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Tuesday, April 22,2003
-Oregon Daily Emerald —
COMMEYKVRY
Editor in Chief:
Michael J. Kleckner
Managing Editor
Jessica Richelderfer
Editorial Page Assistant*
Salena De La Cruz
Earth Day2003: White House
fights environmental laws
Guest commentary
As we celebrate the 33 rd anniversary of
Earth Day, Americans should be proud for
many reasons.
We live in the country that created the very
idea of national parks as well as myriad environ
mental protections to ensure our access to clean
air, water and food. We cherish and find respite
in the beauty of our vast land from coast to coast.
Why, then, is the Bush administration sys
tematically dismantling the laws designed to
protect the health of the environment and of
all Americans? How can this unraveling of
rights occur in our country while the adminis
tration claims to promote freedom and
democracy abroad?
It is this disconnect between President
Bush’s rhetoric regarding the Middle East and
his lack of efforts to protect our citizens at
home that has created his greatest credibility
gap. A quick review of recent policy changes
points to the staggering — and dangerous —
nature of the environmental rollbacks put in
place by this administration.
Take air pollution. Just as some of the na
tion’s oldest and dirtiest power plants were
about to be forced to reduce the amount of pol
lutants they emit, the Bush administration let
them off the hook with a deceiving piece of
legalese called the Clear Skies Initiative.
What about our pristine national forests? In
the name of “healthy forests” and “fire preven
tion,” the Forest Service has proposed nearly
unlimited clear-cutting of forests. Long
standing mandates for public input and en
vironmental review would be eliminated.
Isn’t clean water a necessity? Yet the
Environmental Protection Agency has
announced plans to reduce the number
of wetlands and waterways protected by
the Clean Water Act. This came on the
heels of an earlier announcement that
would essentially overlook the immense
water pollution problems caused by mil
lions of tons of untreated animal waste
being poured into our waterways and
drinking water from big factory farms.
Even whales are at risk. The Bush ad
ministration has proposed exemptions for
the Department of Defense that will allow
continued use of the Navy’s new low frequen
cy sonar that can kill marine mammals by
shattering their eardrums.
And though there is plenty of talk about
homeland security, the Bush administration has
blocked efforts to require thousands of chemical
and nuclear plants to become more secure.
Furthermore, while President Bush openly
worries about instability in the Middle East, all
measures to make the U.S. less dependent on
oil—for example through increased auto fuel
efficiency or the Kyoto Protocol — have been
stopped dead in their tracks.
do wny aren t we an wen aware or this war
being waged against the environment?
Federal agencies with authority over envi
ronmental programs are working in a coordi
nated effort to help oil, coal, logging, mining,
chemical and auto companies promote their
short-term profits at the expense of our health
and our public lands.
The bitter irony of this administration is
that the patriotic language it has used to wage
war on another nation seems desperately out
of place here at home. Our water, food, forests,
air and oceans are at risk.
In turn, so are the futures of our families,
our livelihoods and our personal health. In its
efforts to promote a brighter horizon for those
suffering abroad, the Bush administration
should take a look first in its own backyard.
What better day than Earth Day.
John Passacantando is the executive director of
Greenpeace USA. More information is at
www.greenpeaceusa.org.
© 2003, Greenpeace USA.
Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune
Information
Services.
Guest commentary
From childhood we are told that the only cer
tainties in life are death and taxes. Unfortunately,
this list is incomplete: the other thing we can re
ally count on with mathematical certainty are
predictions of impending environmental disas
ter, loudly proclaimed by activists at events
marking Earth Day. This year’s April 22 com
memoration will be no exception.
Expect to read and hear what Danish statis
tician Bjorn Lomborg, author of the best-sell
ing “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” has
called the “Litany.”
By the Litany, Lomborg means the never
ending predictions of environmental doom
brought about by man’s insatiable appetite to
devour the planet’s resources to the point of
their depletion. But as Lomborg and other
skeptics point out, those claims are not backed
up by any available evidence.
As the world’s leading
economic power, the
United States
5, over the
last cen
tury,
Earth Day2003: U.S. benefits
from technological advances
transformed itself from a predominantly agricul
tural society to an industrial powerhouse.
Like Europe and Japan, it has made creative
use of industrial chemicals to do such things as
purify drinking water, develop life-sustaining
pharmaceuticals and medical instruments, and
protect crops from deadly infestation. Thanks to
modem vaccines, diseases such as cholera,
malaria, typhoid fever and smallpox, which reg
ularly ravaged the generation of our grandpar
ents, have all but disappeared from the United
States and other industrialized nations.
