Here’s an article in Rolling Stone by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154
It certainly is propaganda of the most filtered kind. Much of what is said is arguable, exaggerated and not directly blameable on the current Admin, but its has the hyperbolic chicken-little zing that characterizes leftist discourse. The release of the article is timed for the latest Healthy Forests Bill, I think. More great timing is the upcoming launching of the Left Radio Network. They’re gonna buy five stations (cause nobody wants their shows), put on Al Franken and Moore and it will be anti-Bush 24/7 right up until the election when it goes bust, just like it did for Cuomo, Jerry Brown and whoever else.
My favorite doomsayer is David Halberstam. He, of the authoritative voice, utters these unintentionally hilarious soundbites of doom when they pull off the dustcover and roll him out for CNN etc. During the Iraq invasion, he was asked “what America was thinking” (as if he, of the exclusive Northeast, actually knew). It took him about 40 seconds to say: “There is sooo much uncertainly. Everyone is soooo scared…and uncertain!” And of course, he writes books about baseball too. What is up with that??
All together everybody: WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE. IT"S ALL GEORGE’S FAULT!!!
Jerry, are you posting these just for me? Thanks. I needed a laugh, especially after the lifting of the steel tariffs so Jeb could get elected in Florida (orange juice retaliatory tariff). Europe figured out how to get Bush by the @#$s and he caved. The idea of a mandatory one-term Presidency grows more and more attractive, even when I basically support the current White House occupant. Even then, he would want to get family elected though, I guess.
C’mon Jerry, from cosmic consciousness to the Rolling Stone, from the sublime to the…
You’ve got something subliminal goin’ on here, right? 
Hi, Weeks.
I’m generally sympathetic to what Kennedy is saying, but I realize there are other well reasoned points of view, so I chose not to make any comments myself. I appreciated your followup to the earlier article I posted. Since I read mostly liberal stuff, one of the best ways for me to broaden my perspective is to run some of it by the folks on the board (if it hasn’t already been examined in detail) and see what comes up.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Edited to add:
P.S. Hi, Elendil. Nice to hear from you. You posted while I was writing. I’m not sure what you mean. I really am interested in what people think, even if it runs counter to my own view.
I guess I didn’t really mean much–something about it just tickled my funny bone. 
I have been reading this doom and gloom stuff since the 1950s. Somehow, life has gotten better, life expectancy has increased and the environment has improved.
It sounds like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes junk science and buys into the leftist agenda. It sounds as if he has the Democrat line down pat, but they have picked a hard line to sell effectively.
Optimists live longer than pessimists, doom and gloom only attract the gloomy and doomed.
You do have to admire his ability to include in an article supposedly about Bush’s environmental policies: lack of insurance and quality health care, squandering the treasury, making us a target for terrorists, entangling us un foreign wars, Republicans “installing” Bush as president in 2000, evil corporations, supporting “big oil”, King John and the Magna Carta and corporate robber barons. He did settle down and focus on the environment deeper into the article, though.
Couldn’t RFK Jr do better than Rolling Stone? He probably could have whittled this down and got it into a more respected forum.
Jerry looks so innocent sitting there, doesn’t he?
Robin
The environment is by no means the major factor affecting life expectancy; even if we dumped huge piles of toxic waste into rivers with gay abandon, we’d still see our life expectancies improve over the last century, mostly due to advances in medicine and increases in our standards of living.
In fact, we’d probably not even notice the toxic waste, as our standards of living let us move away from the cesspools and into newly-built suburbs with greenery and bike paths.
It sounds like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes junk science and buys into the leftist agenda.
In these matters, someone is always there to turn dry scientific discoveries into the End Of The World As We Know It—just as people are always there to dispute or discredit those same discoveries. It’s a shame that scientists have to be stuck in the middle, turned into unwanted celebrities and then turned into “ivory tower eggheads,” just because we as a people can’t simply accept either bad news or boring news.
It’s not a left-right-wing thing either; scientific discoveries offend just about every group. For instance, scientists discovered years ago that homosexuality was linked to conditions in the womb during foetal development. This offended pert-near everybody: religious conservatives who refuse to believe that people are just “born with it,” and liberals who thought scientists were calling homosexuality a “birth defect,” or worse yet a condition that one day parents would take measures to prevent.
Caj
even if we dumped huge piles of toxic waste into rivers with gay abandon
hmmm… i’m a very visual sort of person. i’m trying to picture that. 
i thought kennedy was being rather lenient on president bush 
At the risk of being a Left Wing conspirator… Ditto 
I thought the Kennedys did their toxic dumping with straight abandon. 
