Friday, June 16, 2006

2581 Environmental issues I believe in

Al Gore is just trying to rebuild his political base. The real action has to take place locally and by American business, not globally by government fiat. My goodness, in 2004 the airborne particulates in Beijing were more than 6 times as high as in New York City. And Ohio used to be under a glacier. So here's what I support, in no particular order:

1. Cleaner burning coal and safer mines.
2. Drilling for oil in Alaska, which is what Alaskans want.
3. Don't allow western and southern states to drain the Great Lakes so they can farm non-agricultural land.
4. Rebuild the barrier islands while restricting coast-line communities--even for the rich. Or the poor.
5. Don't allow mega-Casinos by Indians or Cajuns or Hispanics or the Mafia or people of any special interest in coastal-tourist areas. Work on developing "real" jobs that produce something.
6. Restore the fence rows in the Midwest so the birds can eat the bugs and less pesticide will be needed, plus it is just prettier and more colorful. Encourage living snow fences to protect soil from erosion in winter.
7. Get rid of welfare for farmers (price supports) which encourages mismanagement and misuse of the land and creates ever larger farms.
8. Strict enforcement of keeping out agricultural and waterway pests. (Actually we do a better job of restricting harmful bugs that hurt our economy than we do illegal people who do it by stealth.)
9. More solar power; forget wind turbines--looks ridiculous, kills birds and changes air currents which will have long term bad effects on agriculture.
10. More bicycle paths and set asides for parks. More sidewalks for walking. Discourage culs-de-sac to reduce congestion on feeder roads.
11. Give small, efficient cars a tax break instead of trucks, or eliminate it all together.
12. Reduce the government's dependence on oil by cutting gasoline taxes at the pump.
13. Have Hollywood's falling stars let squatters use their land for gardens for the poor.

I'm sure you have ideas from your industry.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no, you had to ask! lol Okay, let me respond to a few of your numbered items . . .

1. Nice idea but coal, by nature is dirty and very difficult AND expensive to clean. We need another source.

2. Of course Alaskans want it!!!! Who doesn't want a royalty check in the mail every year! Now should we??? lol Absolutely!!! ;>) Right after they allow drilling in offshore Calif, Florida and ALL along the east coast WHICH . . . all happen to be closer to the market, higher grade oil, cheaper to recover and proven!

In all those areas I mentioned besides Alaska the common attitude is "Not in MY backyard!!" We want domestic oil but we don't want to possibly suffer from it. Oil from Alaska would be YEARS in delivery and the cost would be far higher than oil from those other areas. And THEN you have the refinery problem . . . not enough of them.

What we really need to do is face the fact that oil is a limited resource and we need to start using it as if it could be gone by the end of the next 5-10 years.

3. So true and the same goes for the Colorado River. We fight Mother Nature to turn her desert into a green paradice so we can have lettace 365. We can't win that battle!

Since I agree with most of these I'll skip to . . .

9. Solar works but "forget wind turbines??" Looks bad . . . true but "changes air currents . .??" I had never heard that. I could go either way on this I suppose.

And last, I love 13! lol I suspect that, like oil exploration it's another "Not in MY backyard!!" lol

Gypsy

Uisce said...

I'd love to see more people and freight being moved by rail instead of on highways.

Norma said...

Uisce: That's a good one, too. Oh how I wish we had rail service between here and Chicago and Indy. We take the train out of Toledo, and it's really great.