If Wishes Were Fishes — By John Reed

If Wishes Were Fishes
Last week I mentioned the inability of Democrat-run cities to improve the lot of their poorest people, despite claiming to be the party that cares the most for them. Apparently, good intentions aren’t enough. The same could be said for those who claim to care the most about clean air and water.
California has many of the strictest anti-pollution laws and regulations on the books, making it one of the most expensive places in the country to live. Naturally, you would expect all that tree-hugging to actually accomplish something. In fact, any list of “most polluted” cities over the last several years would include more California metro areas than any other state.
Apparently laws and regulations, along with billionaires and movie stars, aren’t enough to actually make a difference. So how much better will these same folks fare with global climate change? Not much.
It turns out that air, water, and soil purity depends not just on good intentions, or even a rabid rabble yelling to anyone with a Twitter account. Good solid unbiased science, backed by good solid unbiased data, offer intelligent, unbiased managers the route to safe, clean, sustainable resource use.
No Southern towns are anywhere near the top of any list; we dumb country hicks must know something the eco-freaks don’t. A good example is right here at home: because of, not despite, the timber industry, 38% more trees are added to the state each year than are cut down. That results in more carbon sequestration for the climate change folks, more wildlife habitat for animal lovers [and hunters], and by the way thousands upon thousands of jobs. A quick interesting read is here:
http://www.gatrees.org/resources/publications/GeorgiaForestFacts.pdf
If wishes were fishes, they’d probably be floating upside down in some California river. At home Sunday, my nephew pulled up an 8-pound bass, weighed him, and tossed him back…and no politician or lawyer was there to pollute things!