Stuart MacKay wrote:
>Spend your time and dollars supporting the environmental organisations
>such as Audubon and the Nature Conservancy.
>Forget the politics and just get on with the job of cleaning the mess up.

These are great organizations that deserve a lot of support, but
unfortunately they don't have much influence on how public lands (a big
piece of the the pie in these parts) are used/abused *except* via
political channels. Conservation organizations need to do more to get
their members out to the polls, etc. (maybe get some pointers from the
NRA...). And surely it is more effective to prevent damage than to clean
up after it (how can we clean up a clear-cut, or a filled wetland?).

Burt Guttman's point re voter turnout perhaps not accurately reflecting
true majority sentiment is well-taken. I should have phrased it more
carefully -- i.e. the supposed environmentalist majority did not vote for
environmentally responsible candidates (or at least against the
irresponsible ones). At any rate, my point was that there is an apparent
inconsistency between sentiment and action on the part of this supposed
environmentalist majority, and I still think that is an accurate
assessment.


David Wright
dwright at u.washington.edu