The Republican Noise Machine is succeeding in brainwashing the US public to believe that growth is more important the environment. From pollingreport.com:
“With which one of these statements about the environment and the economy do you most agree? Protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth. OR, Economic growth should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.” Options rotated.
Environ- Economic Equal No
ment Growth Priority Opinion3/04 49 44 4 3
3/03 47 42 7 4
3/02 54 36 5 5
3/01 57 33 6 4
4/00 67 28 2 3
Look at the trend over the last 5 years. Very sad. Very sad indeed. Back in Gore’s day the preference was more than 2-to-1 Environment-to-Growth. Now it’s 1-to-1.
[My first diary at BooMan!]
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Thanks for taking on important issue, not for Democrats only!
The environmental issue in the EU has created an industry with its own specialties and jobs. Although a surplus of problems on pollution and waste still exists, corporations for decades have invested in energy savings and limited production and industrial waste.
In the US, the Bushies have to be removed, to change the stand in Washington on the environment.
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
Very important topic for a first diary! Great job by you. What can we do to shift the trend the other way?
Boy, I really wish I knew what we could do to change this. People have been pondering that for at least 30 years, and noone has a good answer. If we knew anything, we wouldn’t have seen the trend move against us in the last 5 years, as shown in the polling data.
I believe in education, education, education. If we can get environmental consciousness into our schools, we’ll be able to shift the electorate 30 years from now. I’m not confident we can make any short-term changes, given how rife the US is with shallow, short-sighted consumerism. I think we have to pin our hopes on the multi-generational timescale.
Here in NYC we are faced with a whole series of pro-Developer projects that mayor Bloomberg is pushing. Problem is these plans cost the city huge amounts of money (at a time when we are closing firehouses due to lack of money) and destroys unique NYC neighborhoods. The opposition is NOT anti-development. They are pushing something that I call “sane development” which is more neighborhood oriented, combining development with improvements in infrastructure, small businesses and open space. On of many examples of this can be found on the Develop don’t destroy Brooklyn website:
http://www.developdontdestroy.org/
Why is this important? Because progressives and labor are losing touch with eachother over these issues. Labor and environmentalists are both liberal/progressive groups. But the myth of development vs. environment has allowed the right to drive a wedge between these two branches of the progressive movement. We have to brigde this gap. I am working to get labor outreach here in NYC, work on a concept of “sane development” and get a dialogue going between environmentalists, progressive groups like DFA and labor. If we can reunite all these groups, we will be unbeatable.
I should note that New Democratic Majority is also thinking along this line and is considering a “Liveable NYC” conference to discuss these issues.