Despite the fact that the Environment is one of the American population's most pressing concerns it doesn't get talked about much in political circles.
(Then again, the vast majority of Americans are against perpetuating the war in Iraq and a majority think Congress should investigate impeaching Bush...and see where that's gotten 'em. Why am I surprised?)
Anyway, in honor of tomorrow's 37th Earth Day, here are some links for you:
Ten Things You Should Never Buy Again: I'm doing pretty good on about 6 out of 10, how about you?
57 things you can do to go green and save green: Hat tip hip & zen pen.
Watch a movie, learn more and sign a pledge to start living a One Planet Life on Care2.org.
Read Bill Maher's musings on The Birds, the Bees, and Earth Day
Greg Easterbrook has in his own words shifted from being a global warming cynic to a convert. Why? Because now the scientific evidence is in and unmistakable.
Great. Please do read his entire article to get a bucketful of data to argue against those knee-jerk anti-environmentalists. Like this:
Case closed. Earth's surface, atmosphere and seas are warming; ocean currents are slowing; ice shelves are melting faster than projected; spring is coming ever sooner; rainfall patterns are changing; North American migratory birds are ranging father north; the ability of the earth to self-regulate to resist warming appears to be waning. While natural variation may play roles in climatic trends, overwhelming evidence points to the accumulation of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, as the key.
President Bush was right to withdraw the United States from the cumbersome Kyoto greenhouse treaty, which even most signatories are ignoring. But Mr. Bush should speak to history by proposing a binding greenhouse-credit trading system within the United States. Waiting for science no longer justifies delay, as results are now in.
I'm glad Mr. Easterbrook has been converted...now he should perhaps work to actually get Dubya on board!
Do you think this study commissioned by the government might finally bring some global warming-deniers around? Yeah, I don't really think so either...the right seems very invested in never appearing to change their mind..even when proven wrong. Of course one can hardly blame them for pursuing that strategy, since the American people seem loathe to actually make anyone pay for being wrong.
Anyway, key excerpts from the release about this report:
According to the published report, there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere. This discrepancy had previously been used to challenge the validity of climate models used to detect and attribute the causes of observed climate change.
The evidence continues to support a substantial human impact on global temperature increases. This should constitute a valuable source of information to policymakers.
I have been meaning to blog about this entire gas price cluster-f*ck for a long time now, but find myself just overwhelmed by the urge to poke my eyeballs out when thinking about it. Here are the roiling, conflicting thoughts in my head:
1. The U.S. has historically enjoyed much lower gas prices than the rest of the world. Maybe it would encourage us to be more conscious of our wastefulness if it really started to hurt us in the pocketbook. The problem is that the higher prices don't really seem to be lowering demand, so so much for that idea.
2. And not only does demand seem to persist, but the oil companies are raking it in hand over fist, so it's not like these higher prices are only matching their inceased expenses. And that's just disgusting.
3. And what kind of special hypocrisy does it take to say out of one side of your mouth that you want the FTC to investigate potential price gouging, and then say out of the other that you're pretty sure there is none. The special kind of hypocrisy that only Dubya knows.
4. And why am I not surprised that one of Dubya's very first "ideas" is to ease environmental restrictions.
The whole thing is just very aggravating, no?
Bonus Links: Tips for driving more fuel efficiently from Treehugger.com
Yes, the Senate has voted to allow Arctic drilling.
Yes, Dubya has nominated another lackey of business interests to replace the former lackey of business interests as Secretary of the Interior.
But we got a rare environmental win when a federal appeals court overturned a clean-air regulation issued by the Bush administration that would have let many power plants, refineries and factories avoid installing costly new pollution controls to help offset any increased emissions caused by repairs and replacements of equipment.
In the earlier case, a panel including two of the three judges who ruled on Friday decided that the agency had acted reasonably in 2002, when it issued a rule changing how pollution would be measured, effectively loosening the strictures on companies making changes to their equipment and operations.But on Friday, the court said the agency went too far in 2003 when it issued a separate new rule that opponents said would exempt most equipment changes from environmental reviews - even changes that would result in higher emissions.
With a wry footnote to Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," the court said that "only in a Humpty-Dumpty world" could the law be read otherwise.
"We decline such a world view," said their unanimous decision, written by Judge Judith W. Rogers, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. Judges David Tatel, another Clinton appointee, and Janice Rogers Brown, a recent Bush appointee, joined her.
I know you won't be surprised when I tell you that Bush is trying to ease rules to make it easier for companies to dispose of toxic chemicals without telling us where and how much.
