Money Isn't Everything

Money Isn’t Everything

Tell me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the overriding goal of a society to steadily improve the quality of life of its people? Of course, everyone would agree with that statement, but the how-to’s are the sticky question, and there are as many answers to that question as they are countries in the world. Yes, and each county’s leadership would tell you their methods of achieving an enhanced quality of life, is the way to go.

 I'm a red, white, and blue American entrepreneur, a free market proponent, and a small business owner. I’m convinced the opportunities to make a profit here in the good old USA is the key to our great standard of living and a super quality of life. However, the American dream to have a high standard of living and to make a lot of money in order to achieve our dream must have its limits. In other words, we can't possibly be allowed to do virtually anything to make a dollar. A whole host of things do not only have a negative effect on our quality of life, but many times have a debilitating effect on the individual. The list is as long as your arm; drugs, prostitution, etc. you could add hundreds of items, but the gray areas are the ones I want to address. It’s basically the trade for short-term profit, to the long-term detriment of a quality life. Let's look at some examples. First in Arkansas: By allowing the factory hog farm to ultimately pollute the National Buffalo River, the politicians and other short-sighted individuals are willing to let the need to make a profit take president over protecting the river. (News Flash! New Permit Denied! Evidently, protecting the River took precedent over making money.) Now, let's look at a bigger picture: Coal mining and coal fired plants; that combination is one of the major contributors to climate change. Of course climate change is real, and saying it’s not happening is right up there with the Flat Earth Society, and what is even worst, the climate change deniers are doing it to make a profit. They know better! They are willing to trade our grandchildren's and great grandchildren’s future for coal mining profits. The horrors of climate change during the next 20 to 30 years will be catastrophic, and anyone who supports coal-fired electrical generating plants, is committing a crime against humanity. Yes, you heard me. What our grandchildren and great grandchildren will have to put up with is criminal. However, in order to continue to destroy the environment it becomes cliché to deny climate change, where they can continue to create a horrible world for our grandchildren’s children..

I grew up in and around Norphlet, a small town in South Arkansas, which is almost in the middle of the South Arkansas oilfields, and the last time I checked there was a pumping oil well right in the middle of town. I guess being associated with the oilfields and working in a refinery during my college summers had a big influence on my ultimate choice of professions, and today I’m still working as an oil and gas exploration geologist looking for new oil and gas fields.

However, things have changed since I was a young boy roaming the woods and fishing in the creeks of South Arkansas. As soon as I was old enough to hunt in the woods and swim in the creeks, I was faced with an environmental nightmare. In the 1940s and 50s many parts of South Arkansas producing oil wells dumped the salt water that was produced with the oil into the nearest creek. Because many of these older wells were producing several 100 barrels of salt water a day along with the oil, a tremendous amount of salt water was being dumped into the streams of South Arkansas. Of course, growing up where this was an accepted practice, to a young boy, it was just considered part of the way things were. The creeks that received the salt water became lifeless without any living thing in them, and when the spring rains came and the creeks overflowed their banks, the land, sometimes as much as 50 yards on either side of the creek, became as lifeless as the creek, and in the summer as the sun dried up the water a thin layer of salt covered this lifeless part of the creeks drainage.

Let’s fast-forward to 2017. Today the creeks are full of life, the salt flats are gone, Mother Nature has restored the vegetation, and the saltwater that once made them lifeless is pumped back deep in the subsurface. Well, sure it costs a little more to dispose of the saltwater in this manner, but today, the idea that you would dump saltwater into the nearest creek is unthinkable, and that is the way it should be. There are practices in industry that are detrimental to the environment and to the health of our citizens. It’s trite to say, we should steadily seek to reduce the hazards to our health and to the environment in our society, just as the dumping of salt water into the creeks in South Arkansas. As a country we should steadily move forward with improving our environment, which automatically increases our quality of life, and as our industry prospers and profits soar, the society as a whole should tighten the restrictions against polluting our environment instead of loosening them.

In fact that is exactly what has happened over the past 50 + years. We have cleaner air to breathe, better quality water, and our land use has steadily improved, and in making the USA the economic powerhouse of the world, we have succeeded in not only raising our standard of living through economic progress, but we have created a cleaner, healthier country, which is the envy of the world.

Of all the things in this country that should be bipartisan, our quality of life should always be something Republicans and Democrats alike can embrace. That has been the case during the administration of presidents from Ronald Regan forward. However, the present administration is trying to undo the progress made by Ronald Regan, the Bushes, Clinton, and Obama. Yes, a great deal of the environmental progress to give us a higher standard of living happened under a Republican administration.

Today, unemployment is at a record low and corporate profits are soaring. If anything, we should be strengthen our environmental standards to continue the improvement of our quality of life, but we’re not. This administration is systematically stripping the EPA of critical regulations, cutting its budget, and by allowing the goal to make money take precedent over environmentally policies, it is steadly reducing our quality of life.