Wanted--One Big Damn Muffler

I’ve been ranting about this topic for years, and today I heard the Godfather—Rush Limbaugh—mention it on his radio show using the same basic argument. I said to myself—self, you were right all along, and now Rush is stealing your thunder.

What Rush was talking about today was this Associated Press story about Mt. St. Helens being the largest polluter in the state of Washington. I’ve been saying for fifteen years that it’s not people that are the major polluters of the earth’s atmosphere, it’s the earth itself--and I aught to know a little about pollution (besides the words coming out of my mouth.)

You see--I spent over twenty years in the air pollution control business. First as a staff engineer, then as the owner of a company that built industrial smokestacks. I’ve seen the business from the inside out and looked at the government regulation and legislation on an up close and personal basis.

News flash—Most, if not all of the air pollution provisions enacted in the past ten years are mostly a bunch of well-intended crappola. The Kyoto treaty—absolute, total, complete, scientific mumbo jumbo—designed to allow the Chinese and the rest of the third world to dump everything they want to into the environment while at the same time attempting to cripple our economy with a bunch of “curtailment measures” designed based on voodoo science at best. Bill Clinton wouldn’t sign it, and George Bush shouldn’t either.

Most news stories on pollution generally have two things in common. They all are introduced by some sort of scary headline predicting the end of the world, as we know it. The stories are then backed up by either a bunch of generalizations and opinions offered by the author or they are filled with mind numbing, out of context facts and figures that cause the average reader’s eyes to cross. The final result is usually doom and gloom, backed up by a liberal portion of blame placed squarely on the shoulders of capitalism and the American way.

Here is my take on air pollution. Yes, we do need to prevent the wholesale dumping of heavy metals like mercury into the atmosphere. Yes, we can limit what other man-made compounds we allow to escape from the industry we require to support our lifestyles. No, we don’t need to excessively freak out over carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide--the hated “green house gasses.” No, we don’t need to allow the rest of the developing world to place unfair and unnecessary restraints on our economy by limiting our industry and energy production efforts.

I was trying to learn how to fly an airplane in 1991 when the monster volcano in the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo, decided to destroy about half of the south Pacific. Can you say ten feet of ash and mudslides? During that summer, three out of four times, I would schedule a flying lesson at Cobb County’s McCullum Airfield, drive to the airport at the appointed time, only to have the flying lesson cancelled because we could not see Kennesaw Mountain (which was only two miles away) because of the yellow/brownish haze that covered the mid-latitudes of the entire earth for months during the eruptions. What a complete and total “un-natural” natural disaster, and it's not like we can pass a law or sign a treaty to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Anyone got a big damn Muffler?? Sooooooo, back to today.

Here is my bottom line on this issue:

We have come a long way from the 1940’s and 1950’s with factories belching soot and smoke everywhere and owners turning their back while PCB’s and Dioxin were dumped in the creeks in their back yards. We still have a long way to go. BUT…

Just remember, just when we think that we can sit back all smug and happy with our efforts, Mother Nature comes along and Farts or Belches a big old cloud of sulfur and methane (or shakes the hell out of Japan and California) and we all realize that all of our self edifying efforts are for naught.

So stop your whining and go out and plant a tree or something…