Eric Schwennesen - Taking Another Look

I'm sure we have all noticed the increasing flood of urgent, nay, frantic, calls to surrender our lives to activism. Especially somebody else's. There is such a clamor that the average citizen is, not coincidentally, finding it difficult to sort real troubles from the imaginary ones.

As I write this it is 105 degrees outside under an apparently pitiless sun; even the creosote-bush has been wilting in the heat lately; and the background static from a thousand desperate crises has tended to make every perception one of imminent doom. So in honest Western fashion, let's take another sober look, and see if there is any fire under all the political smoke.

1. The Earth is getting warmer! Warmer than what? My nearest neighbor is a wise old cowboy; his wife recorded the weather daily in a notebook all her life; the notes are there to see. It was much hotter in Arizona in the 1930s and 50s than now; and there was no air conditioning in houses or cars, either. Roll a smoke and go squat in the shade.

2. The landscape is being changed by poor management! Whose management, and who gets to decide? Sitting here on the side of a hill we watch the timeless ebb and flow of established desert grasslands. Down the road we have a Federal management agency office and a bunch of town-dwellers who are very concerned about whether livestockers are managing well or not. The landscape around that office and those towns looks like the aftermath of a WWI artillery battle. Take care of your own management before you worry about ours.

3. The whole world is being taken over by Invasive Species!  Better think about that: define "invasive", for a  start. Once again, who gets to say? When algae first emerged from the primal seas, was it invasive? From here, it looks very much like it's whatever anybody wants it to be; so if you find poison oak icky, it must therefore be invasive. Same for blister beetles, juniper trees, sagebrush, tarantulas, Johnsongrass, mesquite or kissing bugs. (Add to your own list here).The agency experts seem to be some of the worst offenders. Take a deep breath and go sit in the shade of that invasive tree; the only species that actually fits every definition of invasive, is... people.

4. Kale is the salvation of our health!  Our horses won't touch it.

5. The next political election will resolve everything!  No political election has ever resolved anything; go take a look at your own officials. Then roll that smoke and go squat in the shade.

6. More and better government will make our lives better. Tried to register a vehicle lately...?

7. The West is overgrazed! Who decides? We don't hear agonies about the tens of millions of buffalo that grazed before experts measured it, and nobody seems to think it was overgrazed then. The expert solution to overgrazing now, is to reduce the numbers of animals. More is less; less is more; define "grazing". Then, go squat in the shade.

8. Oh, for the simpler life of the past! Turn off that air conditioner, throw away your car keys, and try to find  a place to squat in the shade.

Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about his experiences.