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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Chris Elliott                       Zach Lee                  Christian Palmer
                Geronimo Rodriguez       Blake Whitaker       Kristen Young

Missing the forest for lower home heating costs

Rising fuel prices this winter may have Ohio lawmakers allowing private companies to drill in protected state parks, Bowling Green State University's BG News reported Monday. Needless to say, environmental groups are not happy with that possibility.

Ohio Senate Bill 193, introduced in October by Republican Sen. Jeffry Armbruster, would create a board to lease public land to private companies, lifting barriers to drilling for oil and natural gas in state parks.

The issue at hand is the same issue that has floated around for years as politicians struggled with the idea of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. One major difference, however, is that Alaska is an under-populated extremity and Ohio is in the heartland of the United States. 

State parks are protected for a reason, presumably because they are beautiful and vital to understanding the natural landscape of any region. Nature itself is a resource, and it would be shortsighted to risk any part of what natural beauty this country has left for a temporary fuel fix. Then again, in Texas, we rarely have to worry about getting cheap fuel, and we don't turn on our heaters until mid-January.

Finding renewable sources of energy should be a top priority for everyone, and the situation in Ohio should only reinforce that fact. If reliance on oil and natural gas forces people to choose between high monetary costs and sullying this country's natural beauty, it is too expensive either way.

In 1872, Teddy Roosevelt created Yellowstone National Park, the first national park in the world, with the sentiment that "The ‘greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations."

Those unborn generations are watching Ohio.