I’ve been writing to several individuals and organizations regarding the environment. Everyone speaks about responsible recycling, but no one speaks against the continued manufacture of unrecyclable plastics, Styrofoam, Mylar, glyphosate, and many other deleterious products. There are a handful of groups who recognize global warming and the continued use of fossil fuels, but no one is speaking against the destruction of our open spaces and how this exacerbates global warming. Animal rights groups don’t care about wildlife, they only care about domesticated animals.
I am very concerned with the unfettered over development throughout America and particularly in my state Pennsylvania.
We are experiencing more and more tornados which is a result of global warming which is a result of the heat absorbed by asphalt and concrete. overdevelopment . weebly.com / change. I have contacted nearly every self-proclaimed environmental agency in Pennsylvania (and outside) and have concluded that there is no protection whatsoever. All so-called environmental groups are governed by developers and realtors. Where are the scientists?
Upper Providence Township, Montgomery County, PA, has lost farms and open spaces which provide home to several types of wildlife. The problem has caused an increase in road kill, which the township has stopped removing from the roads leaving the carcasses to decay in plain sight.
There is a section of Route 29 at Yerkes Road that is for sale. There are plans to build a roundabout and apartment complex on it. There was opposition to this development so township officials in league with developers put the development projects on fast track and destruction has commenced.
w w w . collegevilledevelopment. o r g/ penndot- collegeville- road-improvements/
This area floods often, runs along/ the Perkiomen Creek, and home to North Carolina Carolina Terrapin (Eastern Box Turtle), American snapping turtle, many types of snakes, bees, butterflies, the Great blue heron, owls, hawks, several types of woodpeckers, fauna and much more. It is a true ecosystem that should not be paved nor destroyed. Many a box turtle crossing the road has been saved on Route 29 (certainly a risk).
The Eastern Box Turtle is being driven to extinction. It is disturbing that we are not protecting this remnant of the dinosaur age much more. w w w. wildlifewatchers. org/esReports /report30. Depressingly, the corporately-controlled environmental groups in Pennsylvania do not list the Eastern Box Turtle as critically threatened. But unfettered overdevelopment continues to destroy their habitats.
There are no sanctuaries for box turtles or other forms of wildlife in Pennsylvania. If you find a box turtle in the road, you are told to return where you found it, regardless whether the turtle was in a construction area. This is a tragedy.
Recently, during his campaign for Upper Providence Township Supervisor, a Democratic hopeful visited the homes at Yerkes Road promising them he would reject development plans, giving them the sense that he would protect this area from development. They believe(d) him. I decided that if this political hopeful would protect the Yerkes area from further development (and perhaps other areas in Upper Providence), I would offer to support his campaign, as I have for other hopefuls in the past.
While speaking with this Democratic hopeful, he hedged on my suggestion to permanently protect this area for environmental reasons. After 45 minutes of probing, I asked him the right question at which time he admitted that another 1,000 homes are to be built in the township and he would approve future development plans for Yerkes Road. Proof positive that Democrats are no more interested in protecting the environment than Republicans.
All campaigning political hopefuls, regardless of party, promise to protect open spaces while they will improve infrastructure. Once in office the promised protection disappears and development commences. Once a road is improved to support current traffic, these politicians allow developers the right to build shopping centers (as unnecessary as they may be) and squeeze as many homes in small areas as possible. This intensifies traffic and negates improvements to the infrastructure. Thus, open spaces are senselessly lost. w w w. youtube .com/watch?v=vlbAZvcVM9E
Besides the threat to wildlife, many homes in the Yerkes Road area have suffered flooding. Additional development will increase this problem because water has no place to go when there is no ground to absorb it. Examples:
w w w. houstonchronicle. com/local/explainer/article/The-trouble-with-living-in-a-swamp-Houston-7954 514.php
w t k r. com/2019/04/22/environmental-group-blaming-new-development-for-flooding-increase-in-sandbridge-city-blames-winds-and-climate-change/
Environmental groups, government officials, and mainstream media never discuss the loss of open space and how this loss contributes to global warming.
overdevelopment .weebly.com / environment. h t m l
forbes. com/s ites/ marshallshepherd/2015/09/25/the-science-of-why-cities-are-warmer-than-rural-areas/#49676e671744
Before he died, Stephen Hawking whttps:/ / overdevelopment. weebly.com/ change. htmlarned that we must find a habitable planet in 100 years…
http: / /time.com/ 4767595/ stephen-hawking-100-years-new-planet/
Is this what our leaders want for their children and their offspring. Is this what Christians mean by ‘those left behind’ or ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’? Woe to those left behind or the meek.
