America's ruling party engages in of denial and deception on environmen

[Guest guest]

> Salt of the Earth

>

> By PAUL KRUGMAN

>

> 35526c6.jpgince we're stuck in Iraq indefinitely, we may as well try to

> learn something. But I suspect that our current leaders won't be receptive

> to the most important lesson of the land where cities and writing were

> invented: that manmade environmental damage can destroy a civilization.

>

> When archaeologists excavated the cities of ancient Mesopotamia, they were

> amazed not just by what they found but by where they found it: in the

> middle of an unpopulated desert. In " Ur of the Chaldees, " Leonard Woolley

> asked: " Why, if Ur was an empire's capital, if Sumer was once a vast

> granary, has the population dwindled to nothing, the very soil lost its

> virtue? "

>

> The answer the reason " the very soil lost its virtue " is that heavy

> irrigation in a hot, dry climate leads to a gradual accumulation of salt

in

> the soil. Rising salinity first forced the Sumerians to switch from wheat

> to barley, which can tolerate more salt; by about 1800 B.C. even barley

> could no longer be grown in southern Iraq, and Sumerian civilization

> collapsed. Later " salinity crises " took place further north. In the 19th

> century, when Europeans began to visit Iraq, it probably had a population

> less than a tenth the size of the one in the age of Gilgamesh.

>

> Modern civilization's impact on the environment is, of course, far greater

> than anything the ancients could manage. We can do more damage in a decade

> than our ancestors could inflict in centuries. Salinization remains a big

> problem in today's world, but it is overshadowed by even more serious

> environmental threats. Moreover, in the past environmental crises were

> local: agriculture might collapse in Sumer, but in Egypt, where the annual

> flooding of the Nile replenished the soil, civilization went on. Today,

> problems like the thinning of the ozone layer and the accumulation of

> greenhouse gases affect the planet as a whole.

>

> On the other hand, today we have the ability to understand environmental

> threats, and act to contain them. The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1989,

> shows how science and policy can work hand in hand. Research showed that

> certain chemicals were destroying the ozone layer, which protects us from

> ultraviolet radiation, so governments agreed to ban the use of those

> chemicals, and the ban appears to be succeeding.

>

> But would the people now running America have agreed to that protocol?

> Probably not. In fact, the Bush administration is trying to reinterpret

the

> agreement to avoid phasing out the pesticide methyl bromide. And on other

> environmental issues above all, global warming America's ruling party is

> pursuing a strategy of denial and deception.

>

> Before last year's elections Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, wrote a

> remarkable memo about how to neutralize public perceptions that the party

> was anti-environmental. Here's what it said about global warming: " The

> scientific debate is closing [against us] but is not yet closed. There is

> still an opportunity to challenge the science. " And it advised Republicans

> to play up the appearance of scientific uncertainty.

>

> But as a recent article in Salon reminds us, this appearance of

uncertainty

> is " manufactured. " Very few independent experts now dispute that manmade

> global warming is happening, and represents a serious threat. Almost all

> the skeptics are directly or indirectly on the payroll of the oil, coal

and

> auto industries. And before you accuse me of a conspiracy theory, listen

to

> what the other side says. Here's Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma: " Could

> it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on

> the American people? It sure sounds like it. "

>

> The point is that when it comes to evidence of danger from emissions as

> opposed to, say, Iraqi nukes the people now running our country won't take

> yes for an answer.

>

> Meanwhile, news reports say, President Bush will spend much of this month

> buffing his environmental image. No doubt he'll repeatedly be photographed

> amid scenes of great natural beauty, uttering stirring words about his

> commitment to conservation. His handlers hope that the images will protect

> him from awkward questions about his actual polluter-friendly policies

and,

> most important, his refusal to face up to politically inconvenient

> environmental dangers.

>

> So here's the question: will we avoid the fate of past civilizations that

> destroyed their environments, and hence themselves? And the answer is: not

> if Mr. Bush can help it.

>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/08/opinion/08KRUG.html?th