With twenty-five years experience as an environmental professional it appears to me that environmentalism has accomplished much good and much bad. I am certified by the State of Connecticut as an Environmental Analyst grades I, II and III, so I know whence I speak.
Unfortunately, like all of man's things formed to "Do good" the environmental movement over the years has turned into the "Road to Hell paved with good intentions." The excesses of the past century were corrected many years since, and the Environmental Movement has degenerated into a pack of Nimby's used as a verb. NIMBY is an acronym for "Not in my backyard."
Like all pendulums nimbyism has reached its zenith really in the past year. The truth is that like all movements; Environmentalism or "Nimbyism" has outlived its usefulness to society. Gone are the days of rank polluters, now many of the messes of the past have been remediated and are long gone. Now it is high time for the pendulum to swing the other way!
For the past thirty years there has not been a single oil refinery built in the United States because of "Nimbyism." The Environmental Movement has been hijacked by those who are to interested in using it as an instrument for "Social Engineering." Social Engineering is just another name for control. Who are these people that want such control over our lives?
Yesterday, May 27, 2008, I paid $4.01 a gallon for gasoline. The price of crude oil recently has been greater then $135.00 per barrel. A barrel of oil contains 47 gallons of oil. There is plenty of oil available off our shores and in the ANWAR district in Alaska. There is enough oil there to make us energy self sufficient for long enough for us to develop an alternate source of energy. Guess who has stopped drilling in all of these localities. You guessed it, the Nimbys.
It isn't just energy that they have been after, but they have driven the manufacturing community out of the country with ill informed and ill made laws. The very nexus of the Environmental Movement is the Superfund Act. The Superfund Act is one of the worst crafted laws that ever passed the Congress of the United States. From my standpoint the only ones who have profited from it are the trial lawyers.
In 2008 the time has come to re-examine the whole movement. Keep what is good, and let us be rid of what is bad!
Just remember, not all environmentalism is bad, but some of it doesn't pass the smell test.