What seems like a long time ago, I saw a bumper sticker that pretty much said it all -- "Don't Californicate Colorado". God put that state on the left side of the map with good reason.
I am all for working to stop polluting our environment, but also recognize the pollution from other nations, especially China and other developing nations filled with people who aspire to our lifestyle. We need to recognize that the U.S. consumes an incredible amount of the world resources, especially energy. In building this great nation, we pretty much devasted any part of it that had lots of natural resources that could be taken cheaply. Then we went on to expand our gluttony to taking whatever we could get cheap from other parts of the world especially oil, being joined by western Europe in the process.
If you doubt that we raped our own country, consider that the eastern half was essentially covered in forest. A squirrel could travel from Florida to Maine without touching the ground. There were Passenger Pigeons in flocks so immense they darkened the sky when passing overhead, herds of Bison that blocked railroad tracks for days while moving through the western plains, runs of Shad in east coast rivers so thick that you could almost walk across the river on their backs. Even here in rural Ohio, you can find the occasional piece of old furniture with a back made of one board over 4 feet wide. I helped disassemble a barn with a main hand hewn beam 72 feet long, 16 inches square, all one single black walnut log -- no joints of any kind for the entire length. I have no idea how big that tree was, but apparently it wasn't very special at the time since it was just used as a barn beam. Even now, in parts of Michigan and Minnesota, you can find the old stumps of the great pine forests that grew on land bought for pennies an acre. The trees were cut, the slash was left, and things burned. On the same night as the so called "Great Chicago Fire", there was another fire that consumed 1.2 million acres of forest, destroyed an entire town, and killed about 1200 people -- all caused by greedy lumbering practices. Google "Peshtigo Fire" and read the details.
After all that abuse that fueled our growth and rise to world power, from our present lofty socio-economic perch, we have figured out that doing what we did in our early years is a bad thing for the planet and so are trying to mend our ways. It would be great if other nations would see that we know we screwed up and are trying to fix it. Unfortunately, I think most of them just think we're hypocritically trying to maintain our position of dominance in world politics and economics by preventing them from developing to a level equal to our own. With the exception of things like eco-tourism, I think most second or third world countries have little use for environmental causes.
About we can do is lead by common sense example and encourage others to follow. That encouragement may be in the form of words, but our influence on the world market is probably a better tool. I, too, would like to see some sort of statement of environmental impact on things marketed here. Unfortunately, the vast majority will tend to buy what is perceived as the best short-term value with little regard for long term effects on the planet. Hence, WallyWorld and all the other import vendors will continue to support the economies of the worst polluting nations.
How about each of you? Do you think in terms of the world view when making purchases, or do you think only of you and your wallet? How many of you would use low sulfur or ultra-low sulfur diesel if you had a choice and the ulsd cost an extra quarter a gallon or so?
