A disgrace of historic proportions
Of all the many scandals swirling around EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (in photo at top), there is one that, in my humble opinion, looms over all the rest.
It is not the seemingly numerous serious ethical lapses, or the alleged influence peddling or petty corruption – important as those are. It is that he is actively undermining the vital mission of an agency created to make Americans and people around the world, as well as the planet itself, safer and healthier. It is a disgrace of historic proportions and one that future generations (not to mention many of us here now) will judge with scorn and derision.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the thinking of people like Pruitt who actively sabotage science and common sense to the benefit of polluters and corporate interests who put profits over clean air and water. Don’t these people have families that they love and want to see safe? Can’t they see the peril in which we have, through our thoughtless actions, placed our precarious Earth? Don’t they feel any responsibility to future generations?
Of course this is a much bigger scandal than just Pruitt, or Trump, or the latest batch of cynical opportunists. There are legitimate trade-offs that must be considered in terms of environmental protection and human livelihood. And there is something in being human that appears to have a hard time measuring long-term risk. But the trend lines have been clear for some time. More and more people here, and abroad, recognize that despoiling our forrest, rivers, oceans, and atmosphere in the name of unfettered capitalism is dangerously shortsighted. There are real economic costs to bad air and water. Climate change will create widespread displacement at unimaginable financial expense (a process that has already begun).
This is an economic issue. It is a moral issue. It is a human rights issue. It is the issue that may very well be the greatest and most impactful failure of our time. Will it become a rallying cry for the resistance and beyond?
Protecting the environment must be part of #WhatUnitesUs.
(From the Dan Rather Facebook page.)
