It was a privilege to travel for thirteen days across the American West. It fed my soul.

As we’re driving Wyoming, the incessant American need for more natural resources stayed in constant view. You’re always in sight of a gas or oil operation — you can see them dotted across the landscape — even if you rarely find yourself confronted with a massive coal operation, as we did on Tuesday. Driving past the Thunder Bay Mining Operation — an operation I know nothing about (maybe it’s the cleanest, best coal company going) — and you’re struck by the massive scale. Those trucks your kids you used to watch in videos? There they are. Signs that read “Blasting ahead! Avoid Orange Cloud” are on the side of the road. The landscape has been dug up and completely turned over.

Yet you’ll only see this if you go down the side road of a side road, a highway you needn’t ever travel.

How do you convince people to change their behavior when the thing that enables their behavior is wrecking the land 2000 miles away on a highway they will never see? How do you underscore how all decisions are interconnected when so much of mass culture is designed to make sure you don’t make those connections?