Distinctly Montana Magazine

Finally, I do want to talk about a couple environmental issues. I'm curious what scares you the most right now about how we're treating the earth and what gives you the most hope? What scares me in the world right now? The continued feeling among too many parties that global climate change is some kind of a fraud. That we're not responding to it, I think, with the alacrity that it deserves. I see that wherever I go. Even well-meaning people really are not changing their habits in the way that they ought to be. And that includes us. I mean we're doing solar here at the ranch for about half of the residences in terms of heat and water, but we could be doing more. The technology has to catch up to us a little more. We have some specific examples of environmental problems in Montana right now—e.g., the oil spill on the Yellowstone River. The Yellowstone is one of our "mother rivers" — it's the longest un-dammed river in America and it appears to be an accident waiting to happen. I think they were lucky they confined it as much as they did. But these are again caution- ary tales. And whenever that happens, people say—including some who are skeptics —"Oh my God. When it does happen it's very consequential very quickly." On the other hand, that oil was going to a refinery which produces gasoline, and no one wants to give up their SUV. Or their big houses. Do you think with so much technology these days we are losing touch with rivers and streams and wide open spaces? You don't see it out here. You still see people pouring into the wilderness. My wife was out the other day rid- ing and ran into a man who had moved out here from somewhere and he took—not a great job— just because he wanted to live in the wild as much as possible. He was out with his son doing a long day hike. I think people still have a lot of passion for those things. What I do think is that you should go into the wilderness on your own terms and not rely on GPS and your cell phone and that kind of thing. Leave those behind. It's a lot harder to get lost these days. When I was coming out of the Beartooths a number of years ago, I ran into a group of young people and an older guy with them. They were scurrying around and were obvi- ously in a frantic mode. I said, "What's the problem?" And they said, 'Well, he's a Stanford professor and he's a beta tester for a new GPS system and he put it down and now we can't find it.' I roared with laughter and thought—the GPS system knows where it is, but they don't! Final question here. In an increasingly complex world, where do you find your greatest inspirations and hope? Wherever I've gone, I always see that politically, en- vironmentally, culturally, it's the people who are doing the right thing not for recognition or celebrity, but just because it is the right thing. Those are the people who give you hope. ~ A version of this interview ran in the Whitefish Review, Volume 5, Issue 2. www.distinctlymontana.com 77

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