The 30 Year War on the Environment ... by gimleteye

Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson wrote the clarion call of the environmental movement, "Silent Spring", and was attacked by the chemical industry. "Silent Spring" was followed by public demand and then the creation of the legal framework for federal environmental protections: (please click, 'read more')

The National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act among others. Almost as soon as the ink was dry on this framework, US corporations and wealthy special interests-- mostly funded by the fossil fuel lobby, big agriculture, and their private foundations-- began a counter-attack, influencing the public debate in America on key environmental issues, from climate change to irresponsible land use development. (Read PIttman and Waite, "Paving Paradise: Florida's vanishing wetlands in a time of no-net loss")

Florida has been at the front line of this war. Today, special interests who fomented the housing bubble are prodding the Florida legislature to eviscerate the Florida Department of Community Affairs; the agency charged with "managing" the state's haphazard and self-defeating economic growth patterns. They claim that the economic collapse was caused by too much regulation. The record of the housing boom, now bust, in this state is a testament to the obliteration of measures nominally afforded by laws governing springs, aquifers, habitats, and the use of lands, including wetlands like the Everglades. There was a strong local component too: Miami-Dade's Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) continues to be plagued by morale problems and an enforcement mission that is continually eroded by lobbyists representing special interests, expressed through meddling in department affairs. This is all happening under the careless attention of our elected representatives.

But for those readers tuning into the 30 Year War for the first time: read Georgia Tasker's, "The Warming of Florida", in today's Herald.

Lower order species are already moving from a warmer climate. The migrations are being documented by scientists. Not opinion writers. The shift is called 'adaptation'. Think of the planet as a theater crowded with God's creation. When smoke drifts into the ventilation of the theater, the species least tolerant move out first. What Tasker doesn't say, is that there is no evidence in the geologic record that the complexity of species can endure as quickly as temperatures are now rising.

At some point in the future, historians will look back at our era-- on the edge of sea level rise and other symptoms of global warming-- and look for signs of dissent. This blog and my writing over the years will be one place to find it.