The NY Times editorial linked above outlines a couple of big problems with the proposed rule changes:
They can pollute more.
They can report less often.
I feel more asthmatic already, how about you?
Again...how pro-business, exactly, do we need to be? And at whose expense?
I'm beginning to think that all laws should have expiration dates and be revisited, at the least, every eight years. The reason being that sometimes stay on the books and end up having long-term consequences that no one intended. One example might be the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) but I'm not starting that argument here.
Rather I'm talking about the royalty-waiver programs in place for oil companies. Back when gas prices were low these royalty-waivers were considered necessary to encourage oil companies to keep investing in exploring and researching oil sources. Now that oil companies are making unheard of profits, giving them additional billions in waivers just doesn't seem right. To Democrats or Republicans.
So, given that we have to admit we really suck at predicting the future, why not build in periodic, required reviews of all laws?
Yeah, I know. That would open huge cans of worms in a million different places and would be completely inefficient. I'm just venting.
Source NY Times.
Received the following via email from a blog reader. So, please welcome this guest post:
BOOM! BOOM! Aim at Energy Policy for the U.S.By Claire Noonan, 59, retired elementary teacher, has no connections to the energy industry, only an interest in sustaining the Earth.
IN the same week that the President spoke about our need to break America’s addiction to oil, Ellen Goodman (San Jose Mercury News, 2-3-06) and Howard Fineman (Newsweek, 1-23-06) called on Baby Boomers to step forward with ideas. Well, OK. How about ways to kick the oil habit?
Actually, the ideas are already out there. What Baby Boomers—and everyone else—can do is demand action, consolidating a list of the most obvious ideas and insisting that Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate craft meaningful legislation.
First, as many economists have stated again and again, at more than $60 a barrel, the price of oil now makes it cost-effective to revise regulations increasing fuel economy standards for cars. Congress should mandate that step and ensure that the regulations include SUVs and light trucks, currently excluded from the so-called CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. Automakers will surely resist this change since it would discourage the production of low mile-per-gallon SUVs and trucks, vehicles that command higher prices and produce wider profit margins. Nevertheless, we should insist that Congress ignore the automakers’ lobbyists and take this important step towards combating our oil addiction.
Second, Congress should increase federal gas taxes. Sure, everyone hates higher taxes, but kicking the oil habit will require some pain and higher gas taxes would have a powerful benefit. According to an Economy and Budget Issue Brief submitted to Congress by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office in March 2004, raising gas taxes would do more to reduce U.S. dependence on oil than any other policy, including raising fuel economy standards. Baby Boomers and others should insist that Congress acts to do both.
One suggestion is a floating tax that keeps the price of gasoline at the pump close to $4 a gallon. At that price (still cheap compared to prices in much of the world) consumers would demand more fuel efficient cars. In addition, they would not be lulled into complacency every time the price of oil on global markets temporarily dipped because the price at the pump would remain constant—and highly predictable, which is a good thing too. Another advantage of the floating tax is that it would provide revenue for a sustained effort to invest in the development of alternate fuels, improvement of conservation measures, and other steps to decrease oil consumption.
Third, unlike the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which, for the most part, only authorized funds for a multitude of alternative energy sources for vehicles, Congress must actually appropriate funds to finance the research, development, and production of these sources. Electric hybrid cars are already being produced and sold, but hydrogen fuel cell cars are a long way off. Brazil has made big strides in making ethanol a practical fuel, but biomass and other synthetic fuels won’t be a real alternative for Americans until we initiate serious programs to make them a practical reality. A bill which provides funds for just such an effort, already drafted in November 2005 and supported by Democrats and Republicans, is the Vehicle and Fuel Choices for American Security Act. Baby Boomers and others should make it clear that they expect Congress to appropriate funds for these purposes.
Finally, the other major component of an energy policy concerns resources for heating, cooling, and electricity. Currently, most homes and businesses rely on electricity generated in coal or gas fired plants, hydroelectric facilities, or nuclear power plants. A tiny portion comes from solar power or wind turbines. Most of our homes and offices are heated by natural gas or heating oil.
