A lot of us take a lot of things for granted. From the simple things in life like being able to breath clean air and depending on safe drinking water. We simply assume these things just happen. That’s what the government is there to do. We often forget that while this is true, it is the government’s job to make sure there are safety measures in place to avoid a catastrophe, it is us, the people, that put that government in place. Therefore, if we do not vote for a government that takes these safety precautions seriously, we will be the ones left holding the bag full of contaminated water.
The 2016 election didn’t only bring a clown into the office of the President of the United States, it also brought with him a bunch of false promises and irresponsible cronies with him. The EPA has long been maligned with causing more harm than good. Organizations like these are often placed between a rock and a hard place. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. It reminds me of the recent PG&E outages we had in California, where in the past PG&E did nothing and contributed to huge fires, now that they were proactively shutting power down, they were being blamed as extremists.
The US is full of natural resources and a complex ecosystem of forests, lakes, rivers and coasts. Beneath that we have oil, rich minerals and gas. We need to make use of both, the natural beauty of those ecosystems, while at the same time making use of the natural resources below. The easy solution, which we have often opted for with dire consequences, is to trust private companies to do the right thing. However, private companies never have to live with the long-term consequences of their actions. Of course, you can sue them, but if the suit is large enough they can simply file for bankruptcy (ask PG&E how to do it) and re-emerge as a different company altogether.
This is the reason prevention and one would argue, over-prevention, is so important. An accident, even if honest, will impact people at a much higher rate than the benefits of allowing the action ever did. Trump will leave office at some point, but I am afraid we’ll live with the consequences of his Presidency for much longer than we think.
What do you think?
