Too Expensive to Exist

A family-run Texas campground that charged $12 has closed public camping and trail access because rising insurance costs made it unaffordable. Its loss illustrates a broader squeeze on nature: state-park sites are booked months ahead, more than 95% of Texas land is privately owned, and remaining open spaces face development or restrictions driven by liability fears. The writer recalls a wooded patch cleared and fenced after its owner worried about fire lawsuits, and contrasts childhood access to ranchland with housing subdivisions, crowded lakes, and shrinking wildlife habitat. These changes are not isolated inconveniences: species are disappearing, deer face chronic wasting disease, and development can permanently erase the places that support ecosystems and give people direct contact with nature.

The essay argues that economic growth and faith in technological progress continually turn efficiency into further extraction, construction, and consumption rather than relieving pressure on land. It cites proposals to transfer public lands for possible sale and an Alaskan mining road that would disrupt wilderness, while warning that AI could accelerate resource use. Visions of a future defined by material abundance feel hollow when they require sacrificing places people value today. Nature, the writer insists, is not an abstract “environment” but the local watershed, wildlife, soil, trees, and nearby wildflower field. Though grieving and unable to offer a solution, the writer plans to teach their children outdoor skills, take them camping, support conservation, and keep speaking up.