We are commercializing our land with shopping center after shopping center. It used to be joyful to drive through the countryside’s of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and regions beyond. Gone are the open spaces. Now you drive through a sea of endless shopping centers. Children don’t play; they shop or play mindless video games. Creeks are now surrounded by shopping centers, industrial parks, and/or squeezed by townhouses.
Do you think so-called environmental groups will help? You are wrong!
Greenpeace won’t get involved. They are go after ‘shocking’ stunts, such as climbing the Eiffel Tower to put up a banner reading “Resist”. NRDC, Friends of the Earth, and the Sierra Club are equally as bad.
The EPA is controlled by the very politicians who reside in the pockets of developers. A representative of the EPA told me to take pictures of box turtles and post them online. That is the only “help” I received from them.
The Nature Conservancy has developers and realtors on their boards. They have taken donations to save the rainforest for decades, but the rainforest isn’t getting larger. It is shrinking more each year. If you ask them to help prevent overdevelopment in the states, they simply won’t get involved. Utterly worthless.
If you investigate any environmental group you will find that there are large corporations, developers and realtors on their boards. The environment has no protections.
Environmentalists, such as myself, need a politician who will protect the environment without lip service nor greenwash. Otherwise, there is no difference between the parties.
To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city is to look at something like the section of a fibrous tumor. - Frank Lloyd Wright
America is becoming one huge tumor.
Please kindly comment on this very important topic.
-C. Rose
I hear ya. Civilization is the origins of all these problems, and any agency of civilization may be promoting to slow the problems, to make them less abrasive in impact, but not end them. The only true ‘solutions’ to ending them problems of civ lie in anti-civ.
For those who stay connected with both compassion and reality, the sadness can be overwhelming. That’s why so many shut down to seeing it, or rationalize it with currents of human superiority, or magical thinking that civilization will solve its own problems.
What do you think of this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHuKvcWlkWc&t=75s
I’m delighted that this site is still active. After I joined, I noticed that many posts were over a year old.
I also want to point out another fact. Recycling does not work. China stopped accepting our plastics which they had been recycling for the U.S. If you want to truly help the planet, you will ensure that everyone knows that the manufacture of plastics needs to end. Is this possible?
I doubt it. Why? Because the human race is incredibly narcissistic and short-sighted. Plastics makes “today” easier! Just like loss of open space and natural habitats make a few people very wealthy.
I do not like the fact that I am a member of a species I have respect for. Life on the dying planet is becoming exceedingly unbearable.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE HEALTH OF MOTHER EARTH NOR FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS! And that is a fact!
Interesting you mentioned Stephen Hawking’s 100 years prediction. Who would want to have people succeed in leaving the Earth? This will only spread that devastating mindset even further!
What if all the companies that have logo’s, names and products showing and referring to plants, animals, rivers, or other aspects of nature pay royalties to the restoration and protection of these very aspects of nature?
Then, a bathroom curtain with fern leaves would yield money for the restoration and protection of ferns. A soap factory making soap roses would help restore and protect roses. What companies can you think of that would have to pay for the restoration of fox, alligator or elephant? How about sea creatures, rivers, planets, stars and so on?
I can’t sleep at night worrying about what we are letting monsters do to the planet.
Your comment about bathroom curtain fern leaves and logos on plants and animals will keep me up for years…and if I’m lucky enough to sleep, I will certainly have more nightmares.
I reached out to a group who is actually going to help me.
It’s time we take back our planet. Mother Earth is at war. I want her to win!
Hi Rosie,
To my surprise, you quoted me as saying “logos on plants and animals”… now that image sounds haunting indeed! I intended to find a way to make those that profit from using images of plants/animals/etc. pay for the conservation of the species that they profit from. Sorry if I hadn’t expressed that clearly enough, I wish you good night rests anytime!
You are right that global warming is a very serious issue such that any should respond to, with actions of their own for it. Nothing of civilization will fix any of it. Global warming is mostly from animal agriculture, and from all the uses we have of the petroleum industries, and maybe there is contribution from heat being absorbed by asphalt and concrete. There are yet more serious issues and our natural environments are being affected, with civilization’s use of animal agriculture, fish are diminishing in oceans from fishing, and resources will be used up, and ultimately infrastructures will collapse. We want a sustainable way in which we can continue. Many will just have to learn to be independent from civilization, to go on. Knowledge will still be needed for using local resources and what is growing for needed items sustainably.
