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Environmental Nut?

© Paula Ferron

These days, lots of environmental activists are getting bashed for ‘halting progress’. The energy crisis in California is being blamed on the ‘environmentalist nuts’ who have prevented new power plants being built. No one wants to have to step out of his or her personal comfort zone and really look at what is happening to the earth, and to us. More power, more stuff, more chemicals, more poison. Do they care that our natural sources of fossil fuels are rapidly declining? As we have to work harder for our fuels, the costs passed on to consumers will go up. Rather than building new power plants and killing more natural species, including humans, perhaps we should spend more on developing alternate systems. Conserving as much of our natural resources, and lives, as we can.

The state of Montana is introducing bills to revamp their environmental policies to allow for more business growth. The proponents of the bills state that the current regulations keep businesses from operating profitably and keeping jobs and out of state businesses out of Montana. That the reason energy bills are rising there is due to the environmental regulations. Many people feel that the moves being made in Montana are only the beginning, since the new political group in Washington DC support lessening of the environmental regulations.

Years ago as a young child living in Southern California, I can remember being given smog masks. When there was a smog alert, we were to don the masks before going outside. This was over 30 years ago. These environmentalists, who put life, whether human or animal or insect, ahead of consumerism should be applauded. In California they came out of their comfort zone to protect someone else’s right to breathe, to exist.

It really hasn’t occurred to me before that I should do the same. I usually leave that to the ‘nuts’.

People have a tendency to get mad when someone wants them to change their normal habits. They have rights after all. Even in our little town, I hesitate to state my needs for non-smoking areas. I live in a heavy tobacco growing state and even coughing around someone who is smoking (in the grocery store?) is considered anti-community. Smoking is seen as supporting the local economy and I’ve met parents who buy their elementary school children cigarettes. Though there is a ban on smoking in federal buildings, stepping into our local courthouse will likely cause my throat to close due to all the smoking inside. Since these are our lawmakers and law-upholders, I hesitate to voice my needs too voraciously. I’ve been told that I am curtailing their right to smoke as I struggle to breathe. That I simply should not go to the places where people smoke. That can be a little inconvenient when for example, the only place I can go to register my car, is filled with smoke.