OPINION/EDITORIAL
October 27,1999 • the Seahawk
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Editorial yiewpoint.
Chris Regigter
“Salt and Limes”
1 just wanted to take this opportunity to clear
up some confusion that seems to prevail in
the public eye. Many of you may have heard
prominent and educated business men or
women discussing their environmental
views. They usually go something like this
“I would love to protect the environment, but
it simply is not economically feasible.
Progress must prevail here.” You may occa
sionally see in the paper an article about vari
ous debates between developers or “wise
use” advocates and environmental groups,
the latter usually backed by UNCW profes
sors. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word
green come out of a Republican’s mouth (un
less it was referring to big business money).
Here is what is wrong with all of this:
THERE IS NO DEBATE! There is no di
chotomy. There is no “trade-off.” There is
no moral obligation to protect the environ
ment because it smells nice. It is not evil to
fill in a wetland to build a ritzy housing de
velopment. Not evil, but STUPID!!
Now for those of us that actually go outdoors
from time to time, we know that there is noth
ing like a pristine wilderness, a beautiful sun
set without a building in sight, and a night
spent with a serenade of frogs and crickets.
Give this to a businessperson as a reason to
protect the environment and they laugh. Tell
them about the intrinsic value of nature, and
they snicker. Ask them how much their kids
are worth and they are appalled; yet they can
quickly put a price tag on 10,000 acres of
old growth forest. No...these things won’t
XAchc^es are good, but the process was flawed
With the passage of major structural, elec
tions and judiciary reforms in the Student
Government Association (SGA) last week,
the organization has made a commitment to
its future success as well as improved ser
vice to the UNCW student body. They are
doing the right thing at the right time, for the
benefit of all.
It’s unfortunate that they had to violate their
own constitutional rules to make it happen.
Last Monday, an amendment to drop the re
quirement that one week of formal notice
is given to each body (House and Senate)
before a vote can be taken was introduced to
the Senate (after passing the House the pre
vious week). According to the rules, the
amendment still had to wait that week be
fore the Senate could vote on it. The SGA
Executive Board and the Senate, however,
decided to nix the requirement - after all, it
was that requirement which was to be re
moved.
The argument has been made that since the
members of the Senate knew of the amend
ment, although it had not been formally in
troduced in the Senate, it qualified as suffi
cient ‘notice’. It was further argued that the
initial change had to be made for the sake of
the reform package - it had to be passed by
this week at the latest, for the sake of elec
tion planning. The one-week ‘notice’ would
not allow that to happen.
Basically, the Senate operated under the as
sumption that the amendment would pass,
with utter disregard for the rules in effect at
the time.
The SGA then applied the new amendment
to the debate and vote on the major reforms
the next night - even though the dropping o[
the one-week clause had not been signed by
President Patrick Gunn or approved by the
Dean of Students. The SGA constitution
states this must occur before any amendment
becomes the rule.
Imagine, for example, the U.S. Senate was
voting to bring back Prohibition. Before the
vote was even taken in the Senate, all alco
hol production in the United States was or
dered halted - even though it was still legal
under the current rules (not to mention 4e
fact the amendment has to be approved by
the President and ratified by the states be- ^
fore it became law). Of course, that would
be deemed unconstitutional on the spot. A
legislative body can not assume that some
thing will become law until the process is
complete.
The SGA operated last week with the best of
intentions; to create a consolidated, more
efficient organization with higher standards
of conduct and academic excellence. In the
long run, the whole student body will ben
efit from the changes.
It’s not the changes themselves, but the pro
cess by which they were brought about that
is questionable.
Skipping the rules in the name of expedi
ency is not the way to get things done. If the
rules can’t be followed, why have them in
the first place?
work. So maybe money will.
See, what the majority of businesspeople and
politicians don’t understand is that we are
irreversibly, irrefutably, and oh so necessar
ily linked to our Earth. Every single thing
we do affects our planet, and in turn us as
well. We rely on the services nature provides
us for free, such as wastewater treatment,
oxygen production, air cleaning, food pro
duction, recreation, and a whole slew of oth
ers. Now, a smart businessperson can put a
price tag on these services when they are pro
vided by man, so why isn’t it done when
Mother Earth provides them? Have you ever
heard a businessperson say “Those X acres
of estuary provide $15,000/yr of clean wa
ter, a habitat for birds which eat insects and
provide the equivalent of $5,000/yr of pesti
cides, a spawning area for $7,000/yr for com
mercial fish, along with $3,000/yr for crabs
and oysters, upwards of $10,000/yr from
tourism, and plus it just looks pretty too?” I
have not. But as you can see, there is an
enormous financial gain from just leaving it
the hell alone! Maybe one day an intelligent
politician will see this and provide more
funds to protect such areas.
Here is another thing which industry doesn’t
seem to grasp. I learned in my EVS 195 class
that for every one pound of product produced
in the US, 33 pounds of waste is generated.
Uhm... I’m no businessman, but this seems
pretty STUPID to me! Anytime you have
something coming out the rear end, you’re
losing money (and I may add harming the
environment). It would seem to me that if
industry could figure out a way to convert
what it throws away into something it can
sell, someone would be a damn billionaire.
Does anyone really see the logic in using
something once then throwing it away and
buying another one? Americans are one of
the only cultures which do such a thing; in
fact we are the most wasteful society on the
planet today. Whatever happened to the
bottle deposit? Does business realize how
much money it could save if it ran its offices
on solar energy (good) instead of coal burn
ing (bad). And if it had energy efficient
buildings (UNCW does NOT) then it would
have an EXCESS of energy! Something to
sell, imagine that! Oh yeah...it would pro
duce less pollution, too. I don’t care if you
absolutely despise a pristine wilderness area.
The fact is, if businesspeople had any sense
they would see that it is simply economi
cally beneficial for the future to act environ
mentally conscious right now.
I could give example after example, but I
think my point has been made clear. In the
long run it is almost always to the economic
advantage of people to protect and not ex
ploit the environment. It is an under-edu
cated and short-term mentality that fills the
heads of most developers and
businesspersons with ideas to the contrary.
A simple re-thinking of how our country’s
economy really works, of what it is depen
dent on (the environment’s capital), and what
it is most vulnerable to (environmental deg
radation), would go a long way in alleviat
ing many of the economic problems faced
by the US today. Let us educate ourselves a
little better when it comes to the real world,
and cast off this frontier-mentality that so
plagues our society and will eventually lead
to its demise if not soon changed.
The ECO club meets Tuesdays at 6pm in
University Union room 207 to tackle these
and other issues related to the environment
You DO
have an
opinion, so
let us know
it!
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