As for the West, it had better hold on tight. Places like the tiny windswept crossroads of Pinedale, Wyoming, have been experiencing ozone-alert days, thanks in part to the diesel compressors from 700 gas wells in the area—and in June, the BLM announced plans for 3,700 more. This would mean a well every 2.5 acres in some places. And keep in mind that a well pad—the bulldozed patch that the drill rig sits on—can cover an acre or more.

"We've got to restore some balance so it's not just 'Katie, bar the door,' "says Wilderness Society senior policy adviser Dave Albers­werth. "I went out there and it's like a scene from There Will Be Blood, only without the flaming gusher." Expect that scene to replay all over the West: According to a Wilderness Society count of BLM permits under review, we could see 126,381 new oil and gas wells over the next 15 to 20 years—in the Rocky Mountain states alone.

"The danger for the Rockies is that we become sort of roadkill in a Mad Max movie," says Udall. "Put it this way: In a ham-and-egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Well, the Rockies are the pig."

I got a hint of this in July, when I flew over Colorado's Roan Plateau—73,600 acres of elk habitat, 3,000 feet above the natural-gas boomtown of Rifle—with EcoFlight founder Bruce Gordon, who's spent 9,500 hours flying politicians and reporters over western lands. When the BLM announced plans to put 55,000 acres here up for commercial leasing this summer, it mowed over 75,000 public comments (98 percent in support of greater protection for the Roan), a lawsuit from ten conservation and hunting groups, and more moderate plans from Colorado senator Ken Salazar and governor Bill Ritter.

We took off from Aspen, taxiing our way past dozens of private jets. West of Rifle, we banked north. To our right lay the undeveloped public lands of the Roan, unexpectedly lush, a green ocean rolling with aspens and conifers. To our left was private land: rigs, pumps, trailers, and barracks, with gas flares torching beside magenta evaporation ponds.

"None of this was here six years ago," Gordon hollered over the headset. "Now you fly in here at night and it's lit up like a coliseum. And you should expect this to triple." In my head I tripled the hives I saw below me; the scale made me dizzy—subdivision after subdivision of industrial cul-de-sacs that, without some swift action and smart national thinking, could have no end in sight.

"We have no conception, no word, no image, for what's coming," Udall had told me. "Neither McCain nor Obama have come to grips with the scale of what we face. Nor has the environmental community. Everybody's living in a fairy tale."