“Hey!  Great to see you again!  Man, it’s been hectic lately – Wisconsin last month then Louisiana a couple weeks ago, and I’m just back from Hermine in Florida.  Your schedule crazy too?” asked Dewey Droppe as he and Regina Reign crammed together with billions of other water droplets in a warm, humid cloud.

     “I hear ya bro,” Regina replied. “I was up in Eau Clair County too.  Boy did we nail them - eight inches over night.  I hear the governor has declared 3 counties disaster areas.  But I missed the Louisiana gig.  How’d it go?”

     “Me and the boys did a number on them.  Caused what they’re calling the worst natural disaster in 4 years - 60,000 homes damaged or destroyed and 30,000 people needed rescuing – all because we raindrops just kept coming.  Curiously, the humans seem oblivious to what’s going on.  They think they’re prepared for so-called ‘100-year events’.  But in the past 15 months we’ve already caused EIGHT ‘500-year events’ in the U.S. alone.  It’s no coincidence that each of the past 15 months has also broken global average high temperature records.  The warmer it gets the quicker we evaporate and the more tightly we droplets crowd together. Then when we let loose it’s more likely to be what humans call an ‘extreme weather event’,“ bragged Dewey.

     “Unless,” interjected Regina, “that extra heat causes weather patterns to shift. Then the higher temps suck us right out of the ground, and the dry winds pull us apart.  Have you been to California?  Five straight years of drought, 4,200 fires already this year and the actual fire season is just beginning.  I’m not booked for California until sometime late 2017.”

     “You know,” pined Dewey, “this ‘new normal’ isn’t really all that great.  I liked the old days when our schedules weren’t so intense.  I wish they’d turn down the heat for heaven’s sake!  Don’t humans see it would be in their best interest?  Otherwise, we’re just going to keep blasting away, busting up their infra-structure.”

     “Yeah, they’re so enamored with carbon-based fossil fuels.  Most of them don’t seem to understand what some folks call the ‘social cost of carbon’,” added Regina.  “They’d be so much better off switching to clean energy sources instead.  Because otherwise we’ll just keep wrecking their home, right here where they’re forever… Earthbound.”

     James J. Hill had a vision – a vision to build an empire providing opportunities, prosperity and genuine value to a nation healing from the Civil War.  His vision was to tie the Great Lakes region to the Pacific Northwest through a northern rail route.  He fulfilled that dream, and today Amtrak has named that rail line the Empire Builder in his honor.  Karen and I recently rode that steel ribbon running just south of the Canadian border on a journey to visit our children and their families in the Pacific Northwest. 
     The route carried us through this year’s potential bumper crop of corn covering thousands of acres in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota.  Those fields gradually transition to a seemingly endless expanse of wheat as we traveled westward.  Then the Rocky Mountains, Glacier Park and the Cascade Mountains make for a spectacular finale.  The rhythmic, measured pace of the train allows one to soak in the atmosphere and environment.  Our nation is truly blessed with abundance.  It’s a great trip.
     Views from the observation car’s windows present an interesting juxtaposition of competing energy paths to a prosperous future.  On the one hand, the route passes frac sand mines in central Wisconsin and the oil boomtowns of North Dakota.  Train cars loaded with western coal race down the tracks.  Conversely, wind farms grace the high plains of Montana. 
     What would James J. Hill’s vision be today to secure our “empire”, and to provide lasting value and prosperity for America?  The preponderance of scientific evidence tells us the continued extraction and burning of fossil fuels is already altering the climate disrupting the ideal agricultural conditions we’ve enjoyed since our nation’s founding.  Alternatively, the clean energy and energy efficiency industries already provide more jobs per dollar invested than do the fossil fuel industries. Which would a modern day James J. Hill choose?   Would he continue to extract and pay for harmful fuels, or would such a visionary harvest the free energy that falls on and blows across the thousands of miles of the Empire Builder route?
     Our future is in the balance.  A healthy, clean environment is our most valuable resource – one we can’t live without.  After all, this pale blue planet is the only home we’ll ever know.  We’re here forever… Earthbound.