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Part 110: The Environment P2:
July 5, 2004:
Here is a quote From Microsoft's Bookshelf that I used in The Weekly Notes recently. It is also appropriate for beginning this essay on our environment.
"You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves." Attributed to Seattle, Chief of the Duwamish, Suquamish and allied Indian tribes.
There is some question as to whether Seattle actually said this or if it was simply attributed to him by a fiction writer. That is irrelevant for my purpose. The fact is, it rings true and reflects my own feeling about our earth. I believe, due to our recklessness, we are currently facing a looming environmental disaster. That is my contention. Let's just look at a few facts concerning that contention.
Oil spills are an ongoing and increasing threat to our oceans,
shores, and marine life.
Our government is continuously cooperating with the rape and depletion
of our wilderness by big business.
Our government is permitting the destruction of our national parks
by allowing invading armies of RV and snowmobile rabble.
We are beginning to choke on our own waste. Trash piles up and
there are local and international duels and snorting contests
about where to dump it.
Every body of water in America is polluted and the pollution continues
as I write this.
The ozone layer is disappearing.
Global warming is an undeniable fact.
Acid rain, is a fact of life and our government refuses to deal
with it.
We continue to generate nuclear waste with no idea of how we can
deal with it.
The problems are not just local.
The rain forests of the world are being systematically destroyed
by ignorant people.
Developing nations are joining America in pouring poisonous sewage
into the air and into international waters.
There is more, but that is enough to convince all but the most evil profiteers and the stupidest rabble. If we continue without dealing with this, our earth will become an environmental disaster. There will be no place fit for human habitation. The disaster of New York's Love Canal will spread over the whole earth. To deal with this will require international cooperation on an unprecedented scale, but we must begin at home.
Right now, our government is one of the obstacles to international cooperation. America is one of the few remaining nations that have refused to ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The goal of this protocol is to reduce the emission of the "greenhouse" gasses which are widely believed to cause global warming. Signing that agreement would be a first step on a very long road, but it would be costly for America. Well sure! America with less than 5% of the world's population produces about 25 % of the world's greenhouse emissions. And, lest we forget, due to many decades of exporting our poverty America is the wealthiest nation in the world.
So, we must begin at home if we want the world to take us seriously. We must begin at home if we want to take ourselves seriously. This is not just a government problem or just an industry problem. Every one of us is culpable. The truth is, huge numbers of our citizenry have developed an absolute contempt for the environment that sustains us. We do indeed spit upon the earth. We can begin with the scumbag citizen who throws empty beer cans into Lake Erie and go on up to the scumbag industrialist who dumps toxins into the Flint River. Everyone pitching in becomes an irony with pollution.
There are several prongs to any real program for dealing with the looming environmental disaster. First, we must stop polluting and destroying the earth's resources. Second, we must begin to deal with the enormous amount of waste we generate. Third, we must teach our rabble to respect and care for the environment. Fourth, we must take the lead in international cooperation to protect the environment.
As to the earths resources, our wilderness areas are being constantly diminished. More and more, the grubbing monied industrial thugs are bribing the government into allowing them access to wilderness areas for financial exploitation. Their rational is always the same. They say they have new technology and it s not a threat to the environment. The truth is, their record of environmental destruction speaks for them. They cannot be trusted.
There is only one safe alternative. That is to prevent commercial development of our wilderness. So long as we have politicians and bureaucrats that will be a difficult and ongoing task. Politicians and bureaucrats are, in general, for sale. Again, their record speaks for itself. I know of no state in this country that has not had to deal with the results of government supported industrial carelessness. From the pig feces in North Carolina to the toxins in the Great Lakes, the problem is always a result of dishonest cooperation between big government and big business.
This is one area where my Betrayal of Trust (BOT) law would be useful. I outlined that concept in my essay 92 on law and law enforcement. Briefly it would automatically triple the penalty in a conviction that involved BOT. Government people and industrialists caught conspiring to betray the public trust would go away for a very long time.
I have pointed this our in previous essays, but I must continue the theme. The ultimate solution is to get ethical people into government. If we do not do that, nothing can be done. Everything we do will ultimately hinge on human ethics. We need to teach ethics to everyone and we need to get the best of the superior people into our leadership. Right now we have nothing but rabble in our government. We have the classic case of the rabble leading the rabble. Thus, we begin to take on the appearance and characteristics of a lemming migration.
I will continue my examination of environmental problems in
my next essay.
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