Normally, I would find it somewhat amusing that people flip out and blame “climate change” when the mercury in the thermometer exceeds 90 degrees, a hurricane blows in or, heaven forbid, a cold snap hits during winter.
Opinion
The media, instead of reporting real news, begin trotting out “climatologists” who warn of the impending disaster of rising oceans and all of it, in their expert opinion, is man-made.
It would be humorous if these people didn’t have influence that is severely impacting our economy and our way of life by way of artificially high energy prices due to a lack of domestic oil drilling and canceled pipelines.
Locally, people are up-in-arms about, of all things, an actual green energy plant planned for South Augusta. Savannah Riverkeeper Director Tonya Bonitatibus has whipped people into a frenzy claiming the planned biofuel plant will poison the air we all breathe and contribute to climate change.
Thankfully, District 6 Commissioner Tony Lewis has stepped up and scheduled a town hall meeting at Diamond Lakes Community Center on Aug. 29 to discuss the matter, and he has invited Ben McElreath, owner of Renovatio Solution LLC., to participate in the conversation and dispel any misinformation.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Tonya Bonitatibus to pieces and affectionately call her our “River Karen.” The Riverkeeper organization does good work in our community. If not for them, Hyde Park would still be a disaster zone, and Olin would still be releasing deadly mercury into the air and into the Savannah River.
Thanks to Savannah Riverkeeper, a large area on the Savannah River below the Marina that was once a dumping ground is now a disc golf course open for public recreation.
However, Bonitatibus has been wrong in the past when it comes to environmental concerns. Even after it was proven beyond the shadow of any doubt that the Aurubis copper recycling facility would have little to no environmental impact, she continued to attempt to have the facility canceled, an effort that would have also canceled 200 well-paying jobs.
As an outdoorsman, I am sensitive to how humans coexist alongside the natural world. We can’t just hop on a star-cruiseliner to Mars if we poison the planet where we currently live. But the United States actually has a good track record, in my opinion, of recognizing the perils of pollution and working to counteract the problem.
As early as 1842, according to Smithsonian Magazine, people realized that the belching smoke from factories in industrial cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis and Pittsburgh was not only terrible for the environment but dangerous to human health. One early indicator was the rivers catching fire and burning for months, fueled by the contaminated discharges of the factories.
Rules were put in place to curb emissions, and over time, the environment bounced back. The factories did not cease operations; the companies simply developed methods to produce products in a more environmentally friendly manner. According to the EPA, Pittsburgh today has a particulate matter, or PM2.5, count of 38, which is good according to the EPA’s rating system.
In the 1980s, scientists (real scientists, not Al Gore) discovered that fluorocarbons in aerosol spray cans were responsible for creating a gigantic hole in the Ozone Layer above the Antarctic. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 worked to ban the harmful chemicals from being used and companies developed products that did not use those chemicals.
It didn’t hurt that hairstyles also changed during that time, so teenagers were not using a can of Aqua Net per week to tease their hair into fright wigs any longer.
In January, a panel of experts (real scientists) backed by the United Nations announced that the ozone layer has been weaving itself back together and is on track to be fully restored by 2040.
The state of Georgia is actually one of the greenest states in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Out of 126 power plants in the state, only 14 of those plants are coal-fired. Augusta gets all of its energy from hydroelectric and nuclear power.
However, the so-called “green crowd” doesn’t like nuclear energy even though there has not been an accident of any environmental consequence since the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.
The green crowd doesn’t like clean hydro-electric power because they say dams prevent fish from spawning. I beg to differ. I was just at Clarks Hill a couple of weekends ago, and while I did not reel in a trophy, the fish were biting just fine.
As with everything involving politics, one must follow the money to connect the dots. People such as Al Gore and John Kerry have made bank off of their unscientific scare tactics. Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” which was roundly criticized for presenting make-believe, scored a $49.8 million box office take on a $1.5 million dollar budget.
Meanwhile, “celebrities” such as Leo DiCaprio and “Prince” Harry keep their names in the headlines by flying around the world in their carbon-spewing private jets, demanding that those of us who use our gas-powered cars to travel to work be taxed extra for our “carbon footprint.”
Locally, Bonitatibus is pressuring the Augusta Commission to enact a “Environmental Justice Ordinance,” which will likely open the door for the commission to consider a carbon fee like they did with the stormwater fee. Yes, you are being taxed because it rains.
If people were really concerned with the environment and so-called climate change, they would be working to remove the wildlife killing “island of trash” in the Pacific Ocean that is the size of Texas and they would be advocating sanctions on countries such as India and China, which, according to Forbes magazine, are the two biggest polluters on the planet.
Climate change is real. The climate changes everyday. Most people do not know this, but once upon a time, Augusta was beachfront property near the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. It was climate change that created the state of Florida, and that happened long before humans made it onto the scene.
One almost zero emission bio-gas facility is not going to make a difference one way or another. As George Carlin once said, the Earth merely tolerates us humans, and will one day shake us off like a minor case of fleas.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
