Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Sept. 28, 2000, edition 1 / Page 3
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wo nn enuironmentai uiewpomt September28,2000 The Blue Banner Pages Perspectives Taking a look at political impact on the environment Summer Starling Enuironmentai Columnist In the 1996 election year, only 20 percent of college-aged persons chose to vote. As students, our voice for leadership is synonymous with our choice of candidate. Many issues are at the forefront of discussion between candidates and parties. For those with an environmental concern for our country and the Earth during the next election term, there are several issues to consider. What is the candidate’s environ mental record? Where are the candidate’s environmental priori ties? What are some of the propos als being issued? George W. Bush, A1 Gore, and Ralph Nader, the two top nation ally ranked contenders and the Green Party candidate, all have environmental records worthy of examination. There is an undeniable trend of conservatism and environmental- irresponsibility being linked to gether. This is especially evident when taking a look at Bush. Bush, the Republican candidate, has an environmental record that has been described as “spotty at best.” While serving as governor of Texas, the state has reached one of the worst air pollution levels in the nation. In response to this, Bush has claimed to have taken action by ending longstanding exemptions factories and plants have from newer Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. This event is re ferred to as a factory being “grandfathered in,” In total, 832 pollution-producing plants are non- compliant with regulations. Instead of enforcing regulation. Bush is relying on corporate volun teers to initiate clean air. As of today, only 24 of the 832 facilities are in compliance with pollution- reduction regulations under Bush’s administration in Texas. This clearly demonstrates a lack of environmental leadership, as well as a direct apathy for government environmental organizations. Air pollution in Texas correlates with fuel emission standards for automobile manufacturers as well. As gas prices soar. General Motors (GM), one of Bush’s largest mon etary campaign contributors, be comes worried about stricter emis sion standards. However, they need not worry if Bush is elected. GM’s top lobbyist, Andrew Card, is co-chair of the Republican convention. This en sures GM’s and other corporate sponsors’ protection and interest at the direct cost of Texas air quality, perhaps America’s air quality, if Bush is elected to office. A1 Gore, the Democratic candi date, has demonstrated slight envi ronmental concern within his cam paign. The outlook for his concern and subsequent action appears much brighter than that of his pri mary competition. Claiming his top environmental issue as global warming. Gore has big promises for environmentalists. Leading the Clinton administra tion to ratify the Kyoto global warm ing treaty, aimed at reducing global pollution caused by the greenhouse- effect. Gore has since aspired else where. He favors strong protections for endangered species, blocking oil- drilling efforts in the Alaska Wild life Refuge (of which Bush is in favor), and providing more money for cleaning up toxic waste sites. Gore also proposes to invest $125 billion over a ten-year period to modernize power plants and create eco-friendly fuels. Also, providing tax incentives to ecologically Tolerance a viewpoint, not an act Keuin Rollins Columnist whenever I tell people that I think America ought to legalize mari juana, they assume that I must be a pothead. Why would I care about marijuana if I didn’t want to use it? I’m not a pothead. I don’t smoke dope. I have never smoked dope. I don’t want to smoke dope. But, if you want to get high, you should be able to without going to prison. As long as what you are doing is non violent, and doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s person or property, it is your business. I will not impose my preferences on you. It is called tolerance. Many people seem to think that tolerance is some thing everyone else does to accom modate them. Tolerance is not something that you do, its some thing you don’t do. You don’t kill, maim, harass, in jure or imprison people you dis agree with. Tolerance is not accep tance. Tolerance is having your own views arid values, and letting other people do the same. Tolerance is leaving people alone. First, think about who you are, physically, mentally, spiritually, politically, ethnically, socially and so on. Next, think of every possibil ity imaginable for each of those categories. Then, think of every possible combination of those pos sibilities. Those are the people you have to tolerate. You are free to enjoy them, ignore them, hate them or laugh at them. You just can’t step on them. You even have to put up with the ones that you don’t like, like the Neo-Nazis, Pat Buchanan, people who wear fur and even people who say the N-word. They aren’t pleasant, and they aren’t going to win a beauty con test, but they all must be tolerated, even if you don’t like it and even if it is not politically correct. They might not like what you have to say, either. No law should tell people that they have to love