Ron: Your analogy is fuzzy ... troublesome. I believe we have a non-sequitur here. However, I will play along. To answer your question, yes, I would choose a clean world environment free of arsenic pollution, acid rain, a 5,000 percent rise in skin cancer and another 10,000-year Ice Age and risk worldwide economic chaos, including the demise of unions as we now know them.
The answer, of course, is not found in your either-or extremist view of the problem. The answer is to slowly begin taking steps to make the planet Earth a better place to live for our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, something that D-Dubya-I and his Texas Gold cronies are not prepared to do. For instance, requiring every car-truck-SUV sold in America to achieve 39 mpg would be a reasonable start. Don't you agree?
In short, this is a most important issue, and we need to treat it as such, as our European allies do, instead of regarding it as a "goddam liberal issue" that is lampooned by the prostate-challenged right-wing retirees at the local corner bar.
The American view typically has been, "If we pollute, so what? There's always more fresh real estate over the horizon." That can be our view no longer.
The reason we have so little manufacturing left in the USA is because of excessive corporate greed and the need to bring in that "guaranteed" 20% extra return on equity every year, not because of the cost to keep the environment clean.
But that is changing somewhat. I think within the next few years we will see more companies set realistic earnings expectations, and then act accordingly. America would be better off if they did. |
