Enough talk already. We have spent the past decade debating a scientific consensus on global warming instead of taking action to fix a looming catastrophe and the degradation of our environment. It’s time to act.
For too long, we have allowed our national dialogue on this looming crisis to be distorted by a small group naysayers funded by special interests. They have stalled as the evidence mounted along with worldwide temperatures and the toxicity of our rivers and streams.
Powerful interests have deployed an unending cascade of hollow arguments and manipulations to enable a flood of toxins into our rivers, farmland, neighborhoods and communities – often with the support and sympathy of the Bush administration.
But Americans have had enough. Westerners have had enough. Janine Fitzgerald of Bayfield has lived and worked on her family farm in the shadow of the mountains for 42 years, and she is fighting to roll back the drilling frenzy that threatens to tear apart her beloved San Juan Basin and HD Mountains.
Those mountains cover nearly 40,000 acres in the San Juan National Forest, and more than 60 percent is completely unspoiled – no roads, no logging, not even a hiking marker. But Janine saw that just a few miles from her property in the range, intense drilling has already occurred. Roads built to access the wells snake like an interstate system through previously untouched terrain. The roads end at well pads, many unfenced. Last year, a young girl climbed onto a pump and was crushed to death by its arm. On the Animas River outside Durango, high levels of hydrogen sulfide warnings scare visitors away from what used to be a river famous for its fishing and recreational resources.
Janine decided enough was enough. In 2004, when four energy companies planned a massive drilling project, she fought the drillers tooth and nail – and managed to cut the proposed project from 57 well pads on 38 miles to 30 on 13 miles. And she is not done fighting.
Thankfully, she is not alone. People across the country are finally speaking up and demanding better. Anyone who ever ridiculed environmentalists as elitist “tree huggers” should meet the new face of the movement: ranchers out West, CEOs of 10 major companies urging mandatory carbon emissions caps, evangelicals who believe in “creation care,” and parents wondering what’s in the water their kids drink.
The new environmentalists reject the lazy dodge that caring about the environment means caring less about security or the economy. They understand that, in the long run, these issues are inseparable.
The new environmentalists understand that talk is not enough: We must lead the worldwide race for new energy sources that do not empower our enemies, pollute our skies and waters, and imperil our future.
We need to take bold steps – massive investment in renewable fuels, a carbon emissions cap, a dramatic hike in fuel efficiency standards, and a renewed fight to protect our land from unfettered exploitation and pollution – if we hope to contain this growing threat.
Each of us can do something, and we need to insist on leaders who will. We wouldn’t elect someone who said terrorism wasn’t a threat, but for too long we’ve tolerated those who treat the threat of energy insecurity, the truth of global climate, change and the tragedy of environmental devastation as inconvenient myths. Well, from now on, every American who walks into a polling place can and should vote to kick out of office anyone standing in the way of solving these threats.
We have written a book about the changing face of environmentalism, called “This Moment on Earth,” to tell the stories of everyday environmental heroes like Janine Fitzgerald. The book explores what’s at stake and explains what people are doing about it. Janine’s fight to reclaim the environment is a terrific example for Americans everywhere struggling for a cleaner, greener future on the land they love. People across America share your concerns, and we share your struggle. We believe America is listening, and it’s time for our leaders to listen too.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Teresa Heinz Kerry will be in Denver Sunday to promote their new book “This Moment on Earth” at the LoDo Tattered Cover Book Store at 11 a.m.
