The lights of drill-rig towers glimmered in the distance, far off across the unhabited immensities of the Escalante beachlands. They passed, from time to time, familiar names on little metal signs at turn-offs along the road: Conoco, Arco, Texaco, Gulf, Exxon, Cities Service.
"The bastards are everywhere," Hayduke grumbled. "Let's go get those rigs."
"There's men out there a-workin'. Out there in the cold at four in the morning slaving away to provide us with oil and gas for this here truck so we can help sabotage the world planetary maggot- machine. Show a little gratitude."
The light of dawn found them rolling southeast under the facade of the Fifty Mile Cliffs. Hole-in-the-Rock was a dead end (for motor vehicles) but their route lay another way, up a connecting jeep trail over the plateau.
Hayduke spotted geophones along the road. "Stop!"
Smith stopped. Hayduke jumped out and tore the nearest geophone out of the dirt, along with the cable that connected it to a series. Geophones mean seismic exploration, the search for mineral deposits by means of analysis of vibration patterns- seismographs- in the subsurface rock, the vibrations created by explosive charge set off in the bottom of drill holes. Hayduke wrapped a loop of the cable around the rear bumper of the truck and got back in the cab.
"Okay." He opened a beer. "Christ, I'm hungry."
Smith drove forward. Behind them, as the cable tightened, the geophones began popping form the ground and scuttling along behind the truck, dancing in the dust. Dozens of them, expensive little instruments, ripped untimely from the earth. As they proceeded the truck yanked still more out of the ground, the whole lot.
"Soon as the sun comes up," Smith promised, "we'll fix some breakfast. Soon as we get out of the open and up in the woods."
pg. 150/151
I like this excerpt from the novel because we can clearly see the disagreement between Hayduke and the process of industry. Hayduke dislikes industry because of the effects that it has on the environment. The area that was once unhabited is now filled with the lights of industry. This invasion causes anger in Hayduke which leads him into the destruction of the geophones. He does not care that these devices are expensive because in his eyes they are just endangering the environment. I also choose this excerpt because it gives introduction to an important concept- that although we are in disagreement with the destruction of Nature caused by industry we use the sources produced by industrialization which causes a greater depletion of our natural resources. At the end, industrialization ends up being nothing more than a supply and demand company. In this example, Hayduke is mad at the effects of industrialization on the environment but Smith remind him that it is thanks to industrialization and the production of gasoline that they are able to travel in their truck. There are many activist fighting for the rights of our Nature, but unfortunately we have become too dependent on the products produced by industrialization that it is difficult to brings industrialization to a complete stop. If we want to see a change and a stop the depletion of our natural resources we need to start with our own actions.
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