Mother Jones - Comments for "Bush Designates Massive New Marine Monuments"

You cannot just blam this on

You cannot just blam this on one administration. The destruction on the environment is everyone's problem and brought on by all of us being that we have carbon footprints.

Obviously someone is trying to give Bush some speck of decency that can be trotted out later in history. We know that he himself didn't think of it. They will probably call him the "enviromental president" and that pathetic windbag Rush will parrot it on his talk show.

Bush has finally caught on to the "green washing" trend of most big exploitative corporations. Having done environmental damage by the boat load during his presidency, now he's trying to "green wash" his legacy- these "protections" redefine feckless. 4% of the ocean partially protected? And the media is biting.- sad

It all smells fishy. Bush doesn't do anything that might benefit anyone or anything, especially the environment, unless he's getting something for it. He's a selfish, greedy, thoughtless, useless tyrant. The best thing he and his cronies can do when this administration's time is up is climb back under the rocks from which they climbed out of. If they're lucky, those rocks will still be there, no thanks to his poor record on caring about the environment!!!

This b****** has earned no accolades. The destruction he has brought on the environment and to the people of the world drowns this miniscule effort. Put the b****** into the halls of shame where he belongs along with his entire disgraceful warmongering money grabbing party. This is one dirty ship that would disgrace and polute any landfill.

I have to keep reminding myself. No one is all bad. But on the grand scale, his administration is still appalling. I kept a folder in my e-mail for the environmental travesties this administration has created. I kept it only for the first few years of his administration and it ranged in the 100s. A few good deeds do not offset the literal hundreds of misdeeds and the waste of energy it took to push back some of these abhorations.
Thanks for the article but I just get the feeling that he's only leaving some work for other ogres to tend to.

"If you draw a line around it, all of a sudden it's somebody's responsibility to take care of it." Look up Johnston Atoll on Wikipedia. It's in one of the new monuments. The KNOWN envronmental s*** we do/did there makes Chernoybl look lightweight. Now we're "protecting" an area the size of two western states? My God. What did we do out there and why is Bush so anxious to control access?

My idea of a Bush Inc fade-out was "Do No Harm". The Israelis had to put their foot in it, of course, but who expected anything less? Still, given that Bush is protecting marine areas instead of (so far) opening up the wilderness to his friends in Extraction Inc. is to me a plus. But, given how we're debating the merits of these protected areas I'm afraid that we are still blinded to the core problem: We're not seeing the problem as an interrelated whole. You can't save a part of the oceans, let alone the oceans, if you're still despoiling the land, and or the air. An effect on one affects the others. And, worse than that, I'm stlll meeting too many people (most people I meet or know) for whom all that matters is convenience, price, value (quantity for price, most often, but sometimes quality for price), status, or some combination of the above. Forced labor, inhumane conditions, bad slaughter practices, pollution, human rights violations, just don't figure in. Of course, how are most people to know? We need a better method of certifying what is truly green, and or humane and sustainable, and to quickly alert people to flaws in the system, without undermining trust in that system. Nonetheless, while I'm glad Bush is at least saving something instead of destroying it, it concerns me that he got to do the damage he did because so many folks just don't care about what they can't see, if they can benefit by price, association, or convenience, or some vague feeling of security.

Just out of collective reflexivity, I suspect anything Bush does. Let's see, 4% of the oceans protected..... 96% unprotected....Those numbers are not so beautiful. Wait a minute, that might be a perfect reason to exploit all unprotected waters, including the LAND underneath the surface, and keep protected "sanctuaries", like little museums of "how it used to be 100 years ago"? Would that keep the environmentalists at least temporarily mollified? Dividing up the greater Oceans has now officially begun. Not just around islands or land masses,....but vast areas. Prior to this century, those vast areas were UNclaimed, wild; "owned" by no one. Only waters surrounding the land was designated as territorial waters. Please check out a project called 2040. It is an international group trying to educate little kids, who will be, (in year 2040), the voting population of the Earth.(If there is still voting). That is the year when the present international "hands off agreements" for Antarctica will end. Already there are countries ( the USA being one of them),"jockeying" for position to exploit the Antarctic. There are big oil concerns looking at the breakup of major ice flows with glee. There's oil down there; so you might invest on the possibility of getting more of it for your private militaries and corporate governments? It will be easier to exploit with less ice. That must be one upside of warming the planet with gas.(truly terrible)
Let's revert to evolutionary sensibilities! A sweeping change occurs when imminent disaster strikes (or huge indications of imminent disaster)..... someone may instinctively do things which matter most.(yes, of course, saving ones own *ss). Many humans have not learned, or refuse to learn, to extend themselves in forming relationships with Nature. It will be a shock for them to realize that no amount of money will buy back what is being squandered, lost.( They will be so angry). Our home,our ecosphere, our planet Earth is calling. Not just 4%. The Oceans are calling.Not just 4%. Do you still hear the Whales singing? They have been singing for about 45 million years longer than humankind has walked this planet. How did they do that without ipods? They have not overpopulated nor polluted their environment. I'm voting for the whales. Peacewhales.