You could NOT BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! GLOBAL WARMING is not “mostly” created from animal agriculture!!!
Only a DEVELOPER or CORRUPT POLITICIAN would say such a thing! CONCRETE and ASPHALT absorb heat. This is why cities have ALWAYS been hotter than urban areas. We are losing our urban areas along with the habitats of wildlife at an alarming rate. We are driving wildlife to extinction as we almost did to (nearly have) indigenous people of this once beautiful land.
I provided links on the article, but regretfully they had to be broken up because this site does not allow links. YOU REALLY NEED TO CHECK OUT THE LINKS (my references).
“Sad”, “shutting down”… give me a break! Is this what you want for your children…grandchildren?
It’s time to protest, not sadness.
I would not think of responding to any so rudely.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.11034
For each and every one of us, there is need to not choose the unsustainability that the rest in civilization live out with their ways. This world is not with resources that have it possible for industrialized civilization to continue.
In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report concluded, “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”[9] The largest human influence has been the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Climate model projections summarized in the report indicated that during the 21st century, the global surface temperature is likely to rise a further 0.3 to 1.7 °C (0.5 to 3.1 °F) in a moderate scenario, or as much as 2.6 to 4.8 °C (4.7 to 8.6 °F) in an extreme scenario, depending on the rate of future greenhouse gas emissions and on climate feedback effects.[10] These findings have been recognized by the national science academies of the major industrialized nations[11][a] and are not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing.[13][14]
Effects of global warming include rising sea levels, regional changes in precipitation, more frequent extreme weather events such as heat waves, and expansion of deserts.[15] Surface temperature increases are greatest in the Arctic, with the continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost, and sea ice. Overall, higher temperatures bring more rain and snowfall, but for some regions droughts and wildfires increase instead.[16] Climate change impacts humans by, amongst other things, threatening food security from decreasing crop yields, and the abandonment of populated areas and damage to infrastructure due to rising sea levels.[17][18] Environmental impacts include the extinction or relocation of ecosystems as they adapt to climate change, with coral reefs,[19] mountain ecosystems, and Arctic ecosystems most immediately threatened.[20] Because the climate system has a large “inertia” and greenhouse gases will remain in the atmosphere for a long time, climatic changes and their effects will continue to become more pronounced for many centuries even if further increases to greenhouse gases stop.[21]
I would like to stress that I do believe, MOST EMPHATICALLY, in GLOBAL WARMING. And I KNOW without any uncertainty that UNFETTERED OVERDEVELOPMENT is most definitively a major cause for the warming of the planet. Cities have always been hotter than rural areas because asphalt and concrete ABSORB heat. WE ARE NOW LOSING the rural areas (cooling areas) at an accelerated rate along with the loss of many types of wildlife.
Furthermore, as for Deep Green Resistance, I read the book to my disappointment. I never heard of a book that didn’t have an Index until I read Deep Green Resistance. I was initially impressed with this group, but now I understand why the group only number 100. Mother Earth does not need writers…people have been writing and speaking in her defense for decades. It is apparent, words are simply words–in one ear and out the other. Mother Earth needs soldiers to defend her. Apparently, there are not enough caring people to fight for her protection.
I really that I could cut and paste here, because I have a written a letters to Gov. Wolf (sent certified) and never answered, Sen. Warren and unanswered, and Sen. Sanders…I received a post card stating he isn’t in PA, YET he is running for PRESIDENT!!! I would like to share that letter with you. If you want to email me directly, please contact me at arosieday at protonmail dot com.
I’ve taken to wearing expressive art in hopes of waking the sleeping up.
I would also like to point out that during the recent Democratic Debates not one…NOT ONE…word was mentioned on global warming or environmental issues.
Mainstream media talks talks talks about global warming, but no one addresses all the causes! We (and I use 'We" loosely) talk about responsible recycling, but we continue to manufacture plastics, Styrofoam, mylar, etc. We don’t know what to do with the nuclear power waste! We talk about global warming but we avoid the causes!!!
Question: DO THE POLITICIANS WE VOTE FOR WANT TO DESTROY THE PLANET?
Namaste,
Rose