West Running Brook

I took my own advice and have been reading books inspired by nature in lieu of spending time outside. I was paging through a collection of works by Robert Frost and came to "West Running Brook." I started thinking the river featured in his poem and how the world has changed from his generation to ours. Lately it's been hard for me to have a positive outlook about the world we're leaving our children. I don't want to get political here, but the Keystone XL Pipeline featured strongly in my picture of what kind of planet we're leaving future generations.

Much of Frost's works are inspired by nature like many people he often got away from the cities and rush of everyday life. More often than not we find a special, wild place that connects us to a more natural and quiet self. West Running Brook invokes this idea by asking us to “get back to the beginning of beginnings.” All people require wild spaces that retune the body and the mind toward the natural word, so we seek the comfort of nature in the most volatile times. Unencumbered nature is full of  lessons to be learned and metaphors that reflect our own lives back to us. The Keystone XL pipeline is poised to destroy a vast amount of wild spaces, not only in its path, but the wild spaces that are center to the lives of people all over the world.

The Keystone XL pipeline a highly divisive and political issue. On one hand conservationist, preservationist, and environmentalist see the building of the pipeline as “game over for the climate.” On the other side, the oil companies and citizens of both America and Canada who support the pumping of fossil fuels view the pipeline as a sound financial investment that would bring profit and jobs to both nations. The pipeline would run through Nebraska, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas, pumping tar sand oil to the global oil market. Tar sands oil is one of the dirtiest forms of fossil fuels containing higher levels of carbon dioxide than all our fossil fuels combined. The danger of the use of the fossil fuels is well known, but we insist on burning them with little regard for the impact on the health of the environment and our own health.

Human health is dependent on the health of the environment. Take the The Killer Fog of London in 1952 lasted and killed 4,000 people as an example. We cannot pollute the planet without polluting ourselves. Pollution obeys no person, boarder, or national appeal, it follows air and water currents and can’t be blocked by lines on a map. The smog of 1952 had lethal implications just like the Keystone XL pipeline will accelerate climate change leading to droughts, new illness, feminine, and an increase in deadly storms. Looking at the pipeline as a standalone object that only impacts the oil and job markets is a foolhardy way to view the continued use of fossil fuel.

A nation cannot be successful if it places the growth of large companies over the health of its wild spaces and its people. Our connection to the wild world is base and primitive, we are not above it. We need to protect these sources of free and open space because we are of it. We see our reflection in the spaces we live in. A polluted human environment has been proven to cause an increase in sickness, abuse, drug use, and alcoholism while a clean human habitat promotes education, community involvement, and respect. We are a “tribute of the current to the source” and it’s our responsibility to allow future generations the joys of connecting to our fundamental origins .