Absurdities of 2002

In California, where floods in 1997 forced 120,000 people from their homes, caused $2 billion in damage, and killed nine people, the hard-topping of more and more acreage in the floodplains consequent to growth guarantees more and bigger catastrophes in the future.

The average home contains 3 to 10 gallons of hazardous materials, 90% of the 80,000 chemicals we live with have never been safety-tested, 400 synthetic chemicals can be found in the average human body, and current law allows 350 different pesticides to be used on thefood we eat (according to E Magazine). And yet we want more.

It takes 36 times as much energy to transport a head of lettuce grown in California to consumers in Washington, DC than the energy the lettuce provides, a good argument for the localization of products and markets, but dependency on fossil fuels, even to the point of war, remains the prevailing geopolitical reality.

More than 700,000 farm-raised salmon in Maine have been destroyed this year to stop the spread of a deadly virus, but fish-farming continues to occupy more and more coastal waters.

With asthma now the most common long-term childhood disease - 4.8 million American kids being so affected each year, nearly one in 13 schoolkids - the EPA decides to study whether environmental factors might have something to do with it. Gee, ya think it's possible?

A study published in "Science" claims the percent of plant species worldwide threatened with extinction could be as high as 47%, far above the commonly accepted figure of 13%, the biggest cause of species extinction being the increasing amount of land turned into farms to feed the world's growing population.

Could the adverse environmental effects of unrestrained growth have something to do with the 260% increase in the incidence of autism in California in the 1990s?

With cell phone use in the U.S. jumping from 340,000 in 1985 to more than 128 million today, all those folks calling home to tell the little woman they'll be late for dinner are creating an environmental dilemma as the short-lived phones, along with the toxic chemicals they contain, are thrown on the trash heap at an ever-growing rate - 130 million a year, or 65,000 tons, by 2005 according to EPA estimates.

In a typical cycle of growth-mania, grape growers in California jump on the bandwagon of the boom in wine sales of the late-90s, only to produce a glut on the market that has halved the prices offered grape growers and will result in 50-75,000 tons of grapes to not even be harvested this year.

Many oil experts predict that world oil production will peak in 2005 and that the world will run out of oil during the lifetime of our children. Could this have something to do with the current tumult in the oil producing regions of the world, a tragic and frightening trend which can only grow worse if our leaders continue to frame their policies within narrow nationalistic parameters and our insatiable thirst for cheap energy continues to grow.

The world's population, having just added another billion people over the last 12 years, is forecast to duplicate that feat over the next 10, but that doesn't keep the Bush administration from cutting off funds for international family planning programs because of China's "coercive" population control practices.

A huge pile of 30 million tires in Texas threatens to become an ecological disaster if ignited by lightning or other sparks, but nobody knows how to dispose of them "sustainably".

The rate of deformities amongst frogs in certain parts of the United States is as high as 30%, and, while scientists debate whether pollution causes the deformities directly or indirectly, on one thing they all agree: it's something in the water.

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences claims humans have been consuming the earth's resources faster than they can be replaced for the last 20 years, but no one suggests the obvious remedy: stop growth.

A report in the journal Science blames global warming for the spread of pathogens into areas formerly too cold for their presence, but the vaporous earth blanket keeps spewing out of smokestacks and car exhausts in every greater quantities.

The United States government moves to ban most forms of bottom fishing along the country's Pacific coast to protect the threatened rockfish, some varieties of which may take up to a century to recover from overfishing, thus threatening the survival of California's already battered fishing industry.

Israel declares a water emergency as increased demand drains the semi-arid country's limited water resources, but the government continues to promote immmigration to the Jewish State.

The little town of Geyserville, California experiences a 20% rise in crime, which the Sheriff attributes to growth in population and tourism, but population projections for the state offer no glimmer of hope for better times ahead for poor Geyserville.

California delays replacing MTBE with ethanol as a pollution-reducing gasoline additive for economic reasons, while the invasive pollutant continues to seep into the state's water supplies.

Speaking on his proposals for Clean Skies legislation, President Bush uses the words "growth" or "economic growth" eighteen times, a true oxymoron (the juxtaposition of the two concepts, not the President; well, I'll let you decide).

In India, emaciated, ill-clad workers dig trenches for laying high-tech fiber optic cable at night by the light of candles.

Scientists find traces of drugs, disinfectants, hormones, and other contaminants not subject to existing pollution rules in American rivers, but the use of these substances on the farm and in the home continues to grow while no means to treat the myriad harmful wastewater components is proposed.

The world's coral reefs will be dead within 50 years because of global warming and there is nothing we can do to save them, according to the most pessimistic marine biologists.

Radioactive waste leaks from barrels dumped by the U.S. government into the Pacific Coast off California over the past 24 years, threatening the Farallones Islands National Marine Sanctuary, while Vice President Dick Cheney (from a secure, undisclosed bunker) calls for the construction of dozens more nuclear reactors.

Damming and channelization of the Missouri River over the last 50 years has devastated the river's ecology, while Congress has spent the last 14 years bickering over what to do about it.

More people will die from air pollution created by traffic than by traffic crashes themselves, but the traffic, and the pollution keeps increasing.

The cancer fighting establishment concentrates its wrath on the evils of cigarette smoking, while 75% of the dramatic rise in cancer incidence has been in sites other than the lungs, suggesting much broader environmental factors related to growth are more significant culprits.

Home Page