My readers know that one of my favorite hobbies is hiking in the wilderness, especially the wild places in the American Southwest.

This week we saw President Trump reduce the amount of protected lands in the Bears Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase / Escalante National Monument. This reduction was pretty significant; sources cite the reduction as about 90%.

Of course, this is mostly an exchange of power and political grandstanding, since this is the third time in 10 years this land has changed hands. There are crossed purposes, petty players on both the left and the right, and, most significantly, money.

There is a political cartoon making the rounds showing a family around a camp fire. The father says something like, “Yes, the planet got destroyed, but we generated a lot of value for the shareholders.”

Take a minute and think about all the really great things in your life. Is it your kids? Your pets? Your parents? Do you have great memories of a family vacation to the Ozarks? The Grand Canyon? The lighthouses of Maine?

Or are the really great things in your life the margins on a stock ticker?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting good jobs, nice homes and cars, and being able to retire. What’s wrong, really wrong, is the idea that we can strip the planet of its resources so we can have more stuff and more money. The reason is very clear: this is the only planet we have. It is in our interest, our children’s interest, their children’s interest, to take care of it.