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.