Tuesday was Earth Day. For some of us, that's an occasion to recognize that the Earth is the only global life support system we've got, and we should treat her accordingly. For others, the Earth is to be plundered for short-term profit maximization, and the ecological consequences are something the grand-kids can deal with.
For those of us who don't live in caves, the ecological consequences are already quite obvious in the ever-more erratic and extreme weather. They are in the news daily. They are showing up in higher beef prices, and extreme drought is slashing fruit and vegetable production in California. The Midwestern breadbasket has alternated between crop shriveling drought and fields too wet to plant.
Recognizing these trends, there's been a lot of interest in expanding local food production as a form of homeland security.
But last week, the Durango Herald reported some locals are finding their soil has been made toxic to garden plants by long-lasting herbicides used on pastures. They used manure, or compost that included manure, from cows or horses that fed on these pastures. Now it's in their soil.
In economic jargon, this is called an "externality." A company makes money producing the product, and the user presumably benefits as well. The negative consequences handily fall on others. American capitalism doesn't address that. In fact, the above-mentioned short-term profit maximization dictates against addressing it without government intervention.
We see this with water, an absolute essential for life. There might not be water for food production, but there's water for fracking oil and gas wells. Several hundred thousand people in West Virginia found their tap water unusable back in January because of a chemical spill into the river. Better maintenance of the chemical storage facility would have cut into short-term profits. My understanding is that West Virginia is well known for its lax regulatory enforcement. The chemical in question is used to clean coal.
Then there was the pipe that broke under a Duke Energy coal sludge pile in North Carolina that washed toxic sludge into another river, turning the water gray. Yum! This one apparently affects mainly farmers whose cows drink this water.
These coal ash storage ponds exist in many places, a by-product of coal-fired power generation. According to National Public Radio, North Carolina officials have found high levels of toxic metals in groundwater around ash storage ponds since 2010. So a spill isn't even necessary to create toxic consequences. But regulators there apparently are very cozy with the industries they regulate.
We see the same externality with people dealing with health effects of air pollution, such as from coal-fired power plants. Mercury pollution in lakes also has been attributed to coal-fired power plants. Don't eat the predator fish.
Coal-fired power plants also are major sources of the greenhouse gasses that a vast majority of climate scientists say are causing global climate change. But there are some very wealthy people whose interest is to keep Americans dependent on coal and other fossil fuels.
So we are told there is a "war on coal." Actually, I see it as a war on future generations, again for short-term profit maximization.
But there was some good news last week. Astronomers have identified a rocky planet that could able to support life, given its size and the distance from its sun.
The bad news is it's 500 light years away.