Environment or Terror?

So Kenny asked me which is a higher priority to me. Terrorism or the environment.

For me the environment is more important. It is a higher priority for many reasons. I will name several but only explain a few. More people will die from environmental reasons that from terrorism.

Economic, political, justice, health. I will address biodiversity in another post.

Let me take the last and most obvious one first. Clean air, clean water, clean soil.

Air pollution has been implicated in many health problems from various cancers and lung diseases, to asthma. This should be enough to make people want to clean up their act. More people will die from air pollution related problems then terrorism in the United States. Reduce pollution. Drive less, reduce coal and oil burning power generation.

Polluted water. Right now only about 3 percent of the earth’s water is fresh water. That does not mean it is drinkable, it means that it is not salty. I do not know how much of that is drinkable without significant water treatment. Water pollution not only impacts human health, but also plant health and animal health. Some of the pollutants in water are natural. There are water holes in the desert that are contaminated with arsenic. These are undrinkable even for plants and animals. Many pollutants are man made. Agriculture runoff, from fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides are entering streams and rivers. Many rivers are used for fresh water. These polluted waters have to be treated before it is drinkable. Untreated water not only has more chemicals, but more parasites and other disease causing germs. Buy organic, don’t put harsh chemicals down the drain.

For the health reasons alone, we need to continue to protect and improve the environment.

I am going to blend the argument for economic and political reasons. I think they cross each other so much, there is very little to differentiate them. First let’s take a look at water. Water is the life blood of many wars and battles. I recently read an article about Darfur – you know that war torn, genocidal area? What set it off? It wasn’t just I hate you and you have to die. It was that the farmers were running out of water, and would not let the nomadic herders on their land anymore. Hmm, water is gone, economy is changing, war breaks out. That is an extreme case, or is it? One writer attributes a lot more localized wars and skirmishes to changing water resources. Here in the United States there are continued court battles over water rights. With the damming of the Colorado river, and exporting that water to California, the water rights battles only get fiercer.

The Aral sea in Kazakhstan is drying up. It is drying up because the central Soviet Government decided to divert water from Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, its feeding rivers, to dry areas in Uzbekistan to grow cotton. The sea's surface area has shrunk by approximately 60%, and its volume by 80%. In 1960, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest lake, by 1998, it had dropped to eighth-largest. Over the same time period its salinity has increased from about 10 g/l to about 45 g/l. As of 2004, the Aral Sea's surface area was only 25% of its original size, and still contracting. What it has left behind is a devastating mix of toxic chemicals and economic impoverished people. The children who still live near the Aral sea have a significantly higher rate of kidney cancer. This is economic and political devastation caused by not protecting water.

When your religion becomes the argument

I have seen several arguments against global climate change now that says the environmentalism is like a religion. One even went so far as to equate several mythologies to environmentalism. Each one of these commentators says that you can’t talk to environmentalists because it is their religion.

Ok, I won’t disagree to much with some of that, other then to say this. It seems to me that that is probably true on both sides.

I know of some people who will make a knee jerk reply based on who the speaker is. Some people cannot take anything Ted Kennedy says with out spitting out that he is a liberal looney. Others have the same reaction to George Bush – not the liberal thing but that he is bat-shit crazy. Others automatically discount anything governmental, or big business, or take you pick of enemies.

When this automatic reaction happens, you know you are going to be unable to change that persons mind. You might as well change the subject to something safe, like who is better: Cubs or Sox.

I have also made the observation that when some one says: “you need to educate yourself on this.” They mean that you better believe what they believe of the country, world, universe, is going to explode, or what ever.

My recent back and forth was with a guy who is absolutely positive that America is going to be over run with illegal immigrants who are evil criminals, “rapist, drug dealers, and gang bangers.” According to him there are nearly 10,000 illegal border crossing, get this, Per Day, and if we don’t do something about it, Al Qaeda will attack us again. Ok, I will just back away from the crazy nut.

10,000 per day, that would mean that the estimate 12 million undocumented aliens all came in over the last 3 years. I don’t think so.

The other problem I have with this is that this kind of rhetoric is blatantly racist. In one statement he said that the difference between “illegals and legals are that the legals will assimilate into our culture and the illegals won’t, they don’t learn English.” Ok that is the difference? Well tell that to the Polish guys who painted my house last year. Only the foreman spoke English, and they all had their green cards.

I know I have my knee jerk reactions. Environmentalism is one, protect the earth at any cost. Without clean air, clean water, and bio-diversity, we are screwed. Racism and political correctness are another. I will fight racism where I see it, and push for polite use of words when I can. So don’t try to argue with me on these – it’s my religion, or at least one of them.

I also know that there are just some topics you have to stay away from because the other person just won’t budge on it, so you might as well not even go there.