One Bush Legacy - Neglect and Destruction of Environment
We are killing this planet. There is an article about the environment in today's The Independent that describes a huge, ghastly garbage dump floating in the Pacific Ocean.
"A 'plastic soup' of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.
"Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: 'It moves around like a big animal without a leash.' When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. 'The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic,' he added.
" 'Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere,' said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute.
"Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans... The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic....the raw materials for the plastic industry – are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain."
And Bush, who rejected the Kyoto Agreement seven years ago, only briefly mentioned clean coal (a fallacy) and more nuclear power plants (what happens to the dangerous nuclear waste?) in his final State of the Union address. Not a word about clean air, clean water, global warming, healthy oceans, or other environmental concerns.
As the Environmental News Service reported,
"For John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, the end of the Bush administration cannot come soon enough.
" 'Tonight's speech contains no new initiatives on global warming. Instead, the president recycles more of the same: more subsidies for dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power,' he said.
" 'President Bush has courted disaster and misled the nation while the welfare of billions of people at risk from global warming hangs in the balance. From his empty campaign promises to address global warming to his unfulfilled pledge to end America's addiction to oil, Bush leaves a legacy of neglect, obstruction, and destruction,' Passacantando said.
" 'Under his watch, greenhouse gas emissions have increased as the United States' reputation has plummeted. The damage to both the environment and the U.S.'s international standing will take years to undo,' he said."
George the Shrub will leave the American people yet another catastrophe, this one, environmental. It's a disaster that he and his administration refused to help prevent that affects current and future generations.
This is an environmental crisis that impacts the health and longevity of everyone living in the US and people of other nations, the ecology, the survival of nature and its multitude of species...ultimately the survival of the earth.
Who will hold Bush and his Bushites accountable?
"A 'plastic soup' of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.
"Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: 'It moves around like a big animal without a leash.' When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. 'The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic,' he added.
" 'Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere,' said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute.
"Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans... The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic....the raw materials for the plastic industry – are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain."
And Bush, who rejected the Kyoto Agreement seven years ago, only briefly mentioned clean coal (a fallacy) and more nuclear power plants (what happens to the dangerous nuclear waste?) in his final State of the Union address. Not a word about clean air, clean water, global warming, healthy oceans, or other environmental concerns.
As the Environmental News Service reported,
"For John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA, the end of the Bush administration cannot come soon enough.
" 'Tonight's speech contains no new initiatives on global warming. Instead, the president recycles more of the same: more subsidies for dirty coal and dangerous nuclear power,' he said.
" 'President Bush has courted disaster and misled the nation while the welfare of billions of people at risk from global warming hangs in the balance. From his empty campaign promises to address global warming to his unfulfilled pledge to end America's addiction to oil, Bush leaves a legacy of neglect, obstruction, and destruction,' Passacantando said.
" 'Under his watch, greenhouse gas emissions have increased as the United States' reputation has plummeted. The damage to both the environment and the U.S.'s international standing will take years to undo,' he said."
George the Shrub will leave the American people yet another catastrophe, this one, environmental. It's a disaster that he and his administration refused to help prevent that affects current and future generations.
This is an environmental crisis that impacts the health and longevity of everyone living in the US and people of other nations, the ecology, the survival of nature and its multitude of species...ultimately the survival of the earth.
Who will hold Bush and his Bushites accountable?
Posted by Kaz at 2/5/2008 11:54 AM 
Categories: Opinion, Bush, Global Engagement, Environment, Bushites
Categories: Opinion, Bush, Global Engagement, Environment, Bushites
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