Why do liberal environmentalists put their agenda above the SAFETY of America and it's citizens?

Question

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2007/08/15/deadly_environmentalists

Environmentalists, with the help of politicians and other government officials, have an agenda that has cost thousands of American lives.

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in 1965, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building flood gates on Lake Pontchartrain, like those in the Netherlands that protect cities from North Sea storms. In 1977, the gates were about to be built, but the Environmental Defense Fund and Save Our Wetlands sought a court injunction to block the project.

According to John Berlau's recent book, "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health," U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse told the court that not building the gates could kill thousands of New Orleanians. Judge Charles Schwartz issued the injunction despite the evidence refuting claims of environmental damage.

In 2001, thousands of Americans perished in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. In the early 1970s, when the World Trade Center complex was built, the asbestos scare had just begun. The builders planned to use AsbestoSpray, a flame retardant that adhered to steel. The New York Port of Authority caved in to the environmentalists' asbestos scare and denied its use. An inferior substitute was used as fireproofing.

Answer 1

Ah, yes, I remember you. You posted the question about how happy we should be that so few Americans have died in Iraq the week after my nephew was killed. Ok, fine, forget the environment. Let us all die from polluted air and water. The Clean Air Act has resulted in a real decrease in pollution. The Clean Water Act has done the same thing. You take one issue and turn it into a radical generalization that all environmental protections are bad. Excuse me while I go club a baby seal to death so you can get a new fur. Where's your support that asbestos would have stopped the collapse of the World Trade Centers? There's no support for your premise and your conclusion. Are you saying if the World Trade Centers were built with asbestos, they would not have collapsed? That no one would have died if they had used asbestos? How many victims died from fire versus the deaths from the airliners destroying the building? Are you against environmental protections? Your President isn't. Which protections are appropriate to you? None? We now have beaches so polluted they are not safe to swim in. Is that okay with you, too?

Answer 2

Asbestos is incredibly dangerous stuff - you inhale even small amounts of it and you almost certainly will get asbestosis - which will probably kill you. If the WTC was filled with it, then New York would have an incredible outbreak of asbestosis in a few years time, which in all likelihood would keep going, as it would be very diffuse and hard to clean up.

If the heat from all that burning debris was hot enough to melt steel as we are told (and aren't we also told the explosion BLEW AWAY the fireproofing, so it would have blown away asbestos too http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28318-2005Apr5.html), then it would have melted it regardless. Covering the steel in asbestos wouldn't have helped, the steel was covered in fire proofing ANYWAY and STILL collapsed - are you saying that asbestos would have stopped it? Can you be 100% sure? Cause if not then even more people would be dying in New York even as we speak from inhaled asbestos.

I don't know much about the flood gates of New Orleans idea, but personally I think I'd back it. However, the plans should also include preservation of wetlands as much as possible for 2 reasons - firstly wetlands act as a natural barrier to floods, and secondly they are a biodiverse area which should be saved if at all possible. Perhaps THAT is why people objected, because the idea was to destroy the wetlands and replace them utterly, rather than to sympathetically construct man-made defenses.

If people were objecting completely to the flood defenses then I think that they SHOULD be ignored, it seems more worthwhile to save human life than animal life; but the planners DEFINATELY should have tried their utmost to save the wetlands at the same time.

Answer 3

People died in New Orleans because local, state and federal agencies responsible for disaster planning and execution failed miserably. As for property damage, if the Corps could not build levees that withstood the high water, do you really think the far more expensive flood gates would have done the trick?

As for the WTC, those 2700 people died at the hands of terrorists, not environmentalists. 43,000 Americans have died since 1979 due to asbestosis. Virtually all exposed before then. Continued use of asbestos in construction would have continued the cycle of this miserable disease. Say a blessing to the environmentalists who likely saved your children and grandchildren from disability and death, and put your outrage where it belongs - on terrorists who kill people.

Answer 4

generally it is believed that leaving the swamps and estuaries along the coasts prevent flooding by having the capacity to retain water. But we cut down trees, fill swamps and straighten rivers and dig canals. I suspect your intentions because you are using a shotgun approach to attacking environmentalists....generalizing to fit your hypotheses--providing little detail and picking and choosing from thousands of examples. It would be more convincing if you stayed on one subject and actually debated it logically, instead of doing generalized analysis of diverse and unrelated subjects

The substitute for asbestos was thought to be adequate and probably would have sufficed to anything other than a plane load of jet fuel exploding inside it.

I am not a extremist environmentalist, but I am glad there is a discussion in protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink....there are far more examples of our health being affected in bad ways because of pollution than there are of examples of extreme environmental actions that have hurt us

Bush has basically gutted programs that protect the water we drink

Believe it or not, but "progress" is not generally a lineal thing...its filled with ups and downs, spurts and stops...we look at history and can see great accomplishments, but we aren't taught all the failures...we are human and imperfect, but human nature is to try....I will agree that sometimes we try too hard, but the world is becoming less and less natural...we need to keep as much natural as we can and prevent the sprawl into areas that do better as natural ecosystems than building sites...

The difference between an enviroinmentalist and a "whatever you are" is that an environmentalists looks at resources as treasure to be saved and not used at the first opportunity for profit...they aren't against using resources in extreme situations but will drag their heels until it is forced upon them

Answer 5

good question. While it is OK to have environmentalists, it is often the looney liberal environmentalists that go well overboard in their causes. They have proven time and again that they care less for human life than that of anything else they can conjure up. They drive metal stakes into trees in the lumber industry which can seriously injure or cause death to the lumberjack. They don't allow the upkeep of our forests and allow the undergrowth to go rampant and then wonder why fires claim so much... often times these fires become so big they reach housing and destroy lives there. (this is kind of ironic as well... while they say, don't impead nature and let it take its course, with all the underbrush and so on, then lightning (nature) sparks up the fire.... why do they try and stop it? Nature started it... shouldn't they just let it burn and allow nature its course?) Why do they spend thousands trying to turn a whale around that came up the delaware river from the ocean? Didn't it just naturally swim there?

Their causes impead growth and cost American's millions. Califronia can hardly funtcion do to environmental constraints. Preserving nature is good. Finding better ways to do things is good... going well overboard on a cause that makes no sense.... costly.

Answer 6

By all means, lets use asbestos again! Sarcasm. By the way, most conservation groups in America were started by outdoorsmen, hunters. Flood plains are needed in areas next to oceans and open waters to clean or filter waters, and, less flooding occurs were flood plains are unencoumbered, this is why the levy around New Orleans was not built, it was a bad idea. The enormity of Katrina would not have been mitigated by the damn and flood gates on Lake Pont.

Answer 7

That doesn't even compare to the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in Africa due to their push for a UN ban of DDT.

Its good that environmentalists exist, as their media exposure prevents the over-exploitation of many resources. However, it is obvious that they sometimes go too far.

Answer 8

They are probably hoping to have real free elections next time around and protect people from dangers threats to our health and well being in a wholistic sense.

Answer 9

I don't think anything "flame retardent" would have helped the steel in the World Trade Center from jet fuel.

Answer 10

Life is nothing but trade-offs. Nothing is free. Ultimately the decisions come down to our elected officials. Generally they make the final decision. Blame them.