There is this place...

From a canoe looking North.

From the same spot looking West.

From the same canoe looking South.

From the same spot looking East.

So all around you, wildness. As far as you can see it is nature. This place...

But today was special. Oh, the fishing is always wonderful here. Even in bad weather, it is a beautiful place to just coast along in your canoe, watch the wildlife, and think about the busy school year to come. What will you do differently in your classes, which deadlines are already past?

Then you hear (this true story of my trip yesterday by the way) a rather loud splash right behind you. As you turn to see if it was a fish you hear a snort and some breathing. And twenty feet off your canoe's bow a Pennsylvania Black Bear emerges from the water lilies after his (her?) swim across this lake/bog.

Because he was in the water he must not have yet heard or smelled me. A black bear's ability to smell is much more acute than his eyesight. So there is this five second period when I could fish a camera from my vest and snap a photo--or two.

Look in the center of the water lilies. Might that be a snout?

What is making that snorting noise?

Is that a bear?

Yes it is. I didn't know they got so big! "Grandfather, Grandfather!"

I think he sees me here.  (I can't see it!)  Click on the photo to see the larger version!

At about the same time I realize that I am alone in a canoe between a 400 lb bear and his blueberry patch.


There is this amazing place called Central Pennsylvania by people who think in short time frames of less than--say, four hundred years. It has been traumatized before and will be devastated again. As I write, in fact, some major corporations are conspiring with State elected officials to destroy large tracts of this pristine wilderness.

We are not talking about "bad people." They think they are doing the right thing. But like most of us, when profit is involved, the "right thing" is easily rationalized toward self interest.

Their idea is interesting. You take, literally, billions of gallons of surface water. Mix it with chemicals like solvents and other toxic stuff; then pump it into deep shale deposits. The explosive intrusion of this hazardous chemical into the deep underworld will release pockets of natural gas. This gas will be sold to gas companies on the cheap for several reasons. First, the drilling in Pennsylvania would be done with almost pathetic drilling fees and with extensive tax benefits on the revenues. Second, the lax regulations of the Commonwealth will make it nearly impossible for anyone to assign the blame for environmental damage to any one company. So the taxpayers of the Commonwealth will have to bear the burden of the clean up. Third, the energy companies are getting these gas rights at pathetically low prices. Since much of the drilling will happen in places like State Forests, Undeveloped School Properties, and hunting lands (in Pennsylvania we call these places, "the woods,") the auctions of the drilling rights are only interesting to energy companies. Much of the pumping of water will happen on private lands. But the royalties will be paid to the owner of the land where gas is extracted, not so much where water is pumped. Tricky, right?  So who else but drilling companies would want to purchase drilling rights? So why don't these companies bid the prices up to some reasonable amount? Well, we are assured, they could bid up the prices. But each company only wants to drill in a particular region. So it only bids for the drilling rights in that region. Without any collusion at all, we are assured, very few of these regional preferences overlap. So in many cases, one company is the only bidder and the price remains extremely low.

Is this a license to steal? Well, perhaps. But the point is that the gas in those underground pockets is a valuable property (once the Commonwealth sells the rights.) It is only the citizens of the Commonwealth who are being harmed. (If people are the only beings that count.) And the people seem not to care one way or the other. They are in the streets over gun rights or abortion rights or mosque building in Manhattan, or the war related budget deficit that everyone would prefer to chalk up to excessive spending on things like "entitlements." But anyone who seems to want these drilling rights to be sold at a fair price, with adequate regulatory oversight (paid for by use fees like drilling license fees), those few people are called "tree huggers" and easily ignored.

But what happened with the bear?

Oh, the bear. Yes, well a bear is an ethical being. And people who study ethics realize that notions such as "right" and "wrong" are just human ideas and opinions. There is no objective "right" and "wrong" that can be scientifically determined and/or proven through a logical or mathematical proof. Like a hawk and a bunny, the act of a mother hawk tenderly placing bits of bunny into the beaks of her hungry chicks, the same act can be "good" or "evil" depending on perspective.

But what about the bear, Joe?

As I was saying, a bear is an ethical creature. It does not need to kid itself that what it is doing is "good" or "bad." It is self interested, but it does not take more than it needs. And it does not look for trouble. In fact, it avoids conflict where possible. So this bear that weighed more than twice what I might muster, realized that I was in the way of its beach head. So it did what any ethical creature would do. It went around me. It did not need to stand and show me its claws and teeth. It did not make a speech about "Bring 'em on!" and it did not have to explain that I had "no place to run, no place to hide." It just went around me.

There are those who believe that since "Right" and "Wrong," and "Good," and "Bad" are only opinions and perspectives that they do not exist. What matters in a world without right and wrong is power. And I would like to point out that "power" and a constant struggle over resources does not provide us with a fun, safe, and interesting life. There are lots of things that do not exist in some physical way...things that are just "made up." These things include property rights, civil rights, money, good, bad, evil, beauty, right, wrong, and even language itself. But this does not mean that they do not exist. We made them up because they help. They are useful so we keep them as long as they are useful.

One of the interesting realizations that come from the study of the Humanities is that most of those things that make human life meaningful, beautiful, and purposeful are things we just "made up." Some would call these things "constructs."  Wild places are perhaps the one big exception.

A lesson in Virtue Ethics from a bear. (Move over Alasdair MacIntyre)

As the bear disappeared over the bank, I wondered how my grandchildren would be compensated for the lack of this kind of experience in their lives.

I am not hopeful that the effort to Frack up the Pennsylvania wilderness for a couple years worth of natural gas can be stopped. It's down there, it's valuable, and it will continue to nag the profit dreams of energy companies until it is pumped out and sold. Any elected official that gets in the way will have a very well funded opponent in the very next election. I would bet that Pennsylvania will be Fracked Up... it will happen.

All I would dare to hope is that we can somehow hold the energy companies to high standards of environmental ethics. Take the gas, but leave the unpolluted waters and wilderness. To accomplish this we will have to be alert to pollution, and demand that our governmental leaders be held accountable to our grandchildren. Any President who signs a waiver for this industry to disregard the "Clean Air and Water Act" should be quickly impeached and certainly not re-elected. We owe this to our children.

Because the biggest problem we face is not "capitalism." Capitalism is a very productive force. Like natural gas it is volatile. When the burn is controlled gas can power an engine. Out of control, like an explosion in a gas line, the problem with capitalism comes from when the corporate "profit motive" runs our government. When politicians legislate and regulate an industry like natural gas based on the large extent of political contributions from that industry, we are in trouble. That partnership between business and government, along with the big doses of nationalism and populism that it takes to get the working classes to approve, that is called fascism. So the biggest problem we face is ignorance.

I could take you to this special place and show you the potential costs we are prepared to pay for a few years of heat. I might be able to replicate for you some of the wilderness experiences that are possible in such places. But until you realize the value of your common interest in wilderness, you may be confused into believing that your self interest is tied up with energy companies' profits or campaign contributions for your elected officials; until then we have an educational problem on our hands...not a political problem, nor an accounting problem, nor an energy shortage. First we have an educational problem. And the first step toward that solution is for you to take a trip to some place wild.