Newspaper OpEd (2007)

Robert P. Watson

Canary in a Coal Mine

The health of our planet will surely be one of the leading concerns for governments and citizens worldwide in the coming years of this new century. Like no other issue, with the exception of nuclear war or pandemic disease, the quality of the natural environment threatens the health and security of not only the U.S. but of humanity.

The 20th century has been given many labels, from the "American century" to the world’s bloodiest century. But, for better or for worse, it can also safely be called the environmental century. No other time in human history witnessed anything close to the rate of human population growth and the sheer magnitude of loss of wetlands, forests, topsoil, agricultural lands, and species of flora and fauna. Advances in technology made possible the wholesale degradation of nature on a scale heretofore unimaginable, as human activity has been linked by scientists to global warming, the melting of the polar ice caps, gaping holes in the protective ozone layer, and declining fish populations in the great oceans.

At the same time, science has helped unlock many of the deepest mysteries of the Earth and its varied ecosystems and habitats. Armed with this knowledge, we are now better equipped to understand and hopefully prevent and repair damage to the natural world. However, not only does the quality of the nature around us depend on the nature within us, but the greening of America also requires political leadership. And one of our two major political parties fails the test.

President Bush, whose background, like that of many of his senior aides, is in big oil, has arguably the worst environmental record of any president. Even Reagan, who previously held the dubious distinction of being the least earth-friendly president, pales in comparison to Bush, who allowed energy policy to be written by the oil industry, appointed oil lobbyists to key environmental posts, gutted most alternative energy programs, promoted clear-cutting in federal forests; and scoffed at scientific evidence on global warming.

Yet, every one of the Republican frontrunners for the 2008 presidency favors continuing nearly all of Bush’s policies on energy and the environment. All of them oppose international protocols to reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases; all oppose increasing fuel economy standards to 40 mpg; all favor more nuclear power plants; and all but John McCain favor drilling for oil in the pristine ANWR frontier. Fred Thompson even made fun of global warming on a recent radio show and Mitt Romney supports drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas of the outer continental shelf and off Florida’s coast.

Coal miners of an earlier era adopted the practice of taking a canary in a cage down into the mines with them. In addition to a mine collapse, a fear of every miner was pockets of underground gases. Lethal when inhaled and potentially combustible, the invisible, odorless gases were undetectable to the miners, but not to the small lungs of a canary. The canary was something of an early warning system: When the canary fell off its perch it was time to get the heck out of the mine.

Just as in the case of the canary, there are many warning signals indicating the health of the planet. In addition to the obvious man-made disasters of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, and New York’s Love Canal, the past few years have witnessed record rates of:

∙ Timbering of rainforests;
∙ melting of polar ice caps;
∙ species extinction and the loss of biodiversity;
∙ human population growth;
∙ heat and droughts;
∙ decreased oceanic fish harvests;
∙ worldwide coral bleaching;
∙ world hunger.

The canary has fallen off its perch but the Republicans are telling us that it is okay to stay in the mine. The path humanity will choose is uncertain, but it is clear we cannot continue as we have in the past. Our present course of relentless development, unmitigated growth, and reckless environmental destruction are unsustainable, as is the type of political leadership offered by the Republican Party and its crop of candidates for 2008.