Environmentalism, really?

Think locally act globally!

Rachel Carson
May 27, 1907-Apr 14, 1964

Rachel Carson probably awakened more people to the cause of environmentalism than any other person. Her Book "Silent Spring"(1962) was about the dangers of pesticides. Although DDT was labeled as completely harmless to man, it was found to soften the egg shells of top predator birds. Silent Spring probably saved the American Bald Eagle from certain extinction.

It is easy to be a good guy, all you have to do is label yourself as an environmentalist. I certainly don't want to take anything away from the true custodians of the environment that work hard to protect nature from harm, like Carson and many others, but what hurts the environment on the other side of the earth certainly hurts us here. If you want to see what I'm talking about, go to the beach and try to decide where the junk washing up on our shores is coming from. For the most part... it ain't ours. What are we doing about that? Beside continually picking it up!

Recently we've had to wonder if some of the junk from Japan might be radioactive flotsam from the Fukushima Nuclear plant. It was built to withstand a 7.2 earthquake, but it wasn't designed to withstand a tidal wave. How do they ever plan to sell us on the idea that nuclear power is safe if they can't even get past an earthquake. Japan is capable of providing an even larger quake than they had that caused the Fukushima disaster. Why aren't we all screaming for better standards? Not just here, but world-wide. They have sold us (some of us) on the idea that we "live in a world economy now" so they can sell us cheap products that can be made cheaply offshore, but at what expense? What countries adhere to the high environmental standards that we here in the U.S. do? Certainly not China.

Some of you have heard me say, repeatedly, that the Three Gorges Dam, that was just recently put into operation in China, is the direct equivalent of placing a dam across the Golden Gate in San Francisco and flooding the Sacramento valley. The dam displaced more Chinese citizens that we have people in the Sacramento valley, not to mention that they flooded antiquities and artifacts tens of thousand of years old. China did this for cheap power to provide cheap products to sell to the rest of the world. What do you think that the chances of placing a dam across the Golden Gate are? We would be able to compete with cheap Chinese products then. We would have almost unlimited free hydro-power. Think what a boon it would be to the U.S. economy. Anybody that wanted a job could be hired for the construction. America would be sitting in Fat City.

Our chances of a dam being placed across the Golden Gate are ZERO, because, rightfully every environmentalist in America would be against it. Man woman and child would be screaming at the top of their lungs that it shouldn’t happen. Politician’s heads would roll, there would be rioting in the streets, there would be pandemonium. Soooo… why is it okay with all of us “environmentalists”, that are so busy “thinking globally and acting locally“, while using cheap Chinese products and being grateful for the “good buy” that we are getting? Shouldn’t we be thinking locally and acting GLOBALLY?

They say that the Three Gorges Dam generates as much power as 15 nuclear power plants, but at what cost? The kinds of fish in the river will change, the valleys are gone, the antiquities are gone. The birds and animal life will change. Some say the they worlds weather will change because of the size of the dam. There are theories that the dam will cause earthquakes due to the weight of the water. The people that used to live in the valleys and grow their own food are no longer able to do so. The displaced people were moved in to large apartment complexes in the cities. I can’t believe that they are, in any way, happier. Our own local second district supervisor, Clif Clendenen, just lost his job, in part, because he suggested that the people that live in the hills should move to town where they would be easier to care for. Say What??? Not many people like living in a town compared to having their own space and garden in the country. So, why did we, in the rest of the world, allow China to do this to their people? Shouldn’t we have been fighting for them to be left on their farms? If we live in a “world economy” we should darn well have some say over what the rest of the world does to the environment and their people. Too bad we don’t have a vote in this “World Economy” that we live in.

Eric Kirk just did a post on GMO foods, and whether or not they should be labeled. It starts out like it's about Kepler, but it ends up about GMO labeling. It was one of the most interesting discussions that I’ve ever seen on a blog. The comments were educated and articulate. My only hope is that GMO foods would be labeled. If your are going to sell me food, you should be obligated to tell me all about it. One of the points that was made was that we would need genetically modified foods to feed the world. Maybe so, but we wouldn’t need GMO foods if we had more space to grow natural food. In our own valleys we have replaced prime agriculture land with brick and mortar industry. A good example of that is “Silicone Valley” thousand of prune and walnut trees were removed from the San Jose Valley to make room for buildings. The buildings would have probably been better placed in the foothills and the valleys left for agriculture, quite the opposite of the plan to move everybody to the cities. Sadly, The San Jose valley was known by the Indians as The Valley of the Acorn Oaks. The oak trees were removed to plant prunes and walnuts. I don’t necessarily disapprove of planting a better crop, as long as in doesn’t glow in the dark, like some GMO plants. Or if it glows in the dark, it should be at least labeled that does that.

I guess my whole point is, why are some of our “environmentalists” so darned obstructionalistic locally, when they don’t seem not to care a rat’s patooty about what the rest of the world does.

Link: Three Gorges dam
link: 17 facts about the three gorges dam