Just to set the record straight, I have never hugged a tree.I took an economics course in college. The textbook had the phrase "hidden costs", meaning those costs of doing business that don't show up on the balance sheet. The professor (a card-carrying, laissez-faire, supply sider if ever there was one) gave one example of a hidden cost: environmental damage.
Over the last ten years, the Republicans have done everything they can to weaken laws protecting our air, water and land. Recently, they've had the power to accomplish this. As a result, the costs of environmental damage have become larger, and more hidden, than they have been in over a generation.
Four easy examples:
- New Source Review: Under the old law, power plants had to meet strict emissions standards when they made significant upgrades. The result was that power plants put off making upgrades. The Republican solution? Instead of just requiring power plants to reduce emissions, the Bush plan, misnamed the "Clean Skies Initiative", allows power plants to upgrade -- without reducing emissions.
- Mercury poisoning: Coal-fired power plants in the U.S. emit about 150 tons of highly toxic mercury every year. The Bush plan allows each power plant to emit a certain amount of mercury per megawatt produced. Those plants that emit less than the cap can sell the unused "quota" to plants that emit too much. While this "cap-trading" makes sense for lighter pollutants that travel long distances, mercury is too heavy to travel very far. As a result, the areas with the worst mercury poisoning will get even worse, and people exposed to mercury now will be exposed to even more.
- Kyoto Accords: Under this multinational treaty, the U.S. would reduce carbon dioxide emission by 7% in 15 years. It was signed in 1997, but the Republican-controlled Senate refused to ratify it, and President Bush has actively rejected it. The Republicans want a ban on greenhouse gas emission (carbon dioxide, for instance) in developing countries. In other words, developing countries can't do what we did -- and are still doing.
- Drilling in ANWR: We are overly dependent on Arab oil. Fortunately, the technology exists today to raise automobile gasoline mileage by one-third. Unfortunately, the Bush administration, with the full support of the Republican leadership, refuses to require any new mileage standard. He'd rather drill for new oil in an area where there isn't much oil to begin with. No doubt President Bush's chummy relationship with the Saudi royal family has nothing to do with this decision.
There are many others.
The combined result of Republican environmental policy is that Americans are getting sick and dying from acid rain, dirty air, mercury poisoning, sewage-filled water, and many, many other pollutants. Just one example is the startling rise of childhood asthma in recent years.
The immediate result of global warming is the phenomenal rise in temperatures that have already occurred in certain parts of the globe. In northern Alaska, for instance, the average temperature has risen seven degrees in recent years. Whole ecosystems are being wiped out on American soil, with effects on our daily lives that we are just beginning to figure out. Yet George W. Bush and his polluter-supported Republican comrades refuse even to consider the problem.
The Republicans apparently would rather take the polluters' campaign contributions than save lives.
Perhaps I should hug a tree while trees still exist.
Copyright 2004, Dan Jacoby
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