The Earth seen from Apollo 17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I believe I have written about this before, but I find it puzzling and troubling the skepticism regarding the environmental movement. I am not just speaking of those who deny anthropogenic climate change, but of the broad distrust for environmentalists as a whole. Over and again while canvassing I encounter those that accuse me of either being stupid or lying. I have researched the matter fairly thoroughly, I am surrounded by bright young people who know their stuff on the hard science end of things, I myself am well versed in both the political and economic causes and effects of the phenomena and finally, we do so much work on so many other issues that if we were not absolutely certain of this one (hydrofracking) there is plenty else to campaign on.  We have no dog in this fight beyond the fact that we are trying to protect the public.

Now let’s look at the other side of the argument. The experts that the energy industry have all put forward are all highly paid by them, make tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees on behalf of the energy industry and are often heavily invested in it themselves. The New York DEC requires that any inspectors of drilling facilities have at least three years of experience working for such facilities. How is that not a conflict of interest?

I do not understand why people can put so much trust in people who obviously have very strong motives to lie to them, but refuse to trust people whose only motive is to help them. Why are people so invested in maintaining such a self-destructive status quo? I had one woman tell me that environmentalists go to far and it is not good for the economy. Guess what? The economy can flex. It can change and it can adapt. There is only so much adapting the environment can do and still be livable for human beings. Economy is elastic, the immutable laws of physics and chemistry, not so much.

I do know this, people had better start doing some serious self-examination of why they hold their political beliefs so hard. They better start learning to read between the lines. We are at a crisis point in so many ways. We can continue to behave like spoiled, lazy, gluttonous bullies or we can treat our home and neighbors with respect. Sooner or later the trash piles up so high you can do nothing but move. Fantasies of lunar or Martian colonies aside, that really isn’t an option, at least not in time to save ourselves.