[ Home ] [ About us ] [ Alphabetical archive ] [ Archeology ] [ Author submission screen ] [ Book reviews ] [ Canoeing ] [ correspondents ] [ date archive ] [ East Midlands ] [ Economics ] [ Education ] [ Environment ] [ Feminisim ] [ Fresh ] [ Geology ] [ Health ] [ hit counts ] [ House swaps ] [ Jokes ] [ iLinks ] [ Love ] [ Media ] [ Obituaries ] [ Paleontology ] [ Past thoughts ] [ Politics ] [ Poetry ] [ Quotes ] [ Religion ] [ Sex ] [ Site Awards ] [ Smartertimes past ] [ Spain ] [ Trade Unions ]

You have reached iGreens.org.uk.  In December 2006 we moved to iGreens.org with faster servers and discussion boards.  Click here to follow us.  

Bush Talks Sense on Conservation

President Bush, speaking beneath a 2,100-year-old giant sequoia in California, said on May 30th that federal conservation efforts must show more deference to states, localities and private groups. In his first speech on the environment since becoming president, Bush declared his support for the philosophy of property rights.

He still also supports an active role for the national government and claimed to be giving the National Park System its biggest infusion of capital since a huge 50th anniversary construction effort in 1966. Fortunately most of this seems to be political hot air. Much of the money will come from other Interior Department projects, and just $100 million is to be added next year.

He said that he will pursue "a new environmentalism for the 21st century" that will "protect the claims of nature while also protecting the legal rights of property owners."

"My administration will adopt a new spirit of respect and cooperation because, in the end, that is the better way to protect the environment we all share," Bush said. "Citizens and private groups play a crucial role. Just as we share an ethic of stewardship, we must share in the work of stewardship."

An administration official said that was a reference to programs such as one in Texas that is designed to reduce litigation with environmentalists by using government funds to help willing ranchers preserve threatened or endangered species. "In spite of the successes of the past 30 years, at times we've seen needless conflict and policies that have done more harm than good."

Bush said he wants to spend $4.9 billion over five years, beginning with $440 million next year, to wipe out a backlog in Park Service building, road and bridge maintenance projects. The administration's figures show that the amount going to improvements next year is $100 million more than is being spent this year.

This sounds like a lot of money but the collectivist environmentalists are still complaining. The National Parks Conservation Association, a private group that acts as an advocate for the National Park System, awarded him an overall grade of D for his early record in protecting the parks. They said his funding was focused on buildings, while the parks suffer from "a diversity of ills" that includes falling air and water quality. In the case of Sequoia, where Bush slept in a lodge Tuesday night and hiked up 300 feet of steep steps to the Moro Rock overlook this morning, the group pointed out that Bush's budget included no new programs or additional staff.

This sounds like good news for iGreens. Government money on environmental programmes and staff generally harms the environment.

Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton introduced Bush as a "compassionate conservationist." Wearing a pine-green National Park Service windbreaker, Bush spoke beneath a 257-foot-tall Sentinel, a prize specimen in the park's legendary groves of moss-flecked, scar-charred giant sequoias that are 1,800 to 2,700 years old, some the size of a 26-story building.

"When the seal was fixed on the Magna Carta, the great sequoias were already here," Bush said. "They were here when the Roman Empire fell, and they were here when the Roman Empire rose. And had Christ, Himself, stood on this spot, He would have been in the shade of this very tree."

Bush's parks improvement plan includes money to fix electricity, plumbing, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, and fire and safety systems at parks across the country. Officials said the backlog of maintenance projects has created hazards that endanger visitors, park employees and the cultural resources themselves. For instance, the administration said the visitors centre at California's Lava Beds National Memorial consists of two 1974 trailers bolted together. The ageing Monocacy Aqueduct in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in Maryland may soon be damaged by frequent floods. And Yosemite National Park in Northern California has a sewage system dating to the 1930s, with crumbling clay pipes that are causing sewer spills in Yosemite Valley.

Ageing neglected infrastructure sounds typical of a National Parks Authority. Clearly this sort of infrastructure needs to either be looked after or left to rot away. If someone really wants to pay for the visitor’s centre surely it could be sold off to someone who would look after it. Private water companies generally look after sewage systems and aqueducts better.

[ Home ] [ Up ]

You have reached iGreens.org.uk.  In December 2006 we moved to iGreens.org with faster servers and discussion boards.  Click here to follow us.  

Send mail to enquiries@igreens.org.uk  with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: September 26, 2006