Musing on Abbey

Came across a letter Ed Abbey wrote home asking for a loan to buy a practically new '47 ford for 350 bucks. He concludes that section by telling his parents not to send him the money or his monthly stipend- he's just gonna waste it anyway. He also wrote an essay called Principa Aesthetica that I would love to read. Anyone ever heard of it?

Oh, and while I'm asking for things I can't have, anyone have a lead on his grave? Has that book been written yet? "Searching for Abbey?" Seems like now would be a good time to catapult his name into the media monster and get his ideas some press. No one was more involved the conservation debate than Abbey. And his ideas might dovetail nicely with the the Local movement . When the scale is small enough, concerning management techniques are much less objectionable to people with preservationist ideals.

A friend of mine who reminds me if Abbey lives in a tent in northern Vermont year round, was outraged that they are putting windmills on the spine mountain range across from his tent. So what, I tell him, wind-power is good, it helps the environment, yada, yada, yada. And he agreed with me on principal. But when he pointed out that the sun would set over those windmills ever night for as long as he lived here. He can't watch the sunset again without being reminded of of mans craving for electricity. "And I'm not even fucking using any of it!" He says.

Now, it's easy to throw the NIMBY card on the table at this point and claim that they have to go somewhere. And it's true- they do have to go somewhere, but they don't have to be so BIG and so FEW. They can be Small and many, and dispersed around the landscape. This will stimulate the economy of individual landowners with both tax breaks and income from the power they sell back to the grid, and prevent the political bickering created by placing windmills on public land. Some zoning precedence will need to be set for sure, but wouldn't this solution help to alleviate the polarity in this argument and allow for power to be generated and distributed in local networks- a very positive step toward energy independence.

food for thought, thanks to Abbey.