Counterfactual: History Game-Playing

THE NORTHWEST HAS NO CLOUT:

WOULD THE GRAND CANYON DAMS HAVE BEEN BUILT?

There are the what-if games played with history; there are the erroneous, even willful, interpretations. Byron Pearson's Saving Grand Canyon is fatally flawed as an academic history by the latter -- his failed book-long rant at environmentalists, and in particular the Sierra Club as the Grand Canyon's saviors.

Playing the what-if games, however, I have found an intriguing and educational antidote, since they permit an examination of the roles of various actors under conditions that did not quite prevail. For instance, it is a linch-pin of any solid understanding of the 1965-8 legislative history of the Colorado River Basin Act to understand the multi-diimensional influences that gave Washington's Democratic Senator Henry Jackson, Interior & Insular Affairs Committee Chairman (and there are a bunch of those influences in that titling) his central position in shaping the legislation. So, suppose we take out of the CRB legislation story Jackson's position and convictions and motivations and support. Suppose that there had been no central figure from the Northwest, Jackson or another. Suppose, that is, that the political balances in the Senate were much like those in the House, where Northwest Representatives were eloquent and determined, but of little impact on the Arizona-Colorado-California alliance that drove the process. 

Hockney and travel, a personal note

There is much to be said for travel. I have travelled; I am a traveller. The Canyon is an anchor, a universe: I have travelled about in it, through it, across it, been within it.
There is no jet lag in the Grand Canyon.

The Navajo-Park boundary: scene of a land grab or beneficial cooperation?

FAIR PLAY FOR THE NAVAJO OR LAND GRAB FOR A PARK?

The location of the western Navajo Reservation boundary along the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers is a matter vexed by the usual plethora of crisscrossing land actions and overlain by the responsibility of the federal government to behave in ways mindful of its ethical duties toward the Navajo and the Grand Canyon.

I have written, at great length, a comprehensive chronological and topical examination of these issues (http://gcfutures.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-on-boundary-segment-b-navajo.html).
Here I wish to state the matter as it stands today, cutting through the Gordian knot presented by the history of those land actions:

A Carbon-Free Grand Canyon Wilderness

2020: THE ELECTION TO DEDICATE

THE GRAND CANYON

TO ITS TRUE ENVIRONMENTAL ICON STATUS

AS A CARBON-FREE MOTOR-FREE WILDERNESS

On the 2020 election agenda for the new American Government in 2021:

Lets elevate the Grand Canyon to its natural status as the icon of a renewed pro-climate, pro-environment effort by moving through Congress the CARBON-FREE GRAND CANYON WILDERNESS.

The proposed boundary of a CARBON-FREE MOTOR-FREE GRAND CANYON WILDERNESS is already drawn. Lets support the 2021 introduction and passage through Congress of this positive forward-moving action to place the Grand Canyon at the vanguard of a pro-climate agenda. A CARBON-FREE GRAND CANYON WILDERNESS ACT would be an easily achieved win-win physical and governmental symbol of a solid dedication to acting strongly on actions to protect and restore a livable climate.

Within the 277 miles of the Grand Canyon itself and over its near airspace, boat and plane and associated motors would no longer operate, cutting to zero all carbon emissions from recreation and administrative activities (saving only emergencies). At the stroke of the new President's pen signing a CARBON-FREE GRAND CANYON WILDERNESS bill, the Grand Canyon would become the icon of a national dedication for immediate action on climate repair and rejuvenation.

As a major benefit, the normal Wilderness quiet, the natural pro-human quiet, that would descend throughout the Grand Canyon with the legislating of a CARBON-FREE MOTOR-FREE GRAND CANYON WILDERNESS would signal loud and clear American commitment to a sound and supportive environment for visitors and the world at large.