everyone. No law should ask you to bring someone you hate into your home or business. “Wait a minute,” you say. “Busi nesses shouldn’t be required to ig nore things like race, sexual orien tation, age, looks and physical and mental health?” Nope. Your need for a job or desire to shop does not outweigh the shopkeeper’s right to be a dis criminating racist/sexist/homopho bic super-bigot when it comes to his property. It is a horrible busi ness strategy to hire anyone other than the best qualified, and an even worse strategy to turn away cus tomers, but if someone wants to drive their business straight into the ground, it’s their choice. What else are people allowed to destroy, other than their businesses? They can destroy themselves. Driigs, overeating, poor money management, unsafe sex, moun tain climbing and riding a bicycle without a helmet can all lead to disastrous and final conclusions. Still, though, people have the right to fail and get hurt and get sick and die. You have to tolerate people whom you believe are unwise. You can’t tell people what’s best for them, and they can’t tell you, either. That’s tolerance. The all-purpose idiot list for fall 2000 ' 1 Liam Bryan Columnist Due to the sudden and large pro liferation of idiots, I have just fin ished “Liam’s List of Fall 2000 Idi ots.” To everyone who treats the cafete ria (and the people who work there) like it exists solely to please and placate you, let me tell you now that until you have been in the dishroom up to your elbows in other people’s leftover food gunk, on your feet for 13 hours out of the day, you have no right to even whimper about the fact that you have to eat there. To the professors with attendance policies, this is college. We students come here because we want to learn. If we don’t show up to your classes, don’t bug us about it. Fail us on our lack of merit, not on the fact that we are sick, tired or already know all this stuff. To the professor who bans food and drink in his class, in no way is a coffee mug, a cough drop or caf eteria leftovers interfering with how well students learn in your class. As, a'matter of fact (given your lec tures) it might keep your students awake. To everyone that bashes Microsoft, if you are so much smarter and better than they are, why aren’t you that rich? To the person who decided to keep Governor’s Village locked 24 hours a day, that policy does not keep the Village safe. Rather, it makes people more inclined to ask for(andgive) the code. Think about it. A resident always has to type in the code, making it more likely that someone will find out what it is. “Hey, I’m trying to see my friend here, but I don’t know the code. Can you let me in?” Sure, if it’s daylight. Don’t see why not. To those running for SGA, we don’t care. You’d have more of a chance, of getting votes if you were a shrunken monkey head. By throw ing up posters and chalk drawings, all you are doing is advertising that you are an idiot in thinking that SGA does anything important. To the idiot (and his friends) who find it entertaining to shout at and throw things at pedestrians and bi cyclists from his vehicle, step out of that car for five minutes and the next vehicle you’ll be riding in is an ambulance. To the people at public safety, ticketing at 7 a.m. and noon does nothing to curb the tide of com muters. All that this accomplishes is to punish residents who cannot find parking because no free spaces exist, unless you are willing to drive to Ethiopia, home of the mythical resident overflow lot. To the frat boys and jocks who refer to female freshmen as “freshmeat,” if I ever hear you say that, I shall snap off your cajones and boil them in motor oil. To the idiots who stand in front of the cafeteria and heckle those pass- ersby who refuse their religious pro paganda, we are terribly sorry that you collection plate has been empty the past few Sundays, but heckling people does not draw them to your cause. To the people who think it is a good thing to put in a new driveway to campus, I agree with putting in a new driveway, as soon as we get the money to fix Highsmith, rebuild the Village, add more lampposts, fund the physics department, ven tilate the chemistry labs, save the whales and nuke the hippies. No, wait. I still wouldn’t agree with it. Plus, no one would be able to get onto campus for three to seven years minded corporations and requir ing that international trade treaties meet “tough environmental stan dards” are in Gore’s public cam paign persona. Despite all of Gore’s high hopes, his history is spotted with many empty promises. There have been reports of Gore implementing some kind of public event as deterrence from adminis trative responsibility toward global warming. For example, investiga tions have alleged that the Gore staff orchestrated an attack on at mospheric scientist Fred Singer. This attack falsely accredited Singer with dismissing global warming as an urgent issue, lessening the pres sure for Gore to uphold his creeds about the issue. Gore also has connections with “big oil” like Bush, approving oil company mergers without very much scrutiny. But Gore does comes out environmentally cleaner and more promising than Bush. There is however, another option. For one compelled to vote for the environment, Ralph Nader is a prime