Many in our county are staunch environmentalists who have frequently claimed that man is destroying the environment by his varied activities (e.g. oil drilling, development, forest harvests, agricultural grading).

Those same people claim that they can save it if only we would stop doing whatever it is they don’t like, for example using a gas-powered lawn mower.

In the last few years, the notion of environmental equity as a solution has creeped into regulatory jargon and in 1992 the Environmental Protection Agency created a policy planning document to deal with the issue.

In it they claim that minority groups are impacted more than the rest of the population due to several environmental factors including global warming, thus more regulation is required.

How they came to this conclusion took a circuitous path from exposure to air pollutants to lead poisoning, and eventually to the weather.

For example, for decades we have been told the civilization will end if we don’t stop global warming; I am assuming they meant all of us, not just one group of people.

When I was much younger, we were told the world would end in 1970; it’s 2024 and the end is nowhere in sight. People and nations adapt to changes in the weather.

The solutions they propose seem to be limited in scope. Why? Because only a few countries adopt the ideas. And these ideas cost billions to implement.

Wind farms and solar projects have a negative impact on the immediate environment during the mining of the materials to make them, surrounding the projects once they are built, and when disposing of equipment that needs replacement creates large quantities of hazardous waste.

An oil spill, harvesting trees or mowing a lawn are very short-lived events when compared to the damage done like the “debris flow” in Montecito following a huge fire spanning two counties or wildfires that wipe out towns surrounded by thick forests.

Oil spills can be cleaned up and forests can regrow following controlled burns and new trees planted following harvest.

Many times, large fires are the result of poor wildland management practices caused by an artificial concern to protect old growth vegetation or the potential to damage some long-gone plant species or critter that may have grown there centuries ago.

Even the poster child for local environmentalism, the South Coast oil spill of 1969, was a transient event in history. However, local environmentalists keep using this event among others to stop any hint of fossil fuel production in our county.

Meanwhile, the county government can’t even manage the only oil facility it owns in Toro Canyon; a spill from this facility occurred a few months ago and following the event it was discovered that the county didn’t even have a required permit to operate it. The spill was cleaned up, but the county had to pay the EPA a substantial fine for its error.
 
The lesson for the public at large is that as hard as they try, environmental activists, including Santa Barbara County regulators, haven’t really demonstrated a clear understanding of the complexity of the environment in general.

There is no way humans can have the same impact as nature on our earth – so quit trying to convince us otherwise.

If you have a hard time trying to agree with what I am saying, pay close attention to the results of the next naturally occurring volcanic event or major earthquake.

The second lesson concerns liberal media biases in reporting. Within mere hours after and even during a catastrophic disaster, the press and some politicians began ranting, second guessing, and blaming whichever political party happens to be in power for what they consider a “slow response.” 
 
These partisan attacks are tasteless and illogical.

Acquiring knowledge concerning the scope and severity of the damage during and following an event takes time; trying to come up with a plan to prevent future events takes even longer. It would have been reckless at best for anyone to stand before press microphones when information is so sketchy. 
 
Even worse is for environmental opportunists to blame humans for naturally occurring disasters. The notion that regulating in the name of environmental equity isn’t going to solve anything either.