FAIRFIELD BAY, Ark. — Here we are again, rolling our eyes at an editorial in The Oklahoman.
And we — the midwestern working class, humans of earth — are present to provide a voice for the exact people you editorial writers spoke of in your Dec. 15 piece, Howls of outrage over EPA pick likely pleasing to many Trump voters, about Oklahoma Attorney General’s nomination as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Thank you for your imperceptive opinion regarding the Democratic platform. Not only is it not just the far-left that is flying into “hysterics,” as you put it, it is anyone who believes in science and cares about the planet. It is anyone who wants to drink clean water. Anyone who pays attention to rising temperatures and rising sea levels that destroy communities.
Are we to assume that the far-right do not need to drink clean water or breathe clean air and therefore have no qualms with raping the earth and her people?
You name the Keystone pipeline as a business that shouldn’t suffer regulations and as something the voter in middle America wants. Well, a middle-American voter in South Dakota had 300 square feet of oil-soaked soil this year. That was 16,800 gallons of crude leaked into the land and water. Another 176,000 gallons spilled into a creek near the Dakota Access protest camps this December.
Merry Christmas, y’all!
Is this what you want to get behind? Are you really excited about this? I assure you, the voters are not.
We, right here in the Midwest, live next to the rivers and lakes that the EPA protects from pollution (that Pruitt then sued the EPA over because he likes his river polluted).
We also live on the fault lines.
So while you champion the “fracking boom” like it’s the gold rush of the 21st century, the rest of us are not dumb enough to forget how it has turned our state into the country’s new earthquake capital. Sure, it’s OK to punch the earth in the guts until she bleeds our precious oil, never mind the hemorrhaging and long-term damage. Did your homeowner’s insurance force you to add earthquake insurance? I bet they did, unless of course you can’t get any because your company has a 60-day moratorium on purchasing coverage after any large quake.
Even the nominated secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is in a quiet lawsuit to stop fracking that is too close to his $5 million Texas home because it would lower property values.
The velociraptor and your kids
Oil and coal are two energy sources that can sometimes be problematic and deadly. There is only so much crude oil, and piping it through nature is making water undrinkable. Even if there were limitless coal and it were a clean energy source, machines are cheaper to employ in its extraction, and they get the job done in a fraction of the time.
That is what jobs are lost to: machines, not measures to improve the environment. Blaming environmental-protection measures for joblessness and trying to whip up fear in the midwestern working class is insulting.
I am the working class, and I am smart enough to know better.
Peddle your gussied-up science denialism elsewhere. This is not about the Democratic platform. This is not about Republicans. We are all humans who need air and water to live. This isn’t about votes. It is about taking care of where we live so we can continue to live here.
Lisa Garcia, vice-president of Earthjustice and a senior adviser to the last two EPA administrators, said in a recent article:
Pruitt doesn’t believe in the mission of the EPA, which is to protect human health and the environment. This isn’t a business agency, it’s an environmental agency. It’s scary to have someone who doesn’t believe in the mission of the EPA walking in to run it.
David Jenkins, the executive director of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship (not far-left at all) said, “We’re very concerned about the EPA nomination.”
Let me help you understand, my dear sweet “far-right” friend: Putting Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA is like going out of town and asking an arsonist to housesit for you. You will likely come back home to heap of ashes.
It’s like hiring a velociraptor as a nanny for your kids. Not only is the raptor uninterested in protecting your children and helping them learn their colors and numbers, it literally wants to rip them to pieces.
THAT is what everyone is concerned about. Left, right, middle and internationally.
I know, it’s fun for you to type “limousine liberals.” According to you, it would do the Democrats some good to back off of their concern for the earth and climate-change convictions.
So how about this: Maybe if the far-right “caviar conservative” Republicans would ease up on their stances and, you know, care more about the planet, water, air we breathe, facts, the actual working class, anything at all that isn’t their wallet — then maybe the rest of the world wouldn’t be having a meltdown.
