch?
See how we are? LET THE DRILLING COMMENCE!! Just landed a job with Shell, I’m pretty sure Cav.