Growing up outside of town, I spent many hours wandering through the woods with my trusty Boston Terrier. She wasn't your typical hunting hound, but she was enthusiastic. And believe it or not, she was a pointer. I would have put her up against any trained bird dog you ever saw, because she had a big heart and she was happy.
Whether in the heat of the summer or cold of winter, there was always something fresh and new for a preteen to learn for a few hours in the classroom of the woods.
Flora and fauna, however, were not the only things to be found in our neck of the woods. There were oil wells-lots of them. One was even on the back edge of our yard. We took them for granted, I guess, because they were always there. They were there long before we moved in, and they coexisted well with the coyotes, opossums, and squirrels. Any "pollution" they created was limited to a few square yards and generally made up of a storage tank and sludge pit. Sludge pits were small, shallow ponds for collection of rainwater and any overflow from the tanks. They also provided a handy place for your dog to take a swim on a hot summer day, if you couldn't catch her first.
There are houses sitting on the site of the one nearest our old house now, and I'm sure the residents have no clue of what used to be there. Such is the reclaiming strength of nature.
Development
About 1955, home construction arrived in our beloved woods. My buddies and I considered it tragic. The forecast was bulldozers and roads: The ponds would be filled in, and the 100-year-old farmhouse remains would be shoved down. Houses! Civilization! The constantly renewed mystery of the primeval forest would be no more. I was frustrated and upset. They were naming the new area "Woodland Park." But no matter what they called it, I felt the woods would be gone, and the park would be a swingset and a slide. Our magic wonderland would be ruined forever.
I was wrong. Yes, things changed, but development did not mean destruction. In many ways, the area is more beautiful than before. The homes that were built generally blended well with the trees, rocks, and landforms. A pleasant and relaxing place was created for human habitation along with the birds and other beasts of the woods. Most of the same animals and birds still call the woods home. There is room for all.
Humans and birds, squirrels, and raccoons can all live together. We all just have to make adjustments and get along in different ways. We all can thrive.
Balance
What I'm talking about is balance. It's the ability to take what is needed without abusing the source. Using something without abusing it. Everyone in the industry wants to protect the environment as much as any tree-hugger. The difference between us, however, is that we have needs and admit it.
And that brings us to electricity and California.
What a complex problem! Do you have an answer? The maze has taken many years to create, and a wave of a magic wand or rewriting a script's ending in Hollywood isn't going to give a quick solution. Neither is pointing fingers.
California is out of balance. It started years ago with lots of good intentions regarding nature. Nothing wrong with that. But slowly a mindset was created that believed that anything that was good for the energy industry had to be bad for nature. In any arena, the opposite ends of the stick usually have (or should have) only minimal influence on the decisions made at the center.
Environmental lobbyists tend to see all energy companies as "polluting resource squanderers," while some in the energy industry often look at environmental lobbyists as "enviro-Nazis."
I was sitting in the Southwest Airlines terminal area at Houston Hobby Airport a few weeks ago waiting for a flight that was about 3 hr late. One of the topics of the conversations around me was the California power crisis. There was no sympathy. The general feeling was that California had made its own bed and no amount of finger-pointing and gnashing of teeth was going to change that fact.
As a child, I learned that responsible development wasn't as bad as I expected. Humans, opossums, coyotes, and squirrels can all get along together.
Only time will tell if California learns that too.
