Skip to main content

Elections 2016: Why so indifferent to the natural world?

I have been writing about the importance of the natural world for nearly as long as I remember. To me its obvious we cannot ignore the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat or the breeze bathing us each time we bike or walk or stay motionless under a tree. Then there are those gorgeous landscapes I embrace in my walks up Johnston's pasture, a mountain at the northern borders of Claremont. But even in my backyard where I do my writing I occasionally see the Monarch butterfly landing on the green leaves and red flowers of the milkweeds. This insect alone makes my day. Its large diaphanous colorful wings open and close like a dream.

Monarch butterfly on a milkweed in my backyard. Photo: Evaggelos Vallianatos


But, of course, the natural world includes animals, plants, rivers, mountains, oceans, most of the Earth is natural world. So why our politicians fail to get it? You cannot be healthy if the natural world is unhealthy. That's simple. Or is it not?

I heard practically nothing about the natural world in these past "debates" between Trump and Clinton. These candidates have other things in mind.

But I wanted my candidate, Hillary Clinton, to at least think about the unsaid in the debates. So I wrote her a letter:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/evaggelos-vallianatos/letter-to-hillary-clinton_b_12301950.html
  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Παγκόσμια Αγροτική Χημική Ηγεμονία

Ράντισμα μυκητοκτόνου σε φυτά καπνού, Νικαράγουα. Φωτογραφία: Peter Essick.  Δρ.   Εὐάγγελος Βαλλιανᾶτος Η ισχύς της χημικής βιομηχανίας   στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες   σχεδόν εξαφάνισε   το Υπουργείο   Προστασίας Περιβάλλοντος ( US   Environmental   Protection   Agency ,  EPA ). Η   πολιτικοποιημένη περιβαλλοντική κυβερνητική υπηρεσία   διαχειρίζεται νόμους και κανονισμούς που προδιαγράφουν τι μπορεί να κάνει.   Ωστόσο, στην πράξη, πολιτικοί διορισμένοι από τον πρόεδρο της Αμερικής αποφασίζουν τι κάνει το  EPA .   Σχετικά με αυτή την πολιτική πραγματικότητα,   και   γνωρίζοντας τις βαθιές ρίζες της επιρροής της βιομηχανίας στο Κογκρέσο και τον Λευκό Οίκο, το   EPA   κάνει το έργο του απρόθυμα τις περισσότερες φορές. Στην περίπτωση των   επικίνδυνων   χημικών ουσιών   , ιδιαιτέρως τώρα με την κυβέρνηση Τράμπ, το  EPA  φοβάται να κάνει το ελάχιστο   για  την προστασία   της   υγείας των Αμερικανών,   και, σχεδόν τίποτα, για την προστασία  και ακεραιότητα και υγεία του φυ

Pesticides Are Making Children Aggressive

Spraying fungicides on tobacco in a greenhouse in Jalapa, Nicaragua. Photo: courtesy Peter Essick. Pesticides cause a multitude of adverse effects on humans. However, they are especially harmful to children . They may have something to do with the mass-shootings in schools all over America because some of them are neurotoxins. This means they affect and damage the central nervous system and the brain – of all animals, including humans. Warren Porter , professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, conducted experiments with ground water – water drawn from the ground of farms with typical levels of pesticides and fertilizers. He chose farm water contaminated with the insecticide aldicarb, the herbicide atrazine, and nitrogen fertilizer. He tested that mixture on white mice and deer mice. The concentrations of the fertilizer with each of the pesticides (aldicarb and atrazine) in the ground water were of the order of magnitude the Environmental Protection A

Searching for Aristotle in Lesbos

Map of Lesbos by Giacomo Franco, 1597. Courtesy Wikipedia. Like most Greek islands, Lesbos has been lost in the obscurity of global wars, politics, and the insignificance of modern Greece.  Greece without sovereignty Since 2009, the country’s debt to European and American banks has dragged Greece to the Third World. The lenders demanded Greece abdicates its sovereignty to them. Greek politicians obliged and Greece has become the first European country to submit to the humiliations of being a dependency of Brussels. To the eternal shame of “civilized” Europe, anonymous bureaucrats from the troika – a cabal of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission – have been running the country. Rubble and war refugees in the Middle East Lesbos would have maintained its silence had it not been for the American invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003. This American war gave birth to Moslem civil wars.  The civil wars in Iraq and