Say the word ENVIRONMENT to ten people and you will get ten different reactions from disdain to reverence. It’s always perspective. In these days where people form their facts from opinions, steeped in the echo chambers of CNN, FOX, MSNBC, and (god-forbid) social media, chances are the spin is something they’ve been force fed.
It wasn’t always like this. And if you personalize the conversation, you’re likely to get a far different reaction. A rancher in Colorado who is forced to contend with the reintroduction of wolves and its impact on his livestock rails against the urban environmentalists who voted the reintroduction into law. Chances are that rancher has a far greater understanding and connection to the natural environment than arm-chair environmentalists in metropolitan Denver. The rancher respects the land, soil, and water on a personal level. The hunter, who is vilified by animal rights extremists (think ALF: Animal Liberation Front or PETA) often has a far greater love and appreciation for the natural environment than those that preach. It’s never black and white.
The transcendentalists of the 1800’s (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, to name a few), gave the natural environment a voice. Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot fostered Yellowstone and preserved 172 million acres of National Forests. Few would label Teddy a “radical” environmentalist. There’s that term again, “radical,” that’s being used far too often to voice disdain.
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, twenty million people, 10% of the entire population at the time, marched in favor of environmental protections. That led to the adoption of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Specie Act. Bipartisan votes in both the House (366 to 11) and Senate (74 to 0) overrode President Nixon’s veto of the Clean Water Act. Remember when bipartisan votes were a thing?
If you ask most people one on one whether they want clean air to breath, clean water to drink and swim in, and the natural environment protected for future generations, I suspect the vast majority would say of course. The next time you hear terms like “the environment,” “environmentalists,” or “climate change,” divorce yourself from the partisan echo-chamber and ask yourself honestly what you believe. The previous generation did. My generation did (except for a few outliers).
Now go out in nature and breathe.