None of these sources are, by themselves, ideal. Natural gas and heating oil availability and cost are subject to the same volatility as oil for gasoline. Hydroelectric power dams are certainly effective and reliable in some areas of the country, but they damage lakes and rivers, and the plants and animals that live in or around them. Coal is still abundant, but anyone who watched TV in the past month knows there are major safety issues associated with deep coal mining, and as the decimation of whole mountains around Powder River, Wyoming and in eastern Kentucky show, there are enormous environmental problems with strip mining of coal too. And while solar power and wind turbine generation have their distinct advantages (including, of course, the fact that they do not produce carbon dioxide—the so-called “green house” gas that is a byproduct of burning any carbon-based fuel like coal, oil, or natural gas) they are still relatively expensive and not yet fully practical. The goal, then, should be to reduce U.S. reliance on any one kind of energy source for heating, cooling, and the generation of electricity.
The devil, of course, is in the details! However, a wide variety of commissions, organizations, university centers, and industry groups have already been analyzing the details of implementation and funding for these ideas. So, first get informed—start with a simple web search to find more than you can imagine.
Then, we Baby Boomers—and everyone else—should contact our representatives in Congress to demand action--meaningful energy legislation this year.
Yes, there is apparently still a moderate wing of the Republican Party, and they may finally be ready to say "enough is enough." Unfortunately those Republicans may be limited to those who aren't currently in office, and therefore aren't deathly afraid of losing the power they have.
...because he couldn't find anyone else to agree to do it, and he thinks it's important to have the debate about where the Republican Party is headed. I hate to break it to Pete, but the Party isn't headed there, they've already arrived!
Anyway, I respect McCloskey for doing what he thinks is right, whether he has anything to lose or not. And a bruising primary for Pombo is just what the doctor ordered.
The sad thing about being a progressive person in this era of wing-nuttery is that we can never get complacent or truly appreciate a victory. The various factions of the extremist right wing care nothing for what the people want or even what is right or wrong. They have an agenda, and they will keep pursuing it. They probably believe that they can simply beat people down until they're too tired to fight, and the poll numbers won't matter when they have built their version of utopia.
All of that rather pathetic mewling is merely my way of saying: don't get too excited about turning back the drillers from the Arctic Refuge, we've still got to protect the Endangered Species Act.
Not so different than their approach to women's right to govern their own bodies, there is a strategy to chip, chip, chip away at environmental protections.
So, vigilance is required. Sorry 'bout that.
The U.S., that is.
The environment, that is.
With our international allies, that is.
I swear it's that rapture thinking again...I, and all the people I care about, are going to be swooped up in the rapture, so it just doesn't matter if we permanently harm the earth's ecosystem. This is all so temporary.
Here's Carl Pope waxing outraged on the Huffington Post.
Just the other day the NY Times went after local Congressperson Richard Pombo about his harmful anti-environment philosophies.
Now the Merc piles on, even urging people to "talk back" and call Pombo's office. [Reg. Req'd.]
Key excerpt:
"Environmental blindness is a Pombo specialty. He's pushing for a highway from the Central Valley over Mount Hamilton into East San Jose. There's only one reason to build it. A river of concrete through an unspoiled landscape would be a symbol of the swath of destruction Pombo is cutting through environmental protections."
Pombo is one of the few Republican representatives in whole of the Bay Area. And he provides ample evidence why only one is one too many.
And absolutely skewers local Congressman Richard Pombo.
The Times doesn't often go after the lesser-known guys on the Hill, but they have made a notable and very very cranky exception to go after Pombo and his radical right ideas about the environment.
Key excerpt:
"This is, in short, a sleazy piece of work, written by a man who appears to be able to conceive of property rights as something that only a private individual or a corporation can have; a man who betrays no awareness that the American public has a shared right in the refuge and the national parks and the millions of acres he wants to sell to developers.
Mr. Pombo's only idea, and it is a terrible one, is to treat this nation the way he treats his Congressional district, as if it were ripe for exploitation."
Can you say Ouch!?
Nice work, Justice Department.
If you're going to use taxpayer dollars to try to start a campaign to blame the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina on environmental groups you should at least keep the memos outlining the plot more secure. So sloppy. You should be ashamed. On all counts.
There are two knocks you will hear on prospective Supreme Court Justice Roberts:
1. He's anti-choice.
Well, no duh. I think it's fair to say that we can't be positive he'll help overturn Roe v. Wade, but it seems like a possibility. I also think it's fair to say that while Bush choosing an anti-choice nominee is a given, we as the public shouldn't just roll over and accept the overturning of Roe v. Wade without making our voices heard loud and clear. This is not the will of the people. And if it happens, our legislators need to know it!
2. He's pro-business
Well, this is practically a compliment to enough people to not carry much sting. but what does it mean exactly? Usually no one bothers to say.
