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Earth Day should have noted environmental successes
PRI in the News
By: K. Lloyd Billingsley
5.12.2007
The Progress-Index (VA), May 12, 2007
To the Editor:
Across the nation, many environmental activists used this year’s Earth Day to cast a pall of doom and gloom — and warn us of the impending apocalypse.
But they missed the big story: Positive developments in air quality and wildlife should have made it a day of celebration.
Consider, for example, the recovery of our national symbol. Last May, two bald eagles were spotted making a nest in metropolitan Milwaukee. It was the first time in more than 100 years that a bald eagle built a nest in southeastern Wisconsin. The number of bald-eagle nests in the entire state has grown from 108 in 1973 to 1,020 in 2005. This recovery is not a regional phenomenon.
This month, two bald eagle eggs hatched in the wilds of Santa Catalina Island off the coast of southern California. It was the first such hatching since the 1940s and conservation officials told reporters they were “shouting and excited and happy” when they got the news.
The island now features 20 bald eagles, including five nesting pairs.
Elsewhere, another endangered bird is also showing a strong comeback.
In January, National Public Radio reported that record numbers of whooping cranes returned to the Texas coast for the winter. A full 237 birds made the long flight from Canada. That may not sound like much, but in the 1940s, as few as 15 of the birds were spotted in Texas.
Similarly, Alaska has seen a dramatic surge in the number of red salmon.
In the early 1970s, as few as 2,654 spawned in the Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula. In recent years, the count has exceeded 60,000 — beyond the number biologists even thought was possible. They attribute the surge to global warming, not a one-sided issue after all.
After Katrina, speculation had it that warming oceans would unleash a series of such storms to hammer coastal America again, with even more devastating results. The theory that warmer oceans will produce more
hurricanes makes sense, but the National Hurricane Center (NHC) shows only a modest rise in tropical-storm activity in recent decades. Further, a survey of tropical storms that made landfall suggests no trend of increasing storm activity in the United States.
Meanwhile, other good news is finally being acknowledged on the air-quality front.
In January, residents of New York City and New Jersey residents awoke to a strong sulfurous odor whose origin defied identification. Although it smelled like gas, and many feared terrorism, no leak could be found. The smell quickly vanished, and at the end of the New York Times account of this odoriferous incident appeared a notable piece of reportage. Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that “traditional air pollution has been reduced so much that strong odors stand out. In the past you might have had incidents like this and you couldn’t even distinguish the new smell from among the pollutants.” Goldstein added that “Now the air is a cleaner slate.”
That “air pollution has been reduced so much” is a newsworthy admission because environmental militants are generally loath to admit any improvement at all. And there has been improvement. In almost every area, the environment is in better shape today than it was on the first Earth Day more than 35 years ago.
Yet the doom and gloom persists.
In April, 2006, Greenpeace mistakenly posted an incomplete draft press release on its website that read: “In the 20 years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world’s worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [fill in alarmist fact here ].”
To be sure, problems remain, and climate change must be taken seriously.
But the reality of improvement and recent species recoveries make a strong case for a more positive stance on Earth Day. Instead of groveling in Armageddonist alarm, the time has come to take flight in celebration.
K. Lloyd Billingsley
Pacific Research Institute
San Francisco, Calif.
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