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Making the Environment Matter
By Doug Foster
& Robert E. Martin
In early June of this year the United States Environmental
Protection Agency released a report that suggests this year 4,000 people
will et cancer as a result of exposure to dioxin. In addition, an unknown
number of children will be born with birth defects, suppressed immune
systems and learning disabilities attributable to this toxin.
Politicians are quick to jump on the tobacco industry for deaths and health
problems related to smoking, yet are reticent to address the undeniable
fact that our lakes and streams are dying from high levels of mercury
contamination, with coal burning power plants proving to be the leading
source for this ongoing contamination.
While the EPA restricts mercury in other industries, it does not regulate
those emitted from power plants. Congress exempted these emissions from the
Clean Air Act in 1990, and delayed further action in 1998, yet each year
these utility & industry power plants emit over 100,000 pounds of mercury.
Indeed, twothousanths of one pound, or one-seventieth of one teaspoon will
make fish in a 25-acre lake unsafe to eat.
Mercury tends to concentrate as it moves up the food chain, with people at
the top of this ecological pyramid. Mercury damages nervous and
reproductive systems and is a serious threat to public health.
The EPA is conducting hearings about whether to regulate these emissions,
but utility and industry lobbyists are lining up to kill this action.
Which brings us to the larger question: With surveys showing that the
majority of voters favor stricter enforcement laws and a clean environment,
why are politicians willing to adopt all variety of hardline stance on
issues of morality in one breath, while handing a death sentence to living
people and unborn children in the other?
The answer, invariably, comes down to money. Lawmakers argue that to
convert to safer forms of energy, or to eliminate toxins from our
environment, is too costly and will fuel inflation. But of course, they
never look at the augmented costs of health care as a result of these
policies, nor the fact that if they subsidized new technologies to the
level they have the utility industry all of these years, our current
scenario might be vastly different.
How Do We Turn On the
'Green Light'?
Here's a political riddle for election year 2000: Can an issue become so
mainstream that it ends up being ignored?
Let's look at the Presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
90 percent of Americans tell pollsters they'll vote for a candidate based
partly on his or her environmental credentials. Surveys show that clean
water and clean air rank in the top tier of voters' concerns. In fact, the
environment has become a 'character issue'.
Surprisingly, though, these surveys also reveal that only 15 percent of
local voters are "actively involved in environmental groups or
causes."
This lack of fervor and sense of urgency represents the most serious
challenge for environmental politics today: How do we translate broad
acceptance into the kind of fuel for change without pressure from this
vast, if somewhat vague, population of "environmentalists"?
Indeed, because of this lack of active citizen involvement, this year's
politicians have turned to other such issues as education, technology,
economic growth, and social security - despite the fact that without a
clean environment and a healthy body politic, all of these other issues
somehow become moot.
Vice-President Gore is the author of a trailblazing environmental
manifesto, Earth in the Balance, and once was sneered as 'Ozone Man' by
G.W.'s father, then-President Bush.
Today, protesters have taken to sneering at Gore in appearances around the
country, disappointed that as a key proponent for the NAFTA agreement,
Gore's Eco-friendly government is responsible for polluting half of Mexico,
and shouting at the vice-president: 'Read your book!"
Of course, G.W. Bush is even worse. As Governor of Texas he virtually
allowed the manufacturing industry to write the final word on Texan
Environmental Law, leaving even lobbyists shaking their collective heads in
disbelief.
Gore & Bush travel to elementary schools across the country, talking about
the need for a solid education and the future of 'high-tech' jobs. Yet, the
lack of discussion about the environment is enough to lead even a casual
observer to assume that global warming, overconsumption, pollution, and
toxic chemicals were vanquished problems of a distant past - which as we
can see, is hardly the case.
Making the Environment Matter
Part of the blame for this complacency lays on the environmental movement
itself. As environmentalism has grown mainstream into the acceptance of
public consciousness, it appears we need to find new ways to drive the
seriousness of this issue home to the electorate.
Without grassroots pressure politicians are taking frighteningly
predictable and cautious positions. Or as noted environmentalist David
Brower notes, "Having Clinton and Gore in the White House lulled too many
people into passivity. Sometimes it's better to have an enemy than a fake
friend. Gore let us down badly, but if Bush is elected, I'm going to
another planet."
Indeed, while Clinton and Gore have been quite heroic on the issue of clean
air through the duration of Clinton's term, they have been far less
successful in ensuring that environmental protection is embedded into the
fabric of our society on a global scale.
We can no longer rest on past laurels and attack known enemies with the
same rhetoric, but must focus on how significant the issue of a clean
environment is to the public. If anything should form the core of an
environmental debate in this election year it should be what would
candidates do to assure cleaner power, cleaner cars, species protection,
and global warming.
The mere popularity of the environment won't bring progress unless that
popularity is bolstered by an expanding base of adherents with a clear,
achievable program.
As environmentalism intersects with global economic issues, it is also
becoming more complex is many new ways.
As readers I urge you not to take the easy route and curse politicians for
their failures, nor denigrate the environmental movement for not reaching
out creatively enough, but instead start forcing yourself to connect the
dots in-between the lines.
If we make the connection between overuse of energy and the unintended
fallout of global warming, we're more likely to register the type of
concern that causes politicians to act.
Just think. Such an approach 30 years ago forced our legislators to create,
in swift succession, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water
Act, and the Clean Air Act.
Remember - personal connections to a cause, and direct action, galvanize
social and political change.
As Gandhi once said: "We must be the change we want to see in the
world."
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