It was never about the environment.
I’m for protecting nature as much as every one else.
But I have never been one of those people who thinks man should simply get out of the way on this planet.
Radical environmentalism is truly a threat to us all.
It’s always about money or power.
And power is always about money.
I think I realized that radical environmentalists are really after totalitarian dictatorship, not about cleaning the environment, when I read something about “environmental racism” or some such silly thing back in the 1990s. That article discussed how poor people are disproportionately affected by pollution, and it’s all the fault of the rich. It made no sense—when people become wealthier, they have the wherewithal to clean their neighborhoods, and install smoke stack scrubbers, and do all the other things to mitigate pollution—but the radical environmentalists are absolutely against anyone making money or earning a profit.
I was in high school in 1970. Stuyvesant on 15th between 1st and second avenues. Big earth day rally going on in union square which is some 4 blocks west of the school. I cut school that day not for the rally but because did lots of that back then. I walked over and saw this enormous crowd milling about, people with loudspeakers and so forth. Only one thing stuck with me from that day but has all these years later remained a vibrant memory. Traffic jammed in every direction. Union square is a major intersection and all you could se was those old gas guzzlers sitting there spewing fumes into the air.
I may have only been 16 at the time but the irony of the left’s inability to do anything intelligently never left me.
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks.
This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribbling’s. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn’t do the green thing back then.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was
right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the
green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that
operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of
buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a
computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person.
Bttt.
As much as I admire Ron Arnold's integrity in research (and I've spoken with him for extended periods), he's been way behind the curve for way too long. His belief that the environmental move-mint is but a costly ideology and not a criminal game for fun and profit appears unshaken. Worse, he does not appear to have learned that this kind of corruption is endemic to the power to regulate and cannot envision an alternative to it. It is effectively a belief in "good government" shared by many a RINO that has inhibited the development of civil alternatives.
Worse, although his ability as a dogged reporter are amazing, his technical ability to understand environmental issues is somewhat thin, preferring to understate those he does not grasp and rely upon opinions he considers objective without much depth of basis for the conclusion. That leads to the activist conclusion that he is merely a "denier" of whatever stripe (and I'm not talking about global warming). Nevertheless he ends up discounted where he otherwise should not be. It's too bad really, but it is how things appear to be working out.
BFL .. will read it this and all of the accompanying links when I have more time
The Delaware is just as disgusting as it ever was. The Mississippi STINKS! Anyone know of a major river in the US that is actually clean?
