Earth Day, for better or worse |
Happy Earth Day! Does anyone else feel the irony: Israel’s Independence Day and a celebration of the global environment falling on the same day?
Our country is engaged in a ceasefire, while still battling on all fronts. We have, in the past two-and-a-half years dropped so much ordinance on Gaza it will be years before they can return to growing crops; we are in the midst of a scorched-earth campaign in Southern Lebanon.
We are standing side-by-side with the US in a war over a major shipping lane for fossil fuels, in a vain effort to keep oil prices low and polluting cars on the road. We stand side-by-side in an effort to prevent another country from attaining nuclear weapons – an effort that has so far entrenched the resolve of the other side to develop those weapons. If our efforts are successful, we’ll be handing out warplanes and weapons all around to our friends, instead of cigars.
Of course, war is not all bad for the environment. When gas prices rise, even temporarily, more ecological alternatives become attractive. When people are stuck in their bomb shelters, animals begin to return to rural, and even urban areas. Farmers lose their livelihood, its true, but wild flora creeps in from the edges, along with insects, amphibians and reptiles.........