I define any needless abuse of the Earth as an environmental problem.
The one that bothers me more than any other is mountaintop removal mining, or cross-ridge mining, that has been such a scourge in West Virginia and is currently spreading south through parts of Kentucky, Virginia and my home here in Tennessee. The notion that we can take the entire top off a mountain, set it in the valley with no regard to the impact it will have on the waters, the animal and plant life that inhabits the water, and other surrounding properties, and then somehow "rebuild" the mountain to its original contour and everything will be okay is disturbing to me. The fact that the coal companies have so much money that they can essentially buy judgments from state offices of surface mining and courts is disturbing, and the fact that the Bush administration (and the Clinton administration before that) chooses to ignore it is disturbing.
My solution to the problem would be to force the companies to get the coal through deep mining alone. It would be more costly, but worth it.
Another thing I have a problem with is clear-cutting hundreds of acres. Clear-cutting on flat ground is one thing, but in the mountains, it causes massive erosion. My solution would be to permit select cutting only, or limit the number of acres that can be clear-cut without leaving a buffer zone between cuts. Again, the profits wouldn't be as great . . . why does there seem to be a pattern here?
Water pollution (except that caused by mining) and air pollution I cannot speak of, since (fortunately) they are not a problem in my neck of the woods.
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I define any needless abuse of the Earth as an environmental problem.
The one that bothers me more than any other is mountaintop removal mining, or cross-ridge mining, that has been such a scourge in West Virginia and is currently spreading south through parts of Kentucky, Virginia and my home here in Tennessee. The notion that we can take the entire top off a mountain, set it in the valley with no regard to the impact it will have on the waters, the animal and plant life that inhabits the water, and other surrounding properties, and then somehow "rebuild" the mountain to its original contour and everything will be okay is disturbing to me. The fact that the coal companies have so much money that they can essentially buy judgments from state offices of surface mining and courts is disturbing, and the fact that the Bush administration (and the Clinton administration before that) chooses to ignore it is disturbing.
My solution to the problem would be to force the companies to get the coal through deep mining alone. It would be more costly, but worth it.
Another thing I have a problem with is clear-cutting hundreds of acres. Clear-cutting on flat ground is one thing, but in the mountains, it causes massive erosion. My solution would be to permit select cutting only, or limit the number of acres that can be clear-cut without leaving a buffer zone between cuts. Again, the profits wouldn't be as great . . . why does there seem to be a pattern here?
Water pollution (except that caused by mining) and air pollution I cannot speak of, since (fortunately) they are not a problem in my neck of the woods.
Most clear cuts are done by private companies on land that they own. Would you want somebody to tell you what to do with your land? Yes, clear cuts are ugly, but they own it.
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I love Christmas lights. They remind me of the people who voted for Obama. They all hang together; half of them don't work, and the ones that do, aren't that bright.
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A golf course is a willful and deliberate misuse of a perfectly good rifle range.
"Most clear cuts are done by private companies on land that they own. Would you want somebody to tell you what to do with your land? Yes, clear cuts are ugly, but they own it."
Incorrect in the northeastern US. Most clearcuts there are done on National Forest land. I know aNational Forest supervisor who lost her job because she was not cutting the National Forest down quick enough. This was on the watch of Bill Clinton.
I think the feds should perhaps offer incentives to companies to make less of an environmental impact, but I don't care for mandates. If anything, the states should legislate environmental law.
The biggest issue in my book is water. We have plenty of it, but some is getting pretty filthy with agricultural and industrial run-off. The bigger the population, the more the consumption obviously. It's one of the few things we really can't live without and remain the America that we know and love. I don't like telling people they can't fertilize their own land, or work with or store dangerous chemicals, but it's something that needs to be worked out between all interests in our communities.
I define any needless abuse of the Earth as an environmental problem
Good call.My biggest problem living in a completely agrcultural area has a lot to do with current farming practices.Its a touchy subject and I usually dont makemany friends when I bring it up but Ill touch on it anyway.
In my 20+ years of hunting around here Ive watched small farms being bought out by larger corporate type farms.As a result weve lost almost all the naturual habitat we once had.Theres not even many fencelines left, they farm well into what were once ditches.Groves and wetlands have completely dissapeared, they cut them out and tile them out.When the CRP ground went out a few years back the effects were huge, they were the last line of habitat many things had to live in.
As a result Ive seen species of animals completely dissapear from this area, waterfowl change its entire flight path, and many animals that once lived here are very close to being gone.We have seasons on animals nobodies even seen in ten years or more.Many non game animals have dissapeared as well.Erosions terrible, the wind alone during the summer creates a haze in the air from the dirt blowing, lakes and streams are so silted in that we have fish kills almost yearly around here anymore when the lakes freeze solid, theyve had to dredge and put aeriators in many lakes just to keep the fish alive in them.
Somewhere in the state theres also a huge manure spill and massive fish kill at least 3 or 4 times a years.One farm had a spill north of here that killed fish off well past the closest town in the river, thousands of them through over 20 miles of river.2 years later it happened again, same farm, same lot, same river, just on a smaller scale.Weve got some of the lowest water quality in the country.
I could go on but thats the general idea.These practices have much further reaching affects then just what happens on the farmers land most times.Might not be the same in all areas but its whats happening here.
Environmentalism?
