Pro-Industry lobbyists have done much to shape the Bush Administration's stance on environmental policy. Bush himself has said that the jury's still out on whether global warming actually exists, and continually says that more research is needed. The only studies the Administration cites are bought and paid for by companies in the oil, coal, and factory farming industries - which is similar to relying on the results of a study on the health effects of smoking conducted by the tobacco companies.
After all, we know that the economy is much more important than the environment. Sure, the technology is available to make cars and even SUVs that get two to three times as many miles to the gallon, but that would cut into the automobile industry's profits.
Just think of all the American jobs that will be created when the air gets so dirty that we need to start building domed cities. What an economic bonanza!
If you'd like to read something depressing, pick up a copy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Crimes Against Nature. It gives an excellent synopsis of what regulations have been established and subsequently stripped, and it will give you an idea of what's to come in the next four years as humans continue to punish the planet that gave birth to them.
Here are two articles from the Times. One discusses the melting of Antarctica and the other shows how the United States operates now in negotiations with the rest of the world on environmental policy.
1 comment:
Hey, Rhode Island's a small state. In fact, if Rhode Island fell off the United States, we probably wouldn't notice it for weeks.
That reminds me of the scene in the seventh Bond movie ("Diamonds Are Forever") when Blofeld is trying to decide what to blow up in the US. As the satellite moves across the globe, Blofeld says, "The satellite is now over... Kansas. Well, if we blow up Kansas the world may not hear about it for years..."
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