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The Kansas City Star, Mo., Walter Winch Column: Would Howdy Doody Recognize Our Planet?

Posted on: Saturday, 13 May 2006, 06:02 CDT

By Walter Winch, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

May 13--Environmental deterioration in all its complexities is the colossal monster in the room. It is a heartland problem. It is a global problem. The beast is not Iraq, immigration, port security, outsourcing, high deficits or rising gasoline prices.

It's Howdy Doody time in America.

Howdy, the television star of the 1950s "Howdy Doody Show," was a marionette with a perpetual grin on his wooden face.

It was television in its early days, silly, inane and loved by adults as well as children. Unfortunately, we can't live in Doodyville.

Environmental deterioration in all its complexities is the colossal monster in the room. It is a heartland problem. It is a global problem. The beast is not Iraq, immigration, port security, outsourcing, high deficits or rising gasoline prices.

Water is a good place to begin. The hottest year on record was 2005. In Somalia, millions of people are surviving on the equivalent of three glasses of water per day for drinking, washing and cooking. In many cases, children have had to drink their own urine.

In Missouri, droughts struck in 2002 and 2003, affecting livestock farmers, as well as hurting important cash crops such as soybeans. Might it be worse the next time?

The U.S. Geological Survey reported recently that all the rivers and streams it surveyed in the U.S. between 1992 and 2001 contained pesticides.

About 12 percent of Kansas' total surface waters are damaged, according to the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University.

A public interest group has stated that between July 2003 and December 2004 more than 500 facilities in Missouri and Kansas exceeded Clean Water Act standards at least once because of assorted pollutants, including oil, grease, nitrogen, ammonia and fecal matter, in fishable and swimmable waterways.

Large factory farms in parts of Missouri have contributed to serious water pollution due to increased nutrients and bacteria (as well as dead zones along the Gulf Coast). Worldwide, agriculture is probably the biggest threat to the planet's freshwater resources.

In Kansas about half of original wetland acreage has been drained for agriculture or development. A loss of wetlands worsens flooding, endangers drinking water and could possibly hasten the arrival of bird flu. Wetland loss in Missouri is about 80 percent.

Missouri ranks high in the nation for cancers caused by industrial pollution. A recent study at the University of Southern California found that high ozone levels might be connected to lower sperm production. Those bad ozone days will be with us shortly.

Do you have children or grandchildren? It's expected that 9 billion humans will inhabit the planet by 2050. Conversely, the Environmental Defense Fund estimates that between 15 percent and 37 percent of plant and animal species could be destroyed worldwide by 2050, including species in Kansas and Missouri.

Clearly the hysteria over such things as gay marriage seems to resonate in this part of the country. But issues like this do serve a purpose -- they easily divert the electorate's attention away from serious matters, such as taking responsibility for our environmental well-being, as well as electing competent representatives.

Sadly, Kansas and "intelligent" design go together like a horse and carriage. But not to be outdone, a measure before the Missouri legislature promised constitutional amendments on Christianity and "tablets" on public property. Poor women are apparently not going to get access to any family-planning assistance in the Show Me State, and the word "contraception" may soon be whispered only in Missouri darkness. Benightedness has come to be a social virtue.

At the national level the four senators representing Missouri and Kansas are environmentally oblivious. Over the years they've opposed, among other things, improved fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. They have consistently rubber-stamped the usual subsidies to the fossil-fuel industry, applauded the idea of using taxpayer money to cut logging roads through our national parks, and stood by as President Bush and friends pushed to weaken air and water quality standards.

Anyone interested might look into the servile attention that Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri has devoted to Briggs & Stratton, a manufacturer of lawn mower engines, a significant source of air pollution. It's in the public record.

But we still have choices. It begins in November. No longer can we afford more string-puppets from Doodyville.

Walter Winch is a writer, former actor and business owner who lives in Kansas City. To reach Midwest Voices columnists, write to the author c/o the Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. Or send e-mail to oped@kcstar.com .

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Kansas City Star, Mo.

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Source: The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Missouri)

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