Bush's Environmental policy

[Guest EricMM]

People! This is why I am against bush. If it was incosistant with his past, that would be one thing, but it isn't. If I didn't see it inconsistantly happening in the future, I would be more open. But this is par the course for him and HIS EPA. The woman in charge of Bush's EPA ruined Jersey's ecology for profits, and now she's supposed to Enviromentally Protect this country???

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2002Jul12.html

 

How can you trust agriculture and industry to clean themselves up?????

[Guest Some Guy]

It seems to me that this is consistant with conservative politics. Less power for the Feds and more to the states. If the states don't enforce the rules then I'd say you have a right to complain, but you haven't even given them a chance before you casted doubt on their abilities. Lessening the regulations is fien by me, it is very expensive to install all the anti-pollution equipment and could cause tons of people their jobs. I'm in favor of clean water, but I'm more in favor of employed people.

[Guest gthureson]

You are forgetting the entire economic upside to not having clean water as well, past the corporate savings for not having to pay attention to emissions.

 

More sales for bottled water and home filtration systems. Ergo, more employed people.

 

Everyone's a winner.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

<<<I'm in favor of clean water, but I'm more in favor of employed people.>>>

 

Eh, I'm more in favor of clean water. I'm not willing to potentially sacrifice my health just to get people some jobs. Health is more important. And bottled water is a poor solution, given that it's ridiculously expensive.

 

And I think it's fair to cast doubt on the states before giving them a chance, given how poor some of their environmental records are. Federal regulations are the only things that keep some states from giving businesses the go ahead to polute as much as they please. Getting rid of/reducing federal regulations is definitely a bad thing.

[Guest EricMM]

Does anyone else realize that someday soon water not oil will become Earth's most valueable resourse? And this is entire and totally our fault. There used to be moving bodies of water around that you could drink. These are now rare as hell. We as a nation have polluted most if not all of our water, and use much of our fresh water to cool factories because salt water is more expensive to clean. Much of the rest goes to agriculture. We use water for so much, yet we dirty it up with the idea that it will always be availible.

 

I anticipate that someday other countries, seeing a CLEAN water shortage will stop selling their clean water to other countries. We will be stuck. Aquifers take a while to refill, and the amount of run off and impermeable land our continent has is just making the problem worse.

 

You can say now that you will just buy bottled water, but people need to realize that in the next 100 years AT MOST, there will be wars fought over water like we fight for oil now.

 

We don't NEED combustion to live, we NEED H2O!

[Guest gthureson]

And mutants will rule the wastelands, and only those ruthless and strong enough to scavenge and pillage will survive.

[Guest DrTom]

As much as I like getting things out of the federal government's hands and back into the states, I don't see how the current laws can be enforced without EPA oversight.

 

"Still, Whitman has vowed to change the controversial rule, and her staff's presentation reflects her emphasis on flexibility and environmental results over command-and-control federal regulation and strict enforcement."

 

Flexibility is good, and I especially like results as opposed to strict federal enforcement. Until another way to make sure the states comply is introduced, though, I don't see how it can be done without the EPA serving as a watchdog.

[Guest EricMM]

Thats why I feel Bush's EPA is more focused on relaxing economic rulings on big business than they are on regulating and creating current and new ones respectively.

 

Laugh all you want about doomsday predictions, but do you really think things can contine for another 50 years the way they are now?

[Guest gthureson]

Eric, you seem like a very earnest person, but let me ask you a serious question on this matter.

 

What were the enviromental protections in 1952?

 

They were more or less non-existant. You would have had to have done something truly outrageous to raise the ire of anybody. We're talking about an era of toxic waste disposal being dumping barrels in the ocean.

 

That was fifty years ago.

 

You want massive, sweeping changes, I am guessing. And you want them right now. Thats all well and good.

 

I'm probably farther to the left than anybody on this board. Including LesnarLunatic and ZappaMask. However, I am also a pragmatist and a realist.

 

Conservatives are not evil. They are merely...well...conservative. They do change their opinions on issues, and change does come. Just slower than you like. Especially slower than you'd like, seeing as you seem to want it done yesterday.

 

The argument you are making is if radical changes in policy are not made *right* now, things will not change for fifty years and things will go completely to hell.

 

Well, that is not the way government works. In the last fifty years, leaps and strides in technology and policy shifts that would have seemed unthinkable at the time have happened. I can guarantee you that in the next fifty years the same will happen again. The trend is already in the direction you want, although their may be setbacks from time to time, I admit.

 

Anticipate the end if you want. But look at the larger picture from time to time as well. Nothing happens overnight.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

I'm probably farther to the left than anybody on this board. Including LesnarLunatic and ZappaMask.

