The Environment Non-Partisan?

OK

Thanks to Anonymous, I came up with another issue I can parse for my readers.

The Environment. This is a non-partisan issue. I think clean air, water, and food is a right. I also believe that public lands and wildlife should be preserved as best as possible. I think everybody thinks that. "Americans paid $7.7 billion for bottled water in 2002, according to the consulting and research firm Beverage Marketing Corporation" (fact check).

So let us see where we are at in terms of the environment. So far the Bush administration has rolled back over 200 protections put in place thus far to protect the environment.

An article in Knight Ridder compiled 14 pollution-oriented indicators from government and university statistics.

"Nine of the 14 indicators showed a worsening trend, two showed improvements and three others zigzagged.
Statistics that have worsened:
-Superfund cleanups of toxic waste fell by 52 percent.
-Fish-consumption warnings for rivers doubled.
-Fish-consumption advisories for lakes increased 39 percent.
-The number of beach closings rose 26 percent.
-Civil citations issued to polluters fell 57 percent.
-Criminal pollution prosecutions dropped 17 percent.
-Asthma attacks increased by 6 percent.
-There were small increases in global temperatures and unhealthy air days. "

That is not all, Bush also reduced 12 indicators for public land use. Including 74% more oil drilling permits in public lands. Bush also wants to drill for Oil in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge. He reversed the government's course on global warming, power plant emissions, roadless areas of national forests, environmental law enforcement and agricultural run-off.

Bush is against the Kyoto treaty which binds us to over 200 other countries including Russia (who recently signed fact check) to recognizing that Global Warming is real and a threat and that these countries will begin to put checks and balances to address the issue. Global Warming is real people, there is lots of science to back it up regardless of whether or not we were keeping weather data before a couple of hundred years ago. That hole in the ozone is getting bigger up there.

Bush has rolled back the Clean Air Act. Basically, the Clean Air Act said that companies had to get their act together by 2004. The EPA was allowed to act on state to state pollution. If a company in Pennsylvania was polluting Ohio, Ohio would have the EPA to stand up for them. Here is how Bush stood in favor of businesses again. The Clear Skies bill stopped the EPA from being able to do anything about these complaints until anywhere between 2009 - 2012. So basically the Clear Skies bill just bought more time for big business to give your kids more asthma. (read the article)

He also started the "Healthy forests Act" which lets people cut down trees that supposedly cause a nuisance to the forests. This was a great one. I didn't even need anyone to explain this one to me when I heard it one day on NPR. Bush found a way to get a cheer out of a crowd when he said he was going to allow more deforestation IN OUR PUBLIC LANDS no less. (read the article)

In short we are in deep CRAPSKIES. Security moms, are you worried about your uterus?
Guess what with all the Mercury that has been dumped by Industry in our streams and lakes, you probably either can't eat fish or should get checked out. Mercury levels in fish have come under alarm from the FDA?! They tell us not to eat Shark, Tilefish, Mackerel, Swordfish and you should avoid Albacore tuna.

Their is a laundry list of things that have gone awry with our environment since Bush has been president. I don't blame him. He does have to worry about fighting 2 wars and keeping the terrorists from attacking us while Condi Rice is on the trail with him.

It is tough work to keep watch on all these things going on at the same time. Bush's environmental policy was so bad that his first Director of the EPA Christie Todd Whitman (New Jerseyans know her well) actually quit.

She just up and resigned because Bush didn't want to hear about her reforms. Colin Powell called her the "wind dummy" of the administration.

If Christie quits that's bad news especially for Republicans.

You can click on the title of the post to go to an article by Robert F. Kenney, Jr. about Bush's environment.

So let us see what the other guys would like to do to improve things.

Nader:
A huge environmentalist Nader has been a force in this arena just as he has in consumer advocacy. He is for cleaner energy, protection of our food, and changing the environment in poor neighborhoods with his economic policies. Nader would "make environmental protection a priority for our energy, trade, industrial, agricultural, transportation, development and land use policies, indeed protecting the environment must be weaved throughout our governance." For more visit votenader.org.

Kerry:
Wants to increase funding for public lands, reduce toxic waste in communities, and wants to bring back the Clean Air Act. Also a huge environmentalist he pledges to reverse the damage done by Bush and his cronies in Congress.

Bush:
Stay the Course
Keep catering to corporations instead of our environment.

Kerry and Nader are basically the same on this issue as most politicians should be. Bush however, has claimed a war on the Environment apparently in between his war on Terror, Afghanistan, and Iraq.