Time: A Pragmatist and a Pioneer

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LINDBERGH: If you flew over an area that you remember, in the West for instance, it would certainly look very different. The erosion from both water and wind is very clear, as is the slashing down of forests in many, many areas. Maybe the most noticeable thing for you would be looking down on the coastal area, seeing how great cities, towns, villages, tremendous housing masses extend to the horizons, spilling over mountains where farms and orchards used to be. But in order to use well, in order to exploit, you also have to conserve.

GETTY: Well, I don't call myself a conservationist to the extent that some enthusiasts do. In other words, I believe in the Alaska pipeline. I wouldn't expect to find the Getty Oil Co. lobbying against it, because we need oil. But I can understand the need for government controls in some areas. I don't think governments can limit the quantity of exploration. But they can decide how it can be done. There are very strict regulations in the North Sea on drilling, blowouts and so forth, and there have been no oil spills. I think that's beneficial.

LINDBERGH: I think it is inevitable that we come to government control of natural resources. I see no way to preserve world resources without that control. Obviously, we have to have oil and energy in the future. But how do we balance this with where the lines go and how much is taken?

GETTY: The Arabs are obviously going to get richer. The balance of world wealth is swinging toward the Eastern Hemisphere. I'm not sure, though, that these countries will become happier and more contented places as a result. Money doesn't necessarily have any connection with happiness. Maybe with unhappiness.

LINDBERGH: I've never had more enjoyable times than with some tribal peoples who have, of course, almost no wealth by our standards.

GETTY: I never enjoyed making money, never started out to make a lot of it. I was superstitious about these people who say they are going to make a lot of money. My mother used to say that when she was a young girl she used to follow books written by health experts. But she stopped when she read their obituaries. Most of them died in their 50s.

Looking ahead, maybe 100 years, oil as we know it today will be found only in museums. By then we'll be using better sources of energy, and I would expect Getty to be still in the energy business. Energy will probably cost more, but then no one has been selling buffalo robes for $1 since the 1880s either.

LINDBERGH: In relation to our present resources, population and affluent life-styles in Europe and America, we quite obviously cannot maintain our present rate of growth. What do we do? Does this trend bend? Does it break?

GETTY: Things burst and the devil drives. We have to cut our coats according to our cloth. If we haven't enough energy, we'll have to get along on what we've got.

LINDBERGH: So it's a case of adjusting life to the energy available and its costs?

GETTY: There is no alternative. Unless you want to go back to horses, buggies or bicycles, as in China. I kind of take industrial growth and its complications in my stride. I didn't have any control over things. My life has really been like that of the soldiers in the "Light Brigade"-"Theirs not to reason why/ Theirs but to do and die."