I think you're more sanely to the left than those two, gthureson, rather than further per se.

 

Laugh all you want about doomsday predictions

Thanks, Eric. I certainly shall.

[Guest MrRant]

I'm betting my money on a Meteor personally.

[Guest redbaron51]

 

maybe he should actually read this and become a better president.

 

But he is not my leader that is for sure.

[Guest gthureson]

I'm probably farther to the left than anybody on this board. Including LesnarLunatic and ZappaMask.

I think you're more sanely to the left than those two, gthureson, rather than further per se.

 

Well, thanks, I think.

 

Granted, I do hold a few positions that really torque off the radical left.

 

I support freedom of expression come hell or high water. Including on matters such as hate literature and clearly racist/sexist/homophobic comments. Either you support freedom of speech or you don't, and I don't believe drawing artificial lines about what is acceptable. If a statement holds no validity, it will fall on those merits, it doesn't need to be squashed.

 

I support military action where justified, I just believe that foreign policy should be reviewed so as to figure out why it became justified in the first place.

 

But mostly I think its because I'm not 17 years old anymore, and understand the realpolitik better than I did when I was.

[Guest DrTom]

"Laugh all you want about doomsday predictions, but do you really think things can contine for another 50 years the way they are now?"

 

Quite simply, yes.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

<<<Quite simply, yes.>>>

 

I agree. While I think protecting the environment is important as a principle, I still think that we can keep on going the way we're going now and not run into any real disasters within our lifetimes. I say about 100 years before things really start to deteriorate, and that's only if we don't make any changes.

[Guest EricMM]

Ok then our grandchildren are fucked. DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR GRANDCHILDREN ? Bush obviously doesn't.

[Guest KoR Fungus]

Hey, I care, I just say ease up on the doomsday predictions. They hurt the credibility of the rest of your argument.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

We use water for so much, yet we dirty it up with the idea that it will always be availible.

Well, the thing is, water WILL always be available.

[Guest EricMM]

No, actually, it won't. It's being polluted faster than it's being cleaned, much much faster. We can start desalinization, but thats more expensive than you think.

[Guest Spicy McHaggis]

And your proof?

[Guest Some Guy]

 

maybe he should actually read this and become a better president.

 

But he is not my leader that is for sure.

 

Way to contribute to the thread. Keep bring the content.

 

 

 

There isn't much proof, just doomsday predictions.

 

Eric, you need to realize that we don't pollute as mush now as we did ten years ago, and we didn't pollute as much ten years ago as we did 20, and so on.

 

You are far to impatient. It is almost childish. Just relax, and things will be ok. Water will be there, if we have to make it ourselves. But it will be cleaned up eventually. It takes a lot of time to get bills through our system, this isn't a dictatorship, where the tyrant rules absolutely.

[Guest EricMM]

Maybe you guys are right, and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should just relax and wait for the future to turn out alright. Thats ENTIRELY possible.

 

But I don't want to relax and wait because some people in America would like to lower environmental laws to make money. They know they will be dead before problems occur. People need to counteract this kind of stuff.

[Guest DrTom]

"Ok then our grandchildren are fucked. DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT YOUR GRANDCHILDREN ?"

 

I don't plan to have grandchildren.

 

What the hard-core environmentalists fail to realize is that earth has amazing recuperative powers. Volcanoes have been erupting for ages and ages, yet the earth isn't bogged down by the enormous amount of pollutants ans erupting volcano spews into the air. Ice ages have come and gone, wars have been fought, and we're still here. One day, the planet will shake off man like a bad habit. I think there's very little we can do to this planet that it couldn't naturally recover from.

 

I'm not saying we should abuse the earth. But I think the doomsday predictions are ridiculously far-fetched. Remember, after the big "hole in the ozone layer" was discovered, we were all supposed to be extra crispy by now.

[Guest Cancer Marney]

If I had grandchildren, I imagine there would be a Nobel prize in it for my girlfriend.

[Guest EricMM]

And a well deserved one...

 

But fine, ok, your great nieces? Great nephews? God-Grandchildren?

 

Just because you specifically don't plan to have any children doesn't mean you can ignore the future... IMO...

[Guest NoCalMike]

I think protecting our enviornment is a very important thing to do. If not for reasons already stated, basically just for our own well being. I personally, don't like going to polluted lakes and rivers, much less want to be in fear of bad drinking water. I don't want to live in a world 20 years from now where you HAVE TO BUY bottled water. That is not just a doomsday prediction, it could EASILY happen. Some conservative in the Senate actually said, "We are in the final days according to the bible, so I see no need to waste our time protecting the enviornment" Yah, really logical argument there........