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What Price Principle?

The Grand Canyon Trust Loses Its Vision

By Doug Meyer

Progressives just can’t win. On the same weekend that the Grand Canyon
Trust hosted its frst annual “Moab Sustainability Festival”, thousands of fun
hogs from around the nation converged on the valley for the 15th annual “24
hours of Moab” bike race. The Chamber of Commerce, busily counting the take,
didn’t quite catch the irony.

Yep, you got it right, the Grand Canyon Trust, those purveyors of hypocrisy,
had the nerve to sponsor a public event, apparently hoping that Obama’s No
bel Peace Prize gave them enough cover for the weekend. We’re still crunching
the numbers on how many bumper stickers in the parking lot announced “This
vehicle’s emissions offset by TerraPass”.

I know, it’s too easy picking on GCT, but despite the appearance of beating up
on well-meaning, clueless innocents, I think a little journey down memory lane
will show otherwise. The exposure of mega-capital behind the group has already
been done (see Stiles’ “The Greening of Wilderne$$ Part 2”), but what’s hap
pened to their supposed environ
mental advocacy as a result? Well,
for starters, ignoring an economy
built on bicycle tourism while
clamoring about sustainability
isn’t just ridiculous; it’s a surren
der of position by GCT’s executive
director. Here’s Bill Hedden writ
ing 10 years ago, in an article titled
“Recreation Impacts”:

sprawl from the city all the way to Big Water near Lake Powell. We will be working to make sure no pipeline is built that threatens the integrity of that wild landscape.” (Advocate, Summer 2002)

To make a long story short, in the very same year, at the direction of their board (which even then included David Bonderman), GCT closed its St. George offce and withdrew from public advocacy over the pipeline. An internal smack down like that isn’t easily forgotten, and it marks the point when Hedden could feel both boxed in by GCT’s core constituency, and muzzled by its mega-capital board.

The Grand Canyon Trust telling itself to keep quiet on 180 miles of water pipeline below the spectacular red mesas of southern Utah was such a contradiction of their vision that it’s a wonder the group survived. The glaring inconsistency should have at least forced Hedden, as GCT’s newly appointed executive

director, to bring an ultimatum before his membership: either change the vision statement, or reorganize without funding from the system devouring the landscape. But there was no ultimatum, no change in the stated vision, and no reorganization. What happened? Even more money fowed in. Hedden’s education was complete, and the era of denial, subterfuge, and pretense began.

Fast forward seven years to 2009. The Grand Canyon Trust is still trying to conjure (in our minds) a veil of protection over the Colorado Plateau, while supporting and drawing sustenance from the economic system which consumes it. Meanwhile, the science of global warming tells us that ecosystems everywhere on Earth will be transformed by the end of the century. In a mere one hundred years, a blink of an eye compared to eons of evolution, human-emitted GHG’s already in the atmosphere will commit at least a quarter of all plant and animal species on Earth to extinction. As we’ve said before, there is a moral issue here.

Things have gotten so bad that the UN’s 2009 Science Compendium effectively joined in deducing the death of environmentalism with this bombshell: “the conservation community needs to move beyond the preservation or restoration of species and ecosystems in place as the correct approach.” So…will GCT fnally accept the fact that global capitalism has killed off both their mission statement AND their vision for the Colorado Plateau?

Of course not, those rich guys on their board envision the need for a lot more green washing as the planet collapses around us.

”I guess I went over the top one day when I returned from a lonely, wonderful hike along the Sevier River to fnd Moab in the full throb of a spring weekend. Hordes of Winnebagos in caravan crowded the main highway while jeeps lined up at trailheads on all the dirt tracks. When I turned upstream toward home on the road along the Colorado River, I was caught behind bicyclists three abreast practicing for

a race the next day. Out on the river, canoes and rafts flled with people were serving as an obstacle course for jet skis roaring in the other direction. Every beach, every imaginable camping space was flled to capacity and people were doing I-daren’t-think-what behind each bush. Burned down campfres smoldered beside the fuorescent tents. The ridgeline up on the Slickrock trail held an undulating conga line of mountain bikers against the sky, where sightseeing helicopters hovered and darted. It was nuts and I was in shock. … Everywhere we looked, natural resource professionals agreed that industrial-strength recreation holds more potential to disrupt natural processes on a broad scale than just about anything else. It’s a very tough problem affecting all of us. We will be actively searching for ways to deal with it. Stay tuned.” (Colorado Plateau Advocate, Winter 1999)

Reading those last few sentences you can feel Hedden’s virtue begin to crumble, sensing that even as he typed them, he knew GCT wouldn’t do anything about it. Why? Well, because river runners, backpackers, and “non-motorized” outdoor nuts in general make up their broad public support. Just so, the education of Bill Hedden began.

But where an environmentalist really cuts his teeth in the arid southwest is on the issue of water and population growth. If you’re honest, it’s simple: more humans means less water for non-human life. The Grand Canyon Trust seemed to agree, envisioning the Colorado Plateau one hundred years from now as “A region still characterized by vast open spaces”, and Hedden’s words in ’02 were consistent:

“Major pipelines are on the drawing boards that will suck Colorado River water to fast growing cities like Denver and St. George, allowing them to ignore the constraints of climate and geography for a while longer, but raising the costs of the eventual day of reckoning. Everybody knows that paper water rights on the River far exceed actual, wet water; yet everybody is grabbing for their share. The story of the proposed Lake Powell to St. George pipeline illustrates the way proponents of these projects typically fail to visualize a future any of us might want to live in. … A pipeline has potential to spread

Of course not, those rich guys on their board envision the need for a lot more green washing as the planet collapses around us. Predictably, Hedden has had to reinvent himself (again), this time as a full-fedged progressive:

“Public opinion in America today seems divided on the consequences of shifting to an economy featuring green technologies, renewable energy, and restoration of the places that have been damaged during our collective orgy of fossil-fueled development. Where some see creeping socialism and heavy added costs that will wreck our economy, others envision America leading the way on the sustainable technologies that will determine who wins and who loses in this new century. I personally think our dignifed survival as a society demands that we make the transition as rapidly as we can thoughtfully do it; but I understand that there will be costs along the way.” (Advocate, Summer/Fall 2009)

For anyone paying attention, those “costs” are the last remnant of Bill Hed-

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