While environmentalists have been ragging Governor Palin on air and online since news of her nomination first hit the media, I honestly hadn't realized how scary her environmental past looks, and how much damage she could do on a nation that desperately needs to clean its environmental act up.
According to the October 22nd issue of The New Republic, Palin's environmental voting history is not only detrimental to the Alaskan territory and wildlife, but to its residents as well. According to the article, metals and chemicals "such as pesticides, flame retardants, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can cause birth defects and permanent developmental disorders both prenatally and in the first years of childhood," a fact that should matter deeply to Palin, who is a strong advocate for for special-needs children. Alaska has a much higher percentage of birth defects (6 percent) than the national average (3 percent), with a staggering 11 percent near the oil-heavy North Slope.
Not only is Alaska succeptible to pollutants created by its industries, but it also recieves a large amount of air contaminants from accross the world via the North Atlantic Current. However, Palin seems unwilling to address any of these concerns. She has refused to provide more than a 24 hour notice to parents when schools are to be sprayed with pesticides (those same ones that may cause developmental disorders) and refuses to ban dangerous flame retardants that can cause those same disorders. Furthermore, Palin has allowed toxic dumping by oil companies in Alaska's Cook Inlet, a 180 mile long fishery on the Gulf of Alaska. She has also turned down multiple clean water initiatives as well as the pushes of environmentalists to clean up Northeast Cape Airforce Base, whose surrounding waters contain more than one thousand times the EPA safe level of chemical pollutants.
In the Era of Global Warming (whether its true or not), the US needs to become more environmentally conscious which includes not only developing green energy and limiting emissions, but also cleaning up the environmental mistakes of the past. The world is not renewable, and our next Vice President should probably know that.