Well, Carl Pope has given us a good run-down of what it means specifically in Roberts' case. And it means anti-environment and anti-protection for regular people. All of a sudden this guy's benign facade is blown!
I received an email from a Democrat yesterday asking if I had heard about a group of Democrat California State Assembly members who were blocking environmental legislation from ever reaching the State Senate for a vote. Concerned Democrat (CD) had heard a piece on this on NPR. I'm notoriously unfamiliar with NPR and in fact never watch TV news either...it's all Internet and RSS for me folks.
I didn't know what was talking about, so I asked for a link, and this is what was sent to me...a page from the California League of Conservation Voters.
And yes, there is a list of "moderate" Democrats who seem to be blocking environmental legislation from making it to the vote. The case is being made by the CLCV that the politicians are making sure certain bills never get voted to ensure they can keep their good voting records.
There are several local Assembly members on the list of Democrats in question, so my question is, what's the other side of the story? I'm willing to concede this looks not-so-good.
You know I hate when Democrats go after each other instead of the real opponent, but in this case it sounds like this "Mod Squad" of Democrats is going after other Democrats and their bills too.
Someone give me (and Concerned Democrat) the scoop. Anyone?
It's so sad that a story like this barely elicits a howl from even me anymore. Why? Because stories like this have become so common, and no one does jack abut them.
A Bush aide went through various sponsored scientific studies on the environment, including global warming, and edited the reports to make them less conclusive, to cast doubt on the problem. Which, as Jon Stewart BRILLIANTLY pointed out on his show the other day is Bush's entire strategy for dealing with the problem: just keep saying we need to know more. He said in while running for president in 2000. He said it this year in response to Tony Blair stating it was a problem that urgently needed to be addressed. It's what he'll be saying five years from now.
Meanwhile, our tax dollars pay for science that doesn't match Bush's ideology. So our tax dollars also pay the salary of this bozo who altered the science to match the ideology.
Can someone other than me (and Jon Stewart) please express some outrage??!!
Bush has made his environmental priorities clear: allowing road building, logging and other activities in areas that were once off-limits to development.
Feh.
Well, not immediately anyway. But still, the Senate voted by the narrowest of margins to open the Arctic Reserve to oil drilling.
All so that we can maybe satisfy .5% of our daily oil requirements.
I'm sure the Republicans are so proud. (To their credit a few moderate Reps. joined the Dems. on this one, but to no avail.)
Sigh.
I could be talking about the constant tragic violence in Iraq, the negative response to his Social Security plan (the more people know, the less they like it) or the fact that every time the economy seems to be picking up something like two straight months of increasing jobless claims happen, but no. I'm talking about the environment this time.
The environment: often pushed aside for other issues...despite the fact that damage to the environment is something that won't be easily fixed (if at all) once Dubya and his crowd are tossed out.
But we had a victory the other day when Bush "Smoggy Skies" initiative died in committee. The EPA will issue new rules, but key provisions of the Clean Skies Act from the 90s will not be overridden by Dubya's plans.
Source: 03/09 WaPo article
The Kyoto Protocol has now gone into effect, without the participation of the United States. You can read a lot of press about it, tons of press.
Just about every item mentions prominently how we are the only major country not to sign on. So, more good P.R. for us. It's not like we've got so much good will on our side right abut now anyway, right?
I'm not going to claim that I'm an environmental expert, so I'm not going to claim I know how great the Kyoto Protocol is. But I am going to remind everyone that Bush refused to sign up for it based on his contention that it was flawed, and that the US was going to come up with something better.
And he's come up with bupkus.
Oh, I take that back. We have Republican Senator James Inhofe claiming that climate change is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
So, I guess that means the US doesn't have come up with squat, right? One would assume that's what Dubya thinks...since actions in this case are speaking much louder than his words.
I remember when I felt like Americans did more for the world than any country. I still feel that way about the American people, just not the American government. (And before you get on my case, remember: foreign aid is only about 1% of our federal budget.)
In keeping with Standard Operating Procedures in this Administration, a vote on whether to allow more drilling in the Arctic is being buried in a budget bill, a bill that's considered "must-pass" to keep government running smoothly.
Since the issue is whether to allow something, not how to pay for it, it seems a little disingenuous to allow Congresspeople to hide their vote on this hot-button issue.
Check out more info from the NRDC, and use their site to let your representatives know that you don't appreciate either the idea of spoiling one of our last unspoiled swaths of public land, nor the idea of burying the vote, so no one has to have obvious accountability.
