President Barack Obama proposed a climate change legislation overhaul while running for office, but unlike the healthcare overhaul, there has been no action to change how Americans obtain energy. Politics are a twisted maze to navigate—that much was made clear during the healthcare reform debate at the beginning of Obama’s administration, but a consensus was eventually reached. No matter the positions of the parties, scientific literature or the opinions of the American people, something we may never see is a comprehensive overhaul of energy production and consumption.

Finding clean, sustainable domestic energy sources is not something that is considered fiscally opportunistic by the GOP. Many of our illustrious politicians are not convinced that global warming is real or that it poses any real environmental threats or health risks. Instead, there is a push from the right to locate cheap energy sources, such as nuclear energy or offshore drilling, because other sources such as solar, wind and geothermal power have yet to prove themselves capable of generating a profit.

But money isn’t everything. A Cree Indian proverb states: “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.” We need the land and our natural resources – not only for food, as the proverb states, but because it is a part of our natural heritage.

In the past, the government took action to protect our frontiers, creating national parks and land preservations. Our government needs to step up again and reaffirm that not only is the environment something worth preserving, but that we have a responsibility to reduce our consumption and not take from the land. If we can learn to view the land as a finite resource and look to a complete overhaul of the modern American philosophy of living, we may find new solutions for a multitude of our problems instead of kicking around the same old useless ideas to no real progress.