EPA Assault Endangers Health, Green Economy, Says Rogers
The U.S. House of Representatives leadership is putting the country's health and fragile economy at risk by attempting to gut the nation's landmark air, water and wildlife protections that Earth Day helped to pass over 40 years ago, warned Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers in a statement released this afternoon.
The proposed H.R. 1 takes direct aim at the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts, cutting the Environmental Protection Agency's budget by $3 billion, the largest cut in 30 years.
“At a time when we are already witnessing more flooding, increased heat waves, unhealthy air and the spread of infectious disease as a result of climate change, we cannot give away safeguards that protect the public, provide for jobs, and create innovation," Rogers said. "The EPA must be able to prevent tens of thousands of people a year from asthma attacks, lung disease and heart attacks.
Rogers urged Congress not to handicap the U.S. renewable energy industry's ability to compete globally. “Instead of cutting research and development for alternative energy and solutions to climate change, Congress needs to focus on measures to stimulate growth in a low-carbon green economy, or the U.S. will be left behind as other countries accelerate their development. We cannot rely on 19th-century technology to fuel our 21st-century future.”
To Kathleen Rogers and Earth
To Kathleen Rogers and Earth Day Network,
As a climate activist, I recognize and honor the good intentions behind the Network. But what will it take for the environmental movement to see that we are now truly in an emergency? As eminent climate expert Dr. Hansen states so unequivocally, the laws of physics will not stop while humanity fails to take the required actions. Nat'l Science Foundation: "A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas.... Release of even a fraction of the methane could trigger abrupt climate warming." (link: www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=116532 )
It is too late to go back to the same strategies that have already proven to be disastrously insufficient - "call your representative". Gandhi and MLK would recognize those channels have been exhausted. It is time to turn to the power of nonviolent civil disobedience, and it must be on the scale that will make a difference. Al Gore had it right two years ago in calling for civil disobedience at coal plants. But this movement has yet to manifest. Both the Earth Day Network and Gore could help this necessary transition. It is too late now to call for "individual acts of green". We must create an empowered movement.
Gary Houser (mountainmist8@yahoo.com )