Man Versus Wild

During the month of August, Guests on Call will be scheduling radio interviews with various guests working to protect and preserve our nation's wild heritage, our wilderness areas. There are many threats to our wilderness, including road building, development and sprawl and oil and gas drilling.

As our country looks ahead in developing a new Energy Bill that will require more renewable energy sources and support their development, we are also falling behind the commitment we made to save our wild places in 1964's Wilderness Act by drilling for gas and oil and mining for coal on our public lands. With Bush's threat to veto the Energy Bill for not supporting enough domestic oil and gas production, protection of our wildest areas may be far off.

The discussion of the beauty and majesty of the Wild West, and the detrimental effects of segmenting these lands for energy and growth, has already begun. Can we meet our energy needs and protect our wildest places? How can we plan for growth and protect open space?