Kudoes to Paul Dietmann and all the others who recognized the values of a
truly democratic, grass-roots organization that has played a major, important,
and valuable role in american agriculture. Because it functions much like our
own government, FB philosophy and policies are slow to change. But they do
changing and that change is still regulated by the membership, which is as it
should be.
To all of you folks who do not agree with the FB, I suggest you join and try
to change it from within, rather than simply whining and complaining because
you don't happen to agree with them.
Dietmann hit the nail right on the head when he said, " I found it very
discouraging to read the messages written by the gentleman from the
Environmental Working Group, as he reinforces the idea many people have out
here that environmentalists neither know nor care much about farmers and their
interests."
The fact is, all too many environmental activist groups neither know nor care
what anyone else thinks about anything, and the last thing they want is for
their members to be confronted by facts.
As he made a recommendation for a single unified environmental statute as
aopposed to the current 12 , former EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus
recently stated,
"Some finite well-understood limits should be established for what our society
is prepared to pay for a certain level of environmental health, together with
some reasonable relationship between what is paid and what we get for it. In
other words, environmentalism has to leave the realm of quasi-religion and
take its place among the realities of the state, along with national security,
social welfare, health and justice -- pretty good company, by the way.
What is done has to reflect 'the real choices of the American people as to
what levels of protection they desire locally for local problems,' and that
builds upon the basic good sense of communities in balancing their
environmental and other social values. Needless to say, no one can be allowed
to clean up by loading pollution onto a neighbor, and so the new system has to
be carefully designed to be consistent with regional, national and global
environmental goals.
Finally, the system has to be fair. It cannot impose an undue burden of
either risk or expense on any one portion of the population, or allow the
transfer of risk from one place to another without fully informed consent. It
cannot, for example, expect private landowners to carry the full cost of
species protection, nor can it expect farm workers or people living near
industrial plants to suffer inordinate risks for the economic benefit of the
general population." (From P&TCN, Vol. 23, No. 52)
I suggest that Mr. Ruckelshaus' recommendations make a good deal of sense and
deserve careful consideration.
Mac Horton,
Dept. Entomology
Clemson University, SC
mhorton@clemson.edu