Your Grandchildren’s World
You had better skip this column, because I’m going to put a
big guilt trip on you. Still reading? Well, here goes: It is without saying
that you can have all the money in the world, but if you don’t have your
health, what good is money? But you might say, “Well, I have my health.” Okay,
but would it matter to you if your significant other didn’t have his or her
health, or what if some of your off-spring didn’t have their health? Would you
care? How about your great grandchildren? Well, of course you would care. But
let’s stretch it a bit. What if a child, whose Moro Bay mother ate a lot of
mercury contaminated fish, which means that child would likely live a
sub-quality, lower I. Q. life instead of having a professional careers? Would
you care? I hope you would.
I could go on and on, but you get the point.
If we really care about our Earth and its
people, it directly effects how we and the rest of mankind treat our
environment, because we are interconnected, and that child from Moro Bay is a
child of the Earth, and it could easily be your grandchild or great grandchild.
The idea,
that for a short-term economic gain, we would doom an innocent child to a
sub-par life is about as Un-American as anything I can imagine, but we are
doing it daily, and those who can make a difference, such as our pregnant
Attorney General, who is actively trying to block environmental rules (The
Clean Power Plan) that would reduce the mercury emitted from Arkansas’ coal fired plants. That’s the mercury, which ends up in
fish, and if a woman consumes a certain amount, during her early months of
pregnancy, the child will probably have a reduced I. Q. That’s not me pulling it out of thin air;
that’s a proven scientific fact.
I feel very strongly that by exposing
individuals to environmental hazards just to make money, by evading existing
environmental laws, or to oppose rules in place, is criminal. Yes, to reduce
the quality of life of an individual just to make a buck isn’t criminal, what is? Of course, if by congressional action
or presidential decree, the existing environmental laws are relaxed resulting
in the loss of life or the degrading of life for a people, then that’s also
criminal in my book, and to encourage using dirty coal as a fuel rather than
nonpolluting alternatives, that, in my book, is also a crime.
There are
so many environment problems that will harm our grandchildren I could list, but
I think one of the biggest environmental dangers is allowing our planet to warm
until in years to come several billion people will suffer and numerous coastal
cities will become uninhabitable. Here in the good old USA, the present Administration
is denying global warming, just to curry coal mining votes in West Virginia,
etc. and to allow mining of coal in the National forests, and on top of that
they are extending lifelines to uneconomical, dirty coal fuel electrical
generating plants to keep them going. By doing that our country is setting a
horrible example to the rest of the world. Yes, global warming is a certainty,
and any open minded person with a 6th grade education knows that. Of the 196 countries
in the world, we are the only one whose leadership denies global warming. Even
Syria has signed the pact. But what is worse than not signing the agreement are
the folks who are denying global warming, knowing
they are wrong, and their greed to make money is causing them to perpetrate
a crime against humanity.
Of course, the head of the EPA, who should be
leading the way in protecting the environment, is leading the way all right,
but he’s leading the way to dismantle as
many environmental laws as he can, while having a $43,000 soundproof booth
built in his office. Have we totally lost our moral compass? Have let the greed
to make money dominate our lives? Corporate profits are at an all-time high and
we have full employment, so why have we become so greedy that we will do
anything to make a dollar? We should use this time of unequaled prosperity to
strengthen our environmental laws.
But dirty coal just the tip of the
environmental iceberg because we are ignoring hundreds of other horrible
problems such as the mountains of plastic, which are fowling the earth’s
environment to the point where huge masses of plastic float out in the open
water of the Pacific. One of these masses weighs 7
million tons, it’s twice the size of Texas, and up to 9 feet deep. Those
plastic rafts in our oceans contaminate the oceans and create an ongoing hazard
to animal life. Eight billion tons of plastic trash are dumped into the oceans
each year, but hey “That’s way out in
the Pacific”, you may say. I guess that is what you’re saying when you toss
that plastic water bottle out the car window. Actually, around the World
1,000,000 plastic water bottles are used every minute, and only about 9% are recycled. I’m saying this,
“There will not be another plastic water bottle allowed in my house.”
Yes, we’re all guilty, and the solution in not to just say, “You’re
right, Richard.” but to do your part in cleaning up and protecting our Earth.
Everyone who has the intelligence to read this column knows how they can help,
but are you going to wait until an environmental disaster is in your face?
Let me give you an example: When I
was a P. C. & E Commissioner there was a problem with a major chicken
processing company disposing of waste chicken parts in an open mining pit. One
of the individuals who lived in the area came before the Commission to protest
was an elderly lady. I was impressed that at her age she would be so
environmentally active, and I asked her, “When did you become so concerned
about the environment?” She answered, “When the flies got so thick on my screen
door that I couldn’t see out.” And then
she hesitated...”and the smell was so bad....” I was stunned with her reply,
because I’m a visual person who grew up around barn waste with plenty of flies,
but when that little lady said “...Flies were so thick on my screen door I
couldn’t see out” I could imagine not only the flies, but the smell. I guess
the question is for you, the readers of this column, to answer, “Are you going
to wait until you can’t see out the screen door for the flies to be active in
trying to improve our environment? “
Yes, I have
had a number of people say, “Richard, why
waste your time!” I guess, I may be, but if I live long enough to see my great
grandchildren have to live in an environmentally degraded world, and they ask
me why did you let it happen, at least I can say, “I tried!” Will you be able to say the same thing?
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