The most deplorable environmental condi
tions — filthy air indoors and outdoors, dirty
drinking water, dread diseases running rampant
—are to be found in poverty-stricken developing
countries, where people lack access to modem
technology and affordable energy. Real pollution
is rapidly disappearing from industrial societies,
but it is commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa, the
Indian subcontinent, and other places devoid of
the fruits of modem technology.
Meanwhile, according to figures released an
nually by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, the quality of the air, water and other
natural resources in this country continues to
make dramatic improvements, as new, cleaner
technologies replace older ones.
EPA and Environment Canada, for example,
have announced that levels of the “most critical,
persistent pollutants” around the Great Lakes
continued to drop in 2002. The Duluth News-Tri
bune recently reported that the declines contin
ue a 15-year trend. On the U.S. side, mercury
releases have declined 40 percent since 1990,
hexachlorobenzene emissions have fallen by
75 percent, and dioxin releases are down 92
percent from the late 1980s.
Are there flies in the environmental oint
ment? Yes, and most of them come cour
tesy of the environmental movement. En
vironmental groups such as Greenpeace,
the Natural Resources Defense Council,
Health Care Without Harm, and the Envi
' ronmental Working Group regularly
launch scare campaigns—conspicuous
ly lacking in credible data — against in
dustrial chemicals whose use has con
tributed mightily to Americans living
longer, healthier lives.
Environmental activists demanding re
ductions in man-made emissions of green
house gases from the burning of fossil fuels
because of their alleged effect on “global
warming” threaten to deny Americans contin
ued access to affordable energy.
A good case can be made for sound environ
mental policy, but don’t expect to hear it from
the organizers of Earth Day.
Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow
at the Lexington Institute. He can be
contacted at cohen@lexingtoninstitute.org.
© 2003, Lexington Institute.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Earth Day2003: We should focus on world's clean water supply
Guest commentary
After spending $2 for a bottle of
spring water at the local conven
ience store, you may be surprised
to learn that people living in Nairo
bi, Kenya, pay up to five times more
per liter of water than the typical
American citizen.
Glean, drinkable freshwater,
though essential for life, is not easi
ly accessible to everyone. Water de
mand is increasing three times as
fast as the world’s population. In
less than 25 years, 30 percent of the
world will face water shortages. On
this year’s Earth Day, we should fo
cus on freshwater.
Although water makes up 70 per
cent of the earth’s surface, less than 1
percent of the world’s freshwater is fit
for consumption, according to the
World Health Organization. Five mil
lion people — equivalent to the en
tire population of Maryland — die
each year of diseases caused by con
taminated water, such as cholera, ty
phoid and chronic diarrhea.
Global warming is adversely affect
ing the world’s freshwater supply.
Less snow in the mountains results
in less water for our global faucets.
Shortsighted water policies are
also at fault, especially the move to
ward privatizing water systems.
In California, privatizing energy
resulted in blackouts, skyrocketing
bills and billions in lost public funds.
What would happen if private com
panies gained a greater part of our
water supply?
Against these alarming trends,
there is a global movement working
to turn the tide toward water conser
vation and sustainability. Since my
family foundation began awarding an
international environmental prize
more than 10 years ago, we’ve recog
nized 87 grassroots activists from 55
nations who are taking courageous
action to ensure that water — a ba
sic human right — remains protect
ed from the voracious interests of
polluting industries and compro
mised government officials.
This year’s Goldman Prize winners
are no exception.
Julia Bonds, a coal miner’s daugh
ter from West Virginia, is battling the
coal industry’s practice of mountain
top removal coal mining, which has
buried 1,000 miles of Appalachian
streams with tons of debris and poi
soned watersheds with arsenic, mer
cury and lead.
Spanish economist Pedro Arrojo
Agudo, another of this year’s prize
winners, led 400,000 people in a
march in Barcelona against the gov
ernment’s #25 billion plan to build a
series of dams along the Ebro River,
the nation’s last free-flowing river.
Arrojo is campaigning for alterna
tives, including planting drought
tolerant crops, repairing leaking
pipes and implementing water recy
cling programs.
We can ensure fresh water for all
if we continue to stabilize the
Earth’s climate by reducing carbon
emissions. We must move away
from mega-dams toward technolo
gies that use water most efficiently
and agriculture systems that pre
serve groundwater for our chil
dren’s children.
We must hold our governments re
sponsible for drafting and enforcing
sustainable and equitable water us
age policies, and hold industry ac
countable for abiding by them. And
we must do our part as individuals to
conserve water in our daily activities.
As we celebrate Earth Day, let’s
make it our goal to uphold the basic
right to clean water.
Richard N. Goldman is the president of
the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund
and the Goldman Environmental Prize.
He can be contacted at
pmproj@progressive.org. © 2003,
Richard N. Goldman. Distributed by
Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services.