Balancing politics and the environment — a sad story of painful frustration

The first African American head of the EPA, Lisa P. Jackson, is stepping down at the end of President Obama’s first term.

After a frustrating, stressful and painful four years, she apparently has decided that she’s had enough. The article in the New York Times that caught my attention mentioned climate change:

E.P.A. Chief to Step Down, With Climate Still Low Priority

While reading through the first source article listed below, I found many links that connected me with related articles. Here’s an excerpt from an article pointing out that neither Romney or Obama ever mentioned climate change on the campaign trail—and none of the debate moderators ever mentioned it either.

Mr. Obama has supported broad climate change legislation, financed extensive clean energy projects and pushed new regulations to reduce global warming emissions from cars and power plants. But neither he nor Mr. Romney has laid out during the campaign a legislative or regulatory program to address the fundamental questions arising from one of the most vexing economic, environmental, political and humanitarian issues to face the planet.

Should the United States cut its greenhouse gas emissions, and, if so, how far and how fast? Should fossil fuels be more heavily taxed? Should any form of clean energy be subsidized, and for how long? Should the United States lead international mitigation efforts? Should the nation pour billions of new dollars into basic energy research? Is the climate system so fraught with uncertainty that the rational response is to do nothing?

What does the EPA really do? While reading a number of these articles, I began to wonder about the official mission of the EPA. As you might expect, it deals with all aspects of the environment but focuses most of its efforts on the natural resources of the United States.

From the EPA website, I found this mission statement—along with the last two bullet points (of 7) beneath that statement—two points that address the global environmental issues:

The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment.

• Environmental protection contributes to making our communities and ecosystems diverse, sustainable and economically productive
• The United States plays a leadership role in working with other nations to protect the global environment.

Along with a tremendous amount of highly processed carbs, this is where most westerners get their calories—a grossly unsustainable way of eating.

A not too surprising observation. Nowhere in all of the articles was there a single word about:

• The #1 cause of climate change
• The #1 cause of water shortage or
• The #1 cause of the demise of our global ecosystem.

That number one cause has been mentioned at least 500 times in my blogs during the past twenty-two months. That #1 cause is the ridiculously wasteful, harmful and unsustainable typical western diet of meat, dairy, and/or eggs three meals a day.

The really sad part about this story is that our sitting president is aware of all of the factors mentioned above—yet he has done absolutely nothing about publicizing that crucial information. In an earlier blog, I embedded this video of him answering a question in August of 2008, just before his election to President in November. The question was asked by a young woman at a high school in Florida—and his response convinced me that he knows his stuff about this crucial topic.

Now comes the all-important second term. With all due respect to Mr. Obama, we can be sure that he would not have been elected in the first place (or re-elected) if he had started talking about the incredible five-part benefits of moving toward a whole foods, plant-based diet. But since he will never have to run for office again, he can now put his heart and soul into telling us what he truly believes:

Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth—and the longterm sustainability of the human race.

1. Promoting health and saving the lives of millions of Americans
2. Balancing the budget by saving the U.S. government about a trillion on health care.
3. Preserving fossil fuels. The most powerful move we could make to provide us with more time to develop sustainable sources of energy.
4. Fight climate change. Moving toward plant-based eating gradually eliminates the #1 cause of global warming.
5. Save water & nurture ecosystem. Our meat and dairy diet-style requires over ten times as much water and over ten times as much land—both are critical for the longterm sustainability of the human race.

Although I feel a little bit sorry for Ms. Jackson, I doubt that she fully grasps that big picture herself. And as for her farewell statement regarding the state of the department, “the ship is sailing in the right direction,” I don’t think that ship has even left the dock—and is still years away from doing so. With an $8 Billion budget and 17,000 employees, you’d think she could do a better job of promoting the awareness of the above world-changing facts. From the article:

In a brief interview on Wednesday evening, Ms. Jackson said that she hoped to decompress after four intense years running the E.P.A., which has 17,000 employees and an $8 billion annual budget. She said she would probably do some consulting and public speaking but has not begun looking for a new job. She is thought to be a candidate for the presidency of Princeton.

Gettin’ Green in 2013

The Bottom Line. Our nation—and indeed our world—is absolutely nowhere when it comes to getting serious about our environment.

And unless Mr. Obama surprises me and really starts hitting the ball out of the park soon, we’re at least 8 years away from having another second-term president who will even have a ghost of a chance of providing serious leadership from the world’s most powerful office.

Maybe Ms. Jackson can inspire some up and coming Princeton students to get serious about the environment. Maybe—but I doubt that she will. So that leaves us. Let’s get things started by using this New Years Mantra:

Gettin’ Green in 2013

• Source article. Lisa P. Jackson of E.P.A. to Step Down – NYTimes.com
• Source article. Romney and Obama avoid talk of climate change
• Earlier blog with video. Did you know that Obama really “gets it” about food?

Consecutive daily blogs

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

• The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD 
• Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
• An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
• Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

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Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation