"environmental movement is unable to win on even its very top priorities"

[rodeodance]

Sadly, it is true, Yes, "clear skies" is on hold for the monent, but the EPA just passed its own rules which, in essences just allows many states to redistrubute its emmissions.
We ARE losing in the long run and very few alarms are being sounded in Congress. the 'enviroment' is is fading from the radar screen of peoples consciousness.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/12/opinion/12kristof.html?th

March 12, 2005
OP-ED COLUMNIST
'I Have a Nightmare'
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

When environmentalists are writing tracts like "The Death of Environmentalism," you know the movement is in deep trouble.

That essay by two young environmentalists has been whirling around the Internet since last fall, provoking a civil war among tree-huggers for its assertion that "modern environmentalism, with all of its unexamined assumptions, outdated concepts and exhausted strategies, must die so that something new can live." Sadly, the authors, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, are right.

The U.S. environmental movement is unable to win on even its very top priorities, even though it has the advantage of mostly being right. Oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may be approved soon, and there's been no progress whatsoever in the U.S. on what may be the single most important issue to Earth in the long run: climate change.........


.......At one level, we're all environmentalists now. The Pew Research Center found that more than three-quarters of Americans agree that "this country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment." Yet support for the environment is coupled with a suspicion of environmental groups. "The Death of Environmentalism" notes that a poll in 2000 found that 41 percent of Americans considered environmental activists to be "extremists." There are many sensible environmentalists, of course, but overzealous ones have tarred the entire field........

[rfkrfk]

1. states are the battleground

With shrub at the top, don't expect anything from Washington.

[blindpig]

2. "we're all environmentalist now"

perhaps so, in a superficial way. A mile wide and an inch deep, I'd say. People make the right noises until it affects their lifestyle, then it's but...but...but.

A lot of the problem can be laid at the door of the media. Coverage since the early 90's has all but but disappeared, not coincidental to the corporate take over. Out of sight, out of mind. I thoroughly reject the extremist characterization, a creation of the corporate media. Greenpeace is extremist? Those people are fucking heroes. Same with Sea Shepards.

The foolhardy destruction of our environment, its biodiversity and habitats will be the greatest crime laid at our feet by future generations, if there are such things.

[Wright Patman]

3. Environmentalists

have been lampooned as "wackos" by a certain blowhard drug addict talk show host for nearly 20 years. More and more formerly reasonably interlocutors have jumped on the bandwagon as time has gone on.

And now with oil prices out of control (and they never tell you how many dollars per barrel should be attributed to the failure of the world's largest miitary to stabilize Iraq, a country with no army), people SHOULD be conserving, but so far are not. I think it will take $5 a gallon gas for people to cut back at all. Americans still think it's their God-given right to guzzle gas.

The U.S. media, as a general rule, are now very skeptical of even the mildest claims of the environmentalists because practically any action taken is detrimental to their corporate bottom line, at least in the short term.

It is good in a way that Americans are such short-term, attention deficit-plagued people, because this country has already made the wrong choices for a long enough period of time that there is no "long run" in terms of a livable First World country anyhow.

I am only waiting to see what all these people will do when they find out there is no Rapture. Will they all commit collective suicide a la Jonestown?

[KoKo]

4. This article sounds like typical Bush propaganda. "Clear Skies" went down

this week so the Bushies have sent their favorite reporters out to cull evidence that Environmental interest is weakening, to cover the success on Clear Skies. It's been a bad couple of weeks for them on SS and the Bankruptcy Bill is getting some very unfavorable attention. Notice how it say drilling in artic "may be approved soon." As if it's a given. Then goes and quotes the Pew Think Tank.

Kristof is always good for an article like this when they are in trouble.

[papau]

6. smile :-) YES Kristof is indeed always good for an article like this

whenever there is a bit of rain on the GOP parade!

:-)

[KoKo]

5. And, states like NC have joined together to try to cut their own emissions

because of the increase in asthma in children. There's alot going on out there that's more positive that the states themselves are doing to thwart the Bushies EPA. But, we have to keep donating to environmental groups who are working on this. And keep faxing, calling and writing.

[edhopper]

7. The thing that infuriated me most

about this article is that Kristof blames the environmental movement for not stopping the drilling in ANWAR.
This is an administration that did not listen to millions of anti-war protesters who questioned the WMD claims. This is an administration the continues to push for Soc Sec reform opposed by up to 70% of the voters. Why does he think that any facts presented by knowledgeable people would stop them from doing what they want.
Kristof is naive and incredulous.

[Blue_Tires]

8. in an addition to calif.

many new england states are stepping up pullution standards