politics and the environment
"On the Democratic side, John Kerry said Tuesday of the environment, "For the first time in history, our generation may pass this country on to our children in worse shape than we were in fact handed it by our parents." Forget the ungrammatical garble of the phrasing, factually the statement is unadulterated nonsense. Air, water, and toxic pollution are dramatically down during "our generation." In the 1960s, each morning in Pittsburgh or Cleveland you could write your name on the family car in the sulfur dust that had settled the night before; today these cities have clean air, though industrial production continues. In the last five summers, Los Angeles has experienced just one Stage One smog alert; 20 years ago, the average was almost 100 per season. The Chicago River in the 1950s was an open sewer; now, dinner-cruise boats ply it. The Potomac River in the 1960s was an open sewer; now its waters are so inviting police have been unable to stop a rash of Potomac drownings, because people keep jumping in to swim. Pollution is declining, park and preservation areas are expanding, more environmental rules are being imposed on development, land disposal of untreated toxic wastes has ended, ocean disposal of municipal sewage has ended--this list goes on and on.
"To say that the country is in worse environmental shape now than it was in our parents' generation either exhibits total lack of knowledge and perspective on Kerry's part--doesn't he remember what Boston Harbor was like before the multibillion dollar cleanup?--or, more likely, simply shows that Kerry knows voters have been conditioned to believe things are getting worse when in fact they're getting better."
Read the rest of Greg's Earth Day post.
"On the Democratic side, John Kerry said Tuesday of the environment, "For the first time in history, our generation may pass this country on to our children in worse shape than we were in fact handed it by our parents." Forget the ungrammatical garble of the phrasing, factually the statement is unadulterated nonsense. Air, water, and toxic pollution are dramatically down during "our generation." In the 1960s, each morning in Pittsburgh or Cleveland you could write your name on the family car in the sulfur dust that had settled the night before; today these cities have clean air, though industrial production continues. In the last five summers, Los Angeles has experienced just one Stage One smog alert; 20 years ago, the average was almost 100 per season. The Chicago River in the 1950s was an open sewer; now, dinner-cruise boats ply it. The Potomac River in the 1960s was an open sewer; now its waters are so inviting police have been unable to stop a rash of Potomac drownings, because people keep jumping in to swim. Pollution is declining, park and preservation areas are expanding, more environmental rules are being imposed on development, land disposal of untreated toxic wastes has ended, ocean disposal of municipal sewage has ended--this list goes on and on.
"To say that the country is in worse environmental shape now than it was in our parents' generation either exhibits total lack of knowledge and perspective on Kerry's part--doesn't he remember what Boston Harbor was like before the multibillion dollar cleanup?--or, more likely, simply shows that Kerry knows voters have been conditioned to believe things are getting worse when in fact they're getting better."
Read the rest of Greg's Earth Day post.
posted by jonnyargyle at 4:58 PM