… I’m impressed that some of you feel like life has gotten better. Must be nice.
Personally, I think the ever increasing cancer rates and the constant new information coming out exposing what has already been done behind our backs is somewhat contradictory on that account.
I’m not particularly a current Kennedy fan, mind you, but I think he had some very valid points.
Then again, we may be all just “Whistling in the Dark”
8^)
Yes. Don’t be fooled.
I’m no fan of Kennedy. He’s the power behind big Insurance.
You know, Insurance Companies that sell Medical Insurance should not be allow to also sell Malpractice Insurance. It’s conflict of interest, they run a vicious circle where Consumers and Medical Practicioners both fall prey to.
You look to either side of the political spectrum and there is corruption.
The best thing I would recommend, move 'em out. Don’t let any of them get used to the job.
Quote: U.N. scientists announced that global warming is not only causing the
Arctic permafrost to melt at an alarming rate, but greenhouse gases
previously trapped for millennia in the soil there could actually be
amplifying the climate change.
United Nations Environment Program said, “Global warming may be set to
accelerated as rising temperatures in the Arctic melt the permafrost,
causing it to release greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”.
Approximately 14 percent of the carbon stored in the world’s soil is in
the Arctic. Permafrost in the polar regions comprises 20 percent of the
earth’s surface and has been permanently frozen for thousands of years to
a depth of up to 3,000 feet.
…
Source: Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet, by Steve Newman.
End of quote.
I used to live in Canada, and still keep contacts there. For several years Inuit (“Eskimo”) report seeing more and more birds, animals and insects that were previously thought of as southern. Things are changing fast, guys.
M of R.
I have been reading this doom and gloom stuff since the 1950s. Somehow, life has gotten better, life expectancy has increased and the environment has improved.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Sorry. I have been off the board for a little while, since I have been terribly busy saving the world. (The way us leftwing loonies do). I just read the above, and fell of my self-righteous pedastal, since it is hard to keep one’s balance while splitting one’s sides with laughter.
The fact that the environment has decayed to the point that life expectancy in the developing world has dropped dramatically because of pollution, depleted uranium deposites, and all that jazz, doesn’t really count does it? After all, they are only foriegners. (Like me, so my opinion doesn’t count either.)
Anyway, thank you for reaffirming my pessimistic doomy and gloomy belief that the human species is too daft to survive. By the way - the most pessimistic people in my family all lived to be passed ninety, and at least three of them made a hundred and three, one reaching his hundred and fourth birthday. So longevity is not the result of mind set, or superior morality, as one writer seemed to imply. It’s just a matter of good luck.
Slan achara.
Callybeg.
As I see it, I don’t trust anything in the United Nations.
There is something going on here, but it’s not manmade.
Antarctica has had a great amount of melt because of its volcanic activity has been stirred up in the past few years.
Also, something off the coast of latin america has been increasing water temperature and spewing gases into the atmosphere.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020212.html
Just ignore their politcal gobbledygook in the caption.
Even this, they blame mankind of this methane, but look at it closely and tell me the source. You can clearly tell that it is coming from near the coastline of Latin America and caugh in the Gulfstream and spiraling up into the northern hemisphere.
I remember that summer back in the 90’s when the volcano errupted clear on the other side of the earth and how cold it was that summer. Had to turn the furnace on in June. This volcano put out more pollutants in a few day than what we can in ten years.
It’s these political people that blame natural phenomenon on something that we’re doing as form of control, a way of hiding the truth and way to have scared people through money at something that doesn’t work.
Like Freon, why did it suddenly become so evil - because Dows patents ran out and they paid some left-winged extremists to kill the product.
As I see it, both sides have extremists and it’s all about getting funds.
Maybe we should shut off the funding faucet to both sides of politcal spectrum.
I would like to see some rational thinking instead of the opposing extremists all the time.
It’s like the conversations we’ve had about whistle materials.
If you took the extremist point of view there would be no whistles considered safe to play. Not even wood - might get an allergy to it or splinters or something.
And to others who say nothing has changed, look at the population of this world. I was born in 61 and I’m amazed at how many people are around and the shrinking back of farmland. This of course has too take it toll somehow.
Just for fun, go to google.com. Type in “miserable failure”. Hit “I’m feeling lucky”. Enjoy!
Left and proud of it.
Chris