Is The Environment Sacred?

Last week in the San Antonio Express-News, Michael E. Kraft, professor of environmental sciences at the Unviersity of Wisconsin-Green Bay, said that "in writing the Clean Air Act, Congress explicitly instructed the agency (EPA) to base its decisions on public health and not economic costs." Then in yesterday's Express-News, the environmental watchdog Germanwatch said the U. S. was the 2nd worst "climate sinner" behind Saudi Arabia. So we are at the point where air should be cleaned no matter what the cost and those who don't go along with this are sinners. It seems that this has now become a religious crusade. Environmental policy should be made both scientifically and cost-effectively. If it isn't we will all pay a very high price in the long run.

Also, here is an exerpt from an article in the International Herald Tribune

"James Lovelock, a British scientist whose 2006 book, "The Revenge of Gaia," argued that most of humankind is doomed, does not think much of renewable energy. At a panel on climate change at the University of Cambridge this summer, Lovelock was asked what would be the most effective action people could take. Because humans and their pets and livestock produce about a quarter of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said, "just stop breathing.""

Gaia is an earth goddess, so again, we see the extremism that results when religion is brought in: die (stop breathing) to save mother earth.