I've been sick for a few days. Doesn't it sometimes seem, when you're sick, that you can't imagine what being well feels like? I imagine I'll have this lingering hacking cough forever now, even though I know it too shall pass.
I finally decided I had to get back to work. And I see that Dubya has also gotten back to work on gutting the environmental protections put in place by even his Republican predecessors.
Why is it no surprise that his proposed rule changes for forestry management are called "a step in the right direction" by timber industry representatives?
David Cohen, long-time Democratic Party stalwart, and our web master here at the blog, once told me that the reason he found the environment to be such a compelling issue:
Economic indicators will rise and fall. Global relationships will strain and then strengthen. All bad things this Administration does can eventually be reversed, fixed, repaired...put back to rights.
But when we screw something up with the environment, we do irrevocable damage.
Bill Moyers recently gave a very compelling speech on this very subject. And in it he even addresses the controversial fact that many folks in the Bush Administration simply don't think the environment is a problem because of their fundamentalist religious beliefs.
Scary, but necessary reading here.
Two stories grabbed my attention on this, day Day Six of Bush II:
1. Despite a lot of tough talk, companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring nations don't seem to suffer much for it. I'll ask the question I always do: exactly how "pro-business" do we need to be? Pro- enough to let them continue, unfettered, funneling money to and from the people we claim to be warring against? Apparently.
Source: Associated Press
2. Bush is once again interpreting his slim win as a mandate to continue being the worst environment president ever. The free market will make sure that companies do the right thing by the environment, at least according to BushCo. Get ready for drilling in the Arctic, relaxed standards for polluting companuies and more.
Source: NY Times [Reg. Required.]
I'm not sure why the environment has been such a non-issue this campaign.
I mean, when you screw up the environment, you can't really put it back. Economies can be put back in the right direction. Alliances can be rebuilt. Extinct species and destroyed ozone can't be recovered.
This Administration wants to ignore the unfortunate truths. They will ditch science to avoid dealing with the consequences. Here is just one example in yesterday's NY Times.
More about the Bush Administration's disdain for our environment in the extended entry:
From October 27th's American Progress Action Fund report:
"President Bush has claimed, "I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the
land." Not really. According to the Los Angeles Times, environmentally
damaging policies put in place by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton take
away the safeguards which for decades have protected potential wilderness
areas. Even more egregious, the administration claimed that the Department of
the Interior "is barred forever from identifying and protecting wild land the way it has for nearly 30 years." In effect, "The administration is giving
industry virtual carte blanche to look for oil and gas wherever it wants
outside of existing parks and wilderness areas." The Washington Post points
out that President Bush has "approved about 70 percent more drilling permits
on public lands during the first three years of his administration" than the
three preceding years. And, writes the New Yorker, "By stripping away
restrictions on the use of federal lands, often through little-advertised
rule changes, the Administration has potentially opened up sixty million
acres, an area larger than Indiana and Iowa combined, to logging, mining, and
oil exploration.""
Wonky, but valuable.
This is the fruit of having a President AND Vice-President completely wed to special interests...particularly energy interests.
Thomas Friedman is back!
Entire text in extended entry:
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The Battle of the Pump
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
NY Times
Published: October 7, 2004
Of all the shortsighted policies of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, none have been worse than their opposition to energy conservation and a gasoline tax. If we had imposed a new gasoline tax after 9/11, demand would have been dampened and gas today would probably still be $2 a gallon. But instead of the extra dollar going to Saudi Arabia - where it ends up with mullahs who build madrasas that preach intolerance - that dollar would have gone to our own Treasury to pay down our own deficit and finance our own schools. In fact, the Bush energy policy should be called No Mullah Left Behind.
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Our own No Child Left Behind program has not been fully financed because the tax revenue is not there. But thanks to the Bush-Cheney energy policy, No Mullah Left Behind has been fully financed and is now the gift that keeps on giving: terrorism.
Mr. Bush says we're in "a global war on terrorism.'' That's right. But that war is rooted in the Arab-Muslim world. That means there is no war on terrorism that doesn't involve helping this region onto a more promising path for its huge population of young people - too many of whom are unemployed or unemployable because their oil-rich regimes are resistant to change and their religious leaders are resisting modernity.
A former Kuwaiti information minister, Sad bin Tefla, wrote an article in a London Arabic daily, Al Sharq Al Awsat, last Sept. 11 entitled "We Are All Bin Laden.'' He asked why Muslim scholars and clerics had eagerly supported fatwas condemning Salman Rushdie to death after he wrote a novel deemed insulting to Islam, "The Satanic Verses,'' but to this day no Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden for murdering nearly 3,000 innocent civilians, badly damaging Islam.
