{"id":2903,"date":"2010-10-08T07:07:38","date_gmt":"2010-10-08T11:07:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2903"},"modified":"2010-10-08T08:42:37","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T12:42:37","slug":"this-might-have-been-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/10\/08\/this-might-have-been-us\/","title":{"rendered":"This might have been us."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reading a novel right now by a conservative author who lays out the argument &#8212; voiced through his main characters sort of Ayn Rand-style &#8212; that the environmental movement is largely a ruse designed to bog down industry and strip people of their liberty.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a frequent narrative now in conservative media:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Environmentalism isn&#8217;t about saving the environment, it&#8217;s about control, about pointy-headed liberals messing with our property rights and making it harder for entrepreneurs to create jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The argument is seductive. It would be great if we didn&#8217;t have to worry about oil spills or climate change or industrial pollution or farm run-off when making tough decisions.<\/p>\n<p>But then you see footage like this from Hungary, where a tidal wave of toxic pollution from an aluminum plant surged over a neighboring community into the Danube River.<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/YjGv0A6nKrI?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/YjGv0A6nKrI?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>And then you see footage like this from the heart of China&#8217;s industrial revolution:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-1DNjJd2YfA?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-1DNjJd2YfA?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Half a century ago, the United States was on the same track. Our rivers were bursting into flame. Our coastlines were sewage and industrial waste dumps.<\/p>\n<p>Check out this video from the 1960s on the Cuyahoga River:<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/_jxV6BbREfY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/_jxV6BbREfY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>So what do you think. Are we the victims of an environmental boondoggle? Or has the green movement saved us from that big red wave of sludge?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m reading a novel right now by a conservative author who lays out the argument [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4797,884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}