All Creatures Great and Small

Today's news wire showed an interesting tidbit, apparently Bush managed to do ONE good thing for the environment during his eight-year tenure—protecting more ocean area than any other president.

Which dove tails nicely with the Writer's Almanac email I received for today that mentioned the following:

British zoologist and writer Gerald Durrell worked for a while collecting animals for zoos, but his methods clashed with the zoology ideas of the day — he wanted to get rare animals and increase their populations, not just get the showy animals that people would pay a lot of money to see.

Gerald Durrell wrote a letter to seal in a time capsule, and he said: "The world is to us what the Garden of Eden was supposed to be to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were banished, but we are banishing ourselves from our Eden. The difference is that Adam and Eve had somewhere else to go. We have nowhere else to go. We hope that by the time you read this you will have at least partially curtailed our reckless greed and stupidity. If we have not, at least some of us have tried. … All we can say is learn from what we have achieved, but above all learn from our mistakes, do not go on endlessly like a squirrel in a wheel committing the same errors hour by hour day by day year after year century after century as we have done up to now. We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you. We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you."

Obviously, Durrell was a wee bit optimistic in his hopes that his fellow humans would learn from their environmental mistakes. Heck, we can't seem to learn when it hits our pocketbooks, like it did last fall with gas (prices are rising and expected to go higher again and OPEC is threatening production cuts). So it is highly unlikely we have learned much about being kind to the lesser creatures on our planet.

Shameful

With all eyes on the election today, it seems especially pertinent to remind voters of just what is at stake. The NY Times posted an editorial yesterday that aimed to do just that. 

The article looked at what the Bush Administration would try to slip in under the radar during their last 77 days in office (expanding on an earlier post). Among the atrocities Dubya and Cheney and the boys (sorry Condi) are aiming for are your civil liberties, the environment and abortion. Here are some highlights:

• New FBI guidelines—Agents will be allowed to use informants to infiltrate lawful groups, engage in prolonged physical surveillance and lie about their identity while questioning a subject’s neighbors, relatives, co-workers and friends.
• New EPA rule—They are expected to issue a final rule that would make it easier for coal-fired power plants to locate near national parks in defiance of longstanding Congressional mandates to protect air quality in areas of special natural or recreational value.
• Health & Human Services–The department's secretary, Michael Leavitt, is expected, after the election, to extend the so-called right to refuse to a wide range of health care workers and activities including abortion referrals, unbiased counseling and provision of birth control pills or emergency contraception, even for rape victims.
  
  

Down to the Wire

The lease is up and the tenants are going to trash the joint but good before they take off. Sound like a bunch of college seniors after graduation? Nope, it is the Bush Administration taking a hatchet to our environmental regulations before January. MSNBC has the full scoop here, but some details are below:

Many of the rules that could be issued over the next few weeks would ease environmental regulations, according to sources familiar with administration deliberations.

Two other rules nearing completion would ease limits on pollution from power plants, a major energy industry goal for the past eight years that is strenuously opposed by Democratic lawmakers and environmental groups.

And the Winner of the Science Fair is . . .

Really Mac? If you haven't heard, the Republican presidential nominee, John McCain has proposed a contest with a $300,000 purse to whomever can come up with a car battery that out does current ones in price, power and size.

Oh lordy. I'll admit I have never been someone to wax poetic over Bill Nye the Science Guy or anything of that sort, but these seems just silly to me. What's next? A contest to see who can buy the most votes from the wealthy to be the leader of the free world. Oops, wait, we already have a winner to that contest . . .

I get that McCain is trying to siphon off the moderates who may be inclined to lean toward Obama. I guess he figures that his posturing to the religious right isn't working, so why not go after the moderate greenies. Good luck and God speed Mac, I think you are going to need more than a better battery to wins the hearts and minds of the nation's environmentalist.

NewsHour on PBS has a nice little story about McCain's plan here.

Environment-Schmenvironment

It would appear that our fearless leader is at it again—this time he is giving the environment a big FU so he can continue to build his board fence, which may keep those nasty Mexican critters on their side of the line, but won't do jack about people wanting to come live the American dream. (And yes in case you are wondering, I AM hugging a tree while I write this.)

I don't know if the major networks have tackled this one much but the Washington Post had a piece on it April 2, as well as the Chicago Tribune and Britain's Independent—maybe we do still need newspapers after all.

Anyway, according to the W. Post's piece more than 20 environmental laws are being waived to finish up the last 470 odd miles of this monstrosity by the end of 2008.  Mr. Homeland Security, Michael "Skeletor" Chertoff said that they had no choice but to bypass the "standard environmental reviews."

"Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation," said Chertoff. Gosh Beav, really? Well then, sure, don't let a silly thing like a rule or law get in your way then. Just do what you want, that is what this administration has always done.

The land that this section of the fence will cut through includes areas of the Colorado River, the Peloncillo Mountians, as well as many national parks, wildlife refuges and other wilderness areas. Hasta la vista jack rabbits!

Meanwhile, two environmental groups—Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife—have asked the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the administration's waiver. Not that I would hold my breath about Thomas, Scalia and the boys deciding that plants and animals are good anytime soon.

State of the Blog

I have had a couple of recent dissenting, anonymous comments that I wanted to address for all to see.

The first was in reference to my Holy Shit post that commented on Mike Huckabee's interest in amending the Constitution so that it reflected the Bible and God's word. The comment begged to differ with me on the basis that we were a country founded on religion, as evidenced by the phrase "one nation, under God."

Listen close people, you are going to have to do your homework a bit better than that to try and argue with me. First, the phrase "one nation, under God" is from the Pledge of Allegiance. Not the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. Furthermore, that part of the Pledge was added in 1954 by then-president Dwight Eisenhower in reaction to the increasing anti-Communist thinking that was sweeping the country at the time. So it was not a part of the original Pledge, which itself was not something our Founding Fathers created. The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by a staff member of The Youth's Companion, a Boston-based children's magazine. (Read more here.)

So far as the documents that our Founding Fathers did play a role in: the Declaration of Independence makes two references to God or our creator. The first references the "separate or equal stations" afforded to us by "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and the second deals with the rights our "Creator" has "endowed" us with. Read the whole she-bang for yourself here. (Some of us could use a bit of a refresher course I am gathering.)

Next, let's look at the U.S. Constitution. If you are interested, you can read the whole document here. God is NEVER mentioned in the Constitution. If you doubt me, read it, I dare you. 

Hopefully that cleared that up. I don't doubt that many of the Founding Fathers had a strong faith and did in fact believe in God. But I also know that it was extremely important to them that our government be focused on governing in a democratic way and that religion not play a part in that.

Now, the second comment I wanted to address was in reference to the On Such a Winter's Day post. Yes, China and India are dramatically increasing their demand for energy, ergo oil. Those numbers are not going to decrease, only increase. I am realistic about that. What I refuse to be "realistic" about is that we have to kill off every living creature so those demands can be met. There are things we can do, in the United States, to not only reduce our energy/oil usage, but to create new forms of energy and in the meantime set an example for the rest of the world. If our government is so anxious to export our brand of governing to other countries, shouldn't they be just as anxious to insure that our country and the rest of the world is in existence to reap the benefits of democracy?

Back to what the anonymous commenter said about the Holy Shit post. Yes, what makes our country great is that we are able to disagree and freely voice our differences. And I support that, but I will NOT support the efforts of this administration or a subsequent one to take away my rights or to make my life worse than when that administration came into office. Dubya has made our lives worse: through the economy; through this senseless war; through his inattention to the environment; and his lack of interest in being a participant in the global stage that we now live on.