third option. On issues ranging from logging on public lands to energy, Nader has a solid environmental record and innovative ideas about the en vironmental future of America. Nader argues that corporate inter ests have used the World Trade Organization (WTO) to under mine legislative measures taken for the environment, such as Gore’s Kyoto global warming treaty. Re negotiating global trade treaties in order to assure a raise in environ mental standards is among Nader’s top priorities. In response to Gore and Bush’s auto-related negligence, Nader pro poses to help Congress eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels and en courage and support automobile manufacturers to build energy-effi cient cars. His equation for our growing air pollution dilemma is threefold. Administration needs to adopt a punitive, uncompromising agenda for polluters, emission standards must be strengthened and further funding and research are needed to promote increased use of renew able energy sources. Instead of Gore’s style of approach to global warming, Nader would choose to focus on American-gen erated automobile emissions. As researched by the Intergovernmen tal Panel on Climate Change, Nader would implement a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 50-70 per cent in order to keep the global climate sustained at its current levels. To whom student votes are given will be a decisive factor as the next chapter of our nation, and our en vironment, unfolds. while it was being built. To the people who rip down post ers that express beliefs you do not agree with, you and I both know that you only do it because you can’t stand the truth. Maybe, some day, you will have a belief system that you have enough faith in that you are not threatened by different ideas. To the athletic director who thinks that pumping more money into our already over-funded athletic department will help it, you just had the former president of the NCAA tell you that there is a slim to none chance of making this pro gram work. Take the hint. If you really want the students to get be hind you on this, try adding a foot ball team. Oh wait, that’s right, we don’t have the facilities to do so. That NCAA guy said something about that, too. To the people at public safety who are “helping” students protect them selves by entering their rooms, this dramatic effect of leaving notes seems to be just a sneaky way of getting into a student’s dorm room without having to let them know about room inspection. If you recognize yourself on this list, please take steps to remove yourself from it. If you are not on this list, congratulations. If you are on this list and do not recognize it, prepare to be on the next List of Idiots. The Blue Bdnner Staff Editorial Board Emma Jones Sarah Ulilkins Kathmn Krouse Lena Burns Sarah Lacy Lauren Deal matt Hunt Ben Uleigand Editor-in-Chief Hews Editor Features Editor Sports Editor Photo Editor Copy Editor Online Editor nsst. Online Editor Staff Kay niton, Hmanda Rnderson, Casey Blankenship, Patrick Braswell, flnnie Crandall, Rachel Crumpler, Kristina Elliot, Ben Ezell, Walter Fyler, Anthony Greco, Seth Horner, Luke Knox, John Locke, Justin meckes, Angela Rantz, Bridgette Odom, Lauren Owens, Sanna Raza, Edward Ruschmann, Rebecca Trauers, Justin Ulolf Cate Bergman Rngela Rantz IJIanaQers Columnists Business Rlanager Circulation manager Shea Benson, Liam Bryan, Sean Clancy, Keuin Rollins, Summer Starling mark Ulest, faculty aduisor The Blue Bdnner\% the student newspaper of the Uniuersity of north Carolina at nsheuille. Ule publish each Thursday except during summer sessions, final exam weeks and holiday breaks. Our offices are located in Karpen Hall, room 244. Our telephone number is (828] 251 -6586. Our campus e-mail address is banner@unca.edu. fln online uersion of The Blue Banner is also auailable at http://www.unca.edu/banner>. nothing in our editorial or opinions sections necessarily reflects the opinion of the entire Blue Banner staff, the faculty aduisor, or the uniuersity faculty, administration or staff. Unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of The Blue Banner editorial board. Letters, columns, cartoons and reuiews represent only the opinions of their respectiue authors. The Blue Bannerresmes the right to reject any aduertisement on the basis of content or space auailability. nduertisements represent only the interests of the paying contributors. The Blue Bannermlcomes submissions of letters and articles for publication, nil submissions are subject to editing for clarity, content and length, and are considered on the basis of interest, space, taste and timeliness. Letters should be typed, single-spaced, and should not exceed 300 words. Letters for publication should also contain the author's signature, classifica tion, major or other relationship with uncn. The deadline for letters is noon on Tuesday. If you haue a submission, you can send it to The Blue Banner, Karpen 244, One Uniuersity Heights, Rsheuille n.C. 28804. The deadline for display ads and the FVI calendar is nionday at 2 p.m. Classified ads are due at 5 p.m. on illonday.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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Sept. 28, 2000, edition 1
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