Saving Our Environment: The Unlikely Polemics of Living Free

 

Few subjects encourage me to publicly engage in controversial debate--what we call polemics, the new Lambent Literacy word, but the environment may be one of them. Because I love this planet--the flora and fauna that soothe my soul, I'm going out on that limb. Here's my story.

I grew up in a city that surrounds a beautiful lake. In those days the oil and chemical industries were located at one end of that lake, and the denizens of the town went about their daily lives fully aware that the water was polluted and therefore dangerous to swim in. My friends and I sunbathed on the beach and stayed out of the water. That didn't stop sports enthusiasts from skiing up and down the river that flowed into that lake, however, but as the years passed, the town began to experience higher than usual numbers of cancer victims. Six acres of wetlands were used as dumping grounds for coal tar, transformer oils and dead electrical equipment for over 50 years, from 1926 to 1980. Soil, sediment, surface water and groundwater were all contaminated with hazardous chemicals. Although today cleanup work is underway, including dredging of the river, it will take many years to purge it of pollutants. As for the air, that's another story. As of February 2020 this city ranks number two of the nation's 100 biggest air toxics polluters. And this state, Louisiana, falls behind #1 ranked Texas, in toxic emissions.

Unless you are an environmentalist or you work in the oil/gas/chemicals industry, you probably don't look at the research on what is happening to our air, water, land, and the wild inhabitants on a regular basis, if at all. Like me, for many years I took it for granted that our government was enacting regulations and policies that would protect me. I was busy getting an education, raising two daughters, and working to help support my family. But, indeed, the government was burning the candle at both ends, protecting industry first and the community second, just enough to avoid serious litigation.

Corny as it may be, I was in my twenties when John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" spoke such a loud and clear message to me that I put my sister and a trunk full of camping supplies in the car the summer she graduated from high school and headed for the Colorado Rockies. I had never seen anything so utterly clean and beautiful, and that summer changed my life forever.

We are living in an age of polemics--controversial disputes, a chaotic four years in the White House, and an unusual election year, one that none of us could have imagined. When President Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, he signaled to the world that the United States wanted less leadership in international climate change agreements. Since that time, 65 per cent of the U.S. population and 68 per cent of economic interests have joined coalitions that support the Paris Agreement. These people, one group calling themselves We Are Still In, have reaffirmed their commitment to helping America reach its Paris climate goals in spite of the decisions made by the White House.  But is it enough?

Environmental safeguards are critical to protecting Americans and ensuring sustainable economic growth. Trump has initiated an unprecedented number of regulatory rollbacks that ignore science and severely impact public health, the economy, and the environment.

The following actions have been taken by Trump's EPA and Department of Transportation since 2017:

1. Clean Power Plan: carbon emissions, a policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants,  rolled back.

2. Regulations on toxic air pollution relaxed

3. Regulations on methane flares, equipment inspections, leaks relaxed in 2018

4. Plan to cap miles per gallon changed from 54 by 2025 to 34 by 2021

5. Executive order requiring federally funded projects to factor rising sea levels into construction revoked in 2017

6. In 2017 Trump proposed a change that narrowed the definition of what is considered a federally protected river or wetland.

7. Seismic air gun blasts to search for underwater oil and gas deposits approved despite concern over disorienting marine mammals

8. Restrictions on protecting the American sage grouse in favor of land developers, mining, and drilling eased

9. Administration of Endangered Species Act changed, putting more weight on economic considerations rather than endangered animals habitat

10. In 2017 companies constructing power lines, leaving oil exposed, or installing large wind turbines are no longer in violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Unfortunately for human health and environmental concerns, Trump has disregarded the importance of scientific data and opened the door for greater influence by business interests.

We simply cannot politicize the environment. 

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how taking care of the planet, the country, my little piece of the world is a Democrat versus Republican issue. Don't we all want to live with clean air, water, and land? Don't we care that we might destroy animal habitats to the point of extinction with our destructive choices? Are we so naive, or perhaps greedy for wealth, that we think our actions don't make a difference?

My story isn't finished. My life has been so very blessed with my beautiful family, my long teaching career, and good health, and yet some of my favorite memories revolve around my relationship with nature, not just the garden that is the salve of my soul, but my sojourns through the wild world. My list is a long, precious collection of memories: camping trips in the mountains of Texas, Colorado, and Arkansas; sharing a mountain slope with a big horn; a whale watch off the Atlantic coast; a hike through the Lake District in England; a hike along the Wild Atlantic Way on the southern coast of Ireland; wild birds and deer in Killarney National Forest in Ireland. 

We know from years of research that, despite the beauty of the environment, the clean green atmosphere adds to our longevity and our peace of mind. 

Knowing the policies and how they have been adversely changed might not convince you, but the potential loss of those feelings of solace and contentment should. So many poets have tried to explain it to us. My favorite is Wendell Berry.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the

least sound

in fear of what my life and my

children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the

wood drake

rests in his beauty on the

water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild

things

who do not tax their lives with

forethought

of grief. I come into the

presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-

blind stars

waiting with their light. For a 

time

I rest in the grace of the world,

and am free.