We talk about corporate threats to clean water a lot -- which is fitting, because clean water makes healthy people possible. Want to know what else dirties up our water? Animal waste from factory farms, that's what -- the EPA recently declared that "preventing animal waste from contaminating surface and ground waters" is one of its National Enforcement Initiatives. Yet EPA rules currently exempt about six in 10 of the largest factory farms from even getting Clean Water Act permits. And having witnessed an Obama Administration that's been even worse than Tha Bush Mobb on issues ranging from GMO labeling to food inspection, you have to wonder what kind of appetite Mr. Obama has for defying the will of factory farms. But, once again: it doesn't matter what he wants; it matters what we want. The Pew Charitable Trusts help you tell the EPA to write stronger rules keeping factory farm filth out of our drinking water.
Meanwhile, the NRA, which really does give us pro-gun folks a bad name, is trying to keep lead in bullets, saying that the lead doesn't harm the millions of animals that feed off the animals hunters shoot (and, presumably, don't eat). I guess the NRA doesn't think lead in paint harms kids, either. Why would the NRA want to keep lead in bullets? Wait, let me guess: taking lead out of bullets would force gun manufacturers to make their bullets differently, meaning less money for their CEOs. Of course, they'd say it means "killing jobs," which isn't true, unless gun manufacturing corporations think oompa-loompas are going to design the new bullets and refit factories for their manufacture. Note well that Arizona hunters use copper bullets without whining about it, and the California condor damn near died out until the state banned leaded bullets within the condor habitat. The Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to ban lead from bullets.
Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the Obama Administration that it needs to do more to protect our public lands from gas drillers, well, a few organizations still help you do that: namely, the Wilderness Society, Breast Cancer Action, Organic Consumers, Daily Kos, and the Center for Effective Government. The Bureau of Land Management's comment period ends this coming Friday -- unless, I suppose, the BLM doesn't get enough pro-pollution comments -- so don't look at the long list of organizations helping you speak your will and say hey, lots of folks are working on this, I can let them take care of it, because this is our America, so we must take care of it. Certainly gas drillers aren't going to take care of it -- they're going to continue injecting toxins into our forests and national parks and wildlife reserves, and make your water unsafe to drink, just so they can continue to make money. I wish I didn't have to speak ill of folks, but I've seen no evidence gas drillers care about anything other than mammon, and we can't let people who only care about mammon get all the damn say about everything.
Awesome post.
Posted by: lavendar oil | 2013.10.16 at 06:00 AM