Clearing The Air

Think Progress had a good post recently on William Wehrum, Bush’s nominee to head the EPA (the gory details on this guy can be accessed here). The Philadelphia Inquirer had a good editorial against Wehrum today also (a lot of repetition between the two).

This is particularly important because this Saturday the 22nd is Earth Day, and David Muhly, the regional representative of the Sierra Club in Bland, Va., wrote this a year ago with that in mind.

Conservative evangelicals recently sent a letter to President Bush that said, "Protection of the global climate is an essential requirement for faithful human stewardship of God's creation on Earth." The National Council of Churches, which represents more than 100,000 congregations nationwide, has begun to describe stewardship of the Earth as a critical "moral value."

Thirty-five years ago, the first Earth Day was celebrated, on the date after the birthday of legendary conservationist and Sierra Club founder John Muir. The timing was no coincidence. After all, Muir was the prototypical environmentalist, having translated his love for the Sierra Nevada into efforts to protect natural areas throughout the West.

Today, the whole idea of there being a single model for environmentalism itself deserves some questioning. These days, the most compelling voices for environmental stewardship are as likely to be a minister, a hunter, a nurse, or a factory line worker.

In an increasingly polarized nation, environmental issues may be a natural way to unite groups across the political spectrum. Recent trends both at the national level and in our own backyard underscore this opportunity.

It's not just religious groups. Hunters and anglers are the most vocal proponents of wetlands protection, and they represent a formidable obstacle to anyone proposing to weaken existing protections. Working families have also taken up the environment as a cause; they know better than anyone that developing clean energy technologies will create good jobs. And Latino and African American families continue to be on the front lines battling air and other pollution that disproportionately affects their communities.

The truth that environmental politics can unify supposedly separate constituencies is as true in the Appalachians as it is anywhere. Perhaps nothing better demonstrates this trend than the fight to protect our wild forest areas, roadless areas, on our own national forests here in the Southeast. But it's not just a question of protecting wildlife habitat, or recreational opportunities, or the chance for solitude and spiritual repose. This is an issue deeply bound up with the future of human communities.

We can see this in the rising concern among many communities. As the recent controversies over logging in the Woodfin and Asheville watersheds in North Carolina have demonstrated, for example, folks are rightly concerned about development in the critical areas that supply clean water for their communities. National forests supply clean water to millions of Americans and thousands of communities across the country. More than 60 percent of the clean water in this country has its headwaters in our national forests, many of these areas in the same backcountry areas at risk from the weakening of roadless area protection proposed by the administration in Washington. A diverse coalition of political voices has joined to say that we need to protect our watersheds from logging, and our roadless areas in our national forests from any efforts to weaken the protections already extended to them.

And the need for clean water is one thing we can all agree on. As the administration prepares to roll out yet another attempt to weaken protections for and allow logging in our roadless wild forest areas in our national forests, state governors have the opportunity to join Govs. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, Mike Easley of North Carolina, and Phil Bredesen of Tennessee in their support for protecting this critical resource for all Americans, not just some vested interests with a financial stake in opening up these areas.

What we have learned over and over again is that everyone has a stake when it comes to protecting our air, water, and natural places. The values we are talking about - fairness, responsibility, health and safety - are universal. And many of the solutions to our environmental challenges are well within reach, if we work together.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself," John Muir famously said, "we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." That's truer today than ever.

A reminder about Wehrum: as the Think Progress post noted, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will try to put a hold on Wehrum's nomination if it moves to the Senate floor.