August 18, 2004
8/18 - Shifting Frickin' Baselines: NRDC beach report shows once again the public adjusting to closed beaches
What's the relevance of "shifting baselines" to the average person? Beach closures for starters. NRDC has released its annual report on beach water quality revealing "another record breaking year!". As in the wrong kind of record to break. Beach closure days exceeded 18,000, a 51% increase from 2002.
And there were how many protests of beach closures? That, my friends, is "shifting baselines," when the public readjusts their beach-going habitats to find the beaches that are open and bypasses the dirty ones rather than demand their clean-up.
So let's see..instead of protesting, people drive _further_ to get to a less polluted beach. So that means more fossil fuel consumption and more air pollution. More fuel=>costs more to get to the beach? I'd think people would be all over that, considering how they complain about property and sales taxes.
So not only don't we care if the water is polluted, but we're willing to pay more for this "benefit" of our modern way of life?
UGH!
Posted by: Jon at August 19, 2004 03:39 PMJon makes several great comments. People need to look at the end result, so that we dont have a result that ends poorly.
Posted by: Tony at August 22, 2004 12:26 PM