Building a decent Iraq is necessary to help reverse such trends, but it is not sufficient. We need a much more comprehensive approach, particularly if we fail in Iraq. The Bush team does not offer one. It has treated the Arab-Israeli issue with benign neglect, failed to find any way to communicate with the Arab world and adopted an energy policy that is supporting the worst Arab oil regimes and the worst trends. Phil Verleger, one of the nation's top energy consultants and a longtime advocate of a gas tax, puts it succinctly: "U.S. energy policy today is in support of terrorism - not the war on terrorism."
We need to dramatically cut our consumption of oil and bring the price back down to $20 a barrel. Nothing would do more to stimulate reform in the Arab-Muslim world. Oil regimes do not have to modernize or govern well. They just buy off their people and their mullahs. Governments without oil have to reform to create jobs. People do not change when you tell them they should - they change when they tell themselves they must.
The Arab-Muslim world is in a must-change human development crisis, "but oil is like a narcotic that kills a lot of the pain for them and prevents real change,'' says David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Where is all the innovation in the Arab world today? In the places with little or no oil: Bahrain is working on labor reform, just signed a free-trade agreement with the U.S. and held the first elections in the Arab gulf, allowing women to run and vote. Dubai has made itself into a regional service center. And Jordan has a free-trade agreement with the U.S. and is trying to transform itself into a knowledge economy. Who is paralyzed or rolling back reforms? Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, all now awash in oil money.
When did Jordan begin privatizing and deregulating its economy and upgrading its education system? In 1989 - after oil prices had slumped and the Arab oil states cut off Jordan's subsidies. In 1999, before Jordan signed its U.S. free-trade accord, its exports to America totaled $13 million. This year, Jordan will export over $1 billion worth of goods to the U.S. In the wake of King Abdullah II's reforms, Jordan's economy is growing at an annual rate of over 7 percent, the government is installing computers and broadband Internet links in every school, and it will soon require anyone who wants to study Islamic law and become a mosque preacher to first get a B.A. in something else, so mosque leaders won't just come from those who can't do anything else. "We had to go through a crisis to accept the need for reform," says Jordan's planning minister, Bassem Awadallah.
We have the power right now to stimulate similar trends across the Arab world. It's the best way to fight a global war on terrorism. If only we had a president and vice president tough enough to fight this war.
I suppose it works to Bush's favor that we are so obsessed with Vietnam, 9/11 and the exact start date of the recession of 2001 that we don't hear much about all of the damaging things Bush's presidency is doing right now.
Damaging to science and health. Damaging to our civil liberties. Damaging to the middle class.
And damaging to our environment.
Here is just one example in today's NY Times. And note carefully the point isn't so much about this one issue, the point of the Bush Administration's efforts is to set a precedent.
Full text of the article is in the extended entry:
No Snowmobiles
Published: August 21, 2004
New York Times
When it comes to snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park, the Bush administration seems to have a hard time understanding what science has to tell it. So here's the bottom line: no snowmobiles. They're bad for wildlife, bad for rangers, bad for visitors, bad for the air and bad for the very idea of what Yellowstone stands for. That was the National Park Service's conclusion after careful study during the Clinton administration, and it was backed up by further study even after George Bush took office. But now, given a deadlock in the courts, the National Park Service is proposing new rules that will allow up to 720 snowmobiles a day into the park for three years. That is just slightly fewer than the current average of 765 snowmobiles a day.
At this point in the debate, the question is no longer whether the snowmobile issue has been examined carefully enough or whether advocates on both sides have had a chance to express their opinions. The question is this: Why is the Bush administration working so hard to cram snowmobiles down the public's throat? It isn't to protect the snowmobiling economy of West Yellowstone, Mont., nor is it to protect snowmobilers and snowmobile manufacturers, who have access to hundreds of miles of trails in the Yellowstone region outside the park. The reason the Bush administration keeps backing snowmobiles in Yellowstone is to protect a vision of wild lands that is fundamentally invasive and ultimately extractive. The very idea that a natural landscape could be off limits seems to be anathema to this administration.
The National Park system is strapped for money, underfinanced and understaffed. The Bush administration has yet to satisfy its pledge to make the system financially whole. Yet it continues to waste time and money trying to defend and manage a policy that has no support among the service's own scientists or those at the Environmental Protection Agency. The result has been a bizarre crusade whose only justification is politics.