Country living, city dying

By Craige McMillan

The recent fatal fall of a 22-year-old woman from a tree that protesters
had inhabited for the past three years in an Oregon forest – to prevent its
being logged – is a metaphor for the environmental movement. While the
goal seems laudable, protecting the nation’s natural resources, fish and
wildlife, the strategy is fatally flawed and can never accomplish its goals.

The Endangered Species Act is the hallmark of environmentalism. The goal
of
this act was to protect rivers, streams, salmon, snail darters, spotted
owls and a host of other species whose numbers have dropped with the
encroachment of civilization. Unfortunately, the result has been to destroy
the economic base of much of the Western United States and to depopulate
rural America by eliminating economic opportunity.

Tens of thousands of
families have been devastated, forced onto thinly disguised welfare
payments called retraining, and ultimately run out of their habitat into
cities in search of economic opportunity. This is exactly the wrong
strategy.

So-called endangered species have existed side-by-side with mankind for
thousands of years, yet neither went extinct. This despite the fact that
young women were not living in trees to protect them from loggers and other
natural-resource dealers. As settlers moved west across America, towns and
village sprung up where settlers gave up their westward push; houses were
built, land was cultivated, animals were bred for food and clothing, and
everyone thrived.

So what happened? In a word, cities. Railroads and highways made possible
large concentrations of people who moved into tiny, congested geographic
areas. These masses of humanity became dependent upon rural America for
their food, lumber and other natural resources to build their homes and
office buildings, water to drink and clean themselves and, indeed, almost
everything human beings need to survive.

As cities prospered and grew, they demanded that more and more natural
resources
be delivered for their convenience, and they also began to create more
by-products of civilization: garbage that accumulated in landfills,
polluted ground water, and human waste that had to be disposed of, often in
nearby rivers and oceans.

Cities have now reached such size and concentration that Los Angeles is
considering dragging by tugboat huge, football-field sized plastic bags of
fresh water from the frozen north. Environmentalists, predictably, have
railed against this proposal because of the diesel fuel and exhaust gases
the tugs would produce in their daily trips.

Thus, environmentalists have made the same mistake that prohibitionists
made
with liquor, and the war on drugs makes today. They ignore demand, and
focus on production.

For environmentalists, loggers are the villains.
If they could be eradicated, forests would be safe. No thought is given to
the hundreds, thousands, and millions of people living in cities who demand
that homes be built for them and their children; that water be diverted from
rivers and streams or dragged from Alaska to quench their thirst, flush
their toilets and water their lawns; that the countryside be polluted with
smoke from power generation plants so that their homes and offices can be
lighted, heated and air conditioned; that oil be tankered to refineries
and pumped to their gas cap; and that the smog from their frantic daily
endeavors smothers the countryside for miles around and endangers the
nation’s health.

No, everything is the fault of the poor logger trying to
feed his family and pay his mortgage out in rural America. He must be
“rehabilitated,” while the mob in the cities continues to expand, demanding
ever more resources and filling the world with its refuse.

I should think the solution is obvious. It isn’t people that are the
problem, it is large concentrations of people living in tiny, overstressed
geographic areas called cities. Once we start to disperse the population
living in cities, we will begin to reduce demand and consumption, and
spread it over a wider area so the earth can easily handle both the
demand and the waste products.

Getting people to move out of cities seems to me the proper focus for
real environmentalists.

Since most of us respond to economic incentives, what
about making rural and small-town America more, not less attractive? We
could start with a tax-surcharge on natural or value-added resources
freighted into cities, adjusted perhaps by the size of the city. Water,
electricity and sewage treatment could all be taxed according to city size
once they moved outside city limits. With the proper tax-incentives, cities
would soon reflect their true cost-of-living. Let those who are willing to
pay, stay.

Rural and small town America, meanwhile, can receive tax subsidies – in
effect transfer payments from cities – to help them effectively utilize
nearby natural resources, add value through intelligent manufacture, and
protect the environment. It only seems fair, since city residents have been
taxing rural and small-town America for generations.

Craige McMillan

Craige McMillan is a longtime commentator for WND. Read more of Craige McMillan's articles here.