Friday, January 23, 2015

Putting a political price on Everglades failures … by gimleteye

AP: "Nesting declines for some species of wading birds shows the long-term damage suffered by Florida's Everglades, and targets set for higher numbers of nests may become unattainable if conditions in the unique wetlands do not improve soon, according to an annual report on nesting wading birds released, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015 by the South Florida Water Management District. The report states that nesting by little blue herons, tricolored herons and snowy egrets declined significantly in 2014."

How much good has collaboration done Florida's environmental community? The general public believes the Everglades are being "saved". At the Davos World Economic Forum, former Vice President Al Gore said this week that in addition to putting a price on carbon emissions, it is time to put a political price on denial.

It is also time for environmentalists to carry the protest where it belongs: to the doorsteps of Florida's Great Destroyers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is a most important blog thread.

Tobacco set the template of selling doubt and thus manufacturing denial such that the costs of denial are cheaper than remediation. Sort of like 'it is cheaper to pay for X deaths than fix the car'.

Many industries have copied the Tobacco template, including the climate change deniers (oil companies) and GOP. A good book on this process, written by 2 professors of History of Science is Merchants of Doubt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

The point is, until there is a penalty, until Gore's penalty for denial is greater than the costs and benefits of denial...this pestilence will continue to spread to other industries and big monied groups.

Combating this Merchants of Doubt and Denial game plan would change much for the good in our society. It would change the polarized politics, it would make more responsible corporate citizens...it would remove the greatest impediment to progress in the last half century.