Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Let me say right up front that I'm a "tree hugger" and proud of it. 
I've also been an environmentalist since before the term ever became 
popular in the mainstream media.  I've always loved the outdoors, trees, 
and forests.  But I have a lot of issues with many of the "tree huggers" 
who call themselves environmentalists while having no clue about the 
real ecology of the planet, the long-term nature of environmental 
change, the principles of cost/benefit analysis, and the reality of 
unintended consequences.

Many so-called environmentalists today -- I call them 
pseudo-environmentalists -- are political activists with an ideology, 
and axes to grind, but unfortunately with little true appreciation of 
nature and how it works.  For one thing, we humans are a part of nature, 
as are our works.  Why is a dam built by beavers natural, while a dam 
built by humans is not?

We stand to lose a lot more than our trails and endurance rides if the 
"PC" psuedo-environmentalists have their way.  The fire currently 
destroying much of the beauty around Lake Tahoe is only a tiny example 
(it's been exacerbated by the efforts of the Sierra Club to block 
thinning the forest).  The longer the U.S. is kept overly-dependent on 
energy sources from politically unstable regions of the world, the 
greater the chance of a war that could dwarf the World Wars of the last 
century:  and NOTHING destroys the environment more than warfare.

The psuedo-environmentalist only has one answer to any attempt to build 
new refineries or drill new oil or gas fields:  NO.  There is never any 
compromise, any cost/benefit analysis, just NO.  Extraction methods have 
become much more environmentally friendly in recent decades; we could 
extract the oil from Anwar and the wildlife would hardly notice, but 
"NO!!" is all you will hear from pseudo-environmentalists.  You also 
hear that, for example, Anwar only as enough oil for x% of our needs; 
well, hey, no single field has more than a fraction of our needs.  It 
takes a lot of them, but the P-E says "NO!" every time.

Ethanol from corn is a chimera.  It takes almost as much energy to 
produce as it contains, and the total carbon footprint (including the 
CO2 produced by growing and distilling the stuff) is greater than that 
of the petroleum it replaces.  We're already seeing the side effect of 
rising food prices, and it's still only in the pilot stage.  Not just 
the price of corn goes up, the price of ALL grains is driven up, and 
that ripples through most food prices.  But the politicians love 
ethanol, it lets them appear to be "doing something."  And the farm-belt 
politicians love it most of all.

BTW, we could import lots of ethanol from Brazil where their tropical 
climate allows them to produce it cheaply from sources other than corn, 
but of course our politicians block that.

I am an environmentalist for more reasons than to preserve our trails 
and our sport of endurance riding.  But if the P-E's have their way, we 
will lose both -- and a LOT more besides.  We all need to get involved 
and be sure that RATIONAL care for the environment prevails.


--
Joe Long
jlong@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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