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Environmentalism sounds wonderful until you realize their supporters agenda is to take the food out of our children's mouths. Yes, by all means we should compromise to save what we can of an environmental nature. But do we sacrifice our human survival for that of other species...I think not. Americans have become spoiled by wanting all the good things in life but no willing to make any sacrifices in other areas. Fish and the environment have become more important than our own food and energy. Here is a copy of my letter the newspaper in Klamath Falls Oregon, where the farmers who supply a good portion of this country with food have now been put out of business and left thirsty all to 'save the baby fish'. Meanwhile in Southern California, children get sick from strawberries imported from Mexico. Why can't we give children our own strawberries with American safety standards...because the government is starving our farmers out of business, we cannot grow them.
Dear Editor:
As an 'out of towner' I would like to express my sympathies to the residents of your fine town. I am now a resident of Sweet Home, and have passed through your area from time to time.
I was raised in the small rural community of Fallon Nevada and I am having sympathy pains for what your citizans are now suffering from.
Fallon's main industry was farming itself several years ago. I can fondly remember growing up next to the fields of corn, alphalpha and other crops. The smell of the dairy farms seems foul at the thought, but it ironically something I miss now that I live near a paper mill, lol.
Approximately 15 years ago, some 'kind' environmentalist talked the native Indian reservation 30 miles away into saving there precious QuiQui fish from the endangered animal list by stealing all our water before it reached our farmers and diverting it to their Qui Qui bearing lake.
The water rights that Fallon farmers were promised by the government in the 1930's began to vanish as our precious liquid was diverted to Pyramid Lake a half an hour away.
We fought to keep our farms alive as less and less waters were to the Lahontan Valley. Senator Harry Reid (D) paid little attention to our farmers pleas and continued his support of 'saving the baby fish' while the Fallon farmers were thirsted out of house, home, business, and town.
We cried out to our government in many ways to establish some protection of our rights but to no avail.
After a couple of droughts Pyramid Lake maintained its plentiful water source, while our crops died and the barren land went scorched.
A military base close by became the community's main support, a luxury that Klamath does not have. Most of the Fallon farmers sold there de-valued land to production industry 'plants'.
Our town squeaked by and survived, but with out the farmer.
Upon entering the city limits is a sign.
"Fallon, home of the Endangered Farmer!"
After a few floods in 97 we re-cooperated some of our losses, and the precious Qui Qui fish were taken off the endangered list. But still today, the environmentalist won't let go of the water they had stolen from us.
The Environmentalist did not even care about the Stillwater Wildlife Refuge on our land that also dried up in the mission to save these Qui Qui fish.
Fight as you will, I wish you the best. But what needs to change is the ignorant beliefs American citizans from across the country hold.
They assume environmental causes means something good and pure. They don't realize that even though we should do what we can to help our enviornment, we also should not put animal before putting food in our children's mouths.
American's have become spoiled, they want their cake and want to eat it too. You can't have all the food, energy, and housing you want with out sacrificing some of those precious fish, air, and trees.
I could continue about all the bad food that we will have to depend on from other countries, but that is far too much knowledge to share in this letter.
Instead of killing one another off, the environmentalist need to learn the meaning of compromise and so do our elected officials.
Thank You, wish you the best;
Susan Harrison
Sweet Home, Or.
SusieQ
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The reveiwer, Karen, is correct when she states that food in other Western countries is fresher--and the farms are better protected and mostly run by small farmers--than here in the US. Again, Corporations are to blame for that, buying up land and putting chemicals in our food to cut their own costs at the expense of our health and our farms and farmers.
But the point that Karen misses is that in Nevada when they took all the water away to save the QuiQui fish, these were not edible animals. Only on the endangered list, therefore considered valuable. So by saving fish no one can eat, we sacrificed fresh produce that would be distributed through out our nation and beyond to save a few measly fish that had no contribution the survival of man.
Also, are we racist when it comes to animals?
In Portola California a lake became filled with a particular fish that was known as a nuisence fish. The county poisoned their water to kill these pesky fish and remove them from the lake. I don't blame them, but it all boils down, what fish is worth more than another, and what value do we place on human needs and the needs of animals first.
The one aspect missing here is that fact that there must be a balancing point between feeding the nation and saving the very food we eat.
We must eat, yes. But if we don't take pains to help properly cultivate the land, animals and fish, we would eat them all into extinction--and then what will we put in our children's mouths?
The problem now is that we are eating the animals and fish faster than they can reproduce themselves. What does that mean? It means that eventually there won't be any more animals and fish to eat.
There needs to be a balancing point, both in our cultivation methods and in the article above. The author does not offer solutions to the problem, she just states we must eat--which is a given. And when she is speaking about foreign food, she must state where it comes from. If she is talking about Mexico, then she should say so, and I agree. The food is bad. But her statement does not apply to Europe or Canada or Australia, whose food is almost always fresh from the farm, with almost no chemical preservatives, and never sits in ice cars for days on end like it does in the US.
Interesting, but without proper balance the article falls short of being informative.