- To - Editor, Guest Opinion
- From - Frosty Wooldridge
- 303 666 6186
- Louisville, CO
- Submission: Guest commentary
- www.frostywooldridge.com
-
- Denver's Toxic Air-Laden Brown Cloud
- 10-16-7
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- Jerd Smith, excellent journalist for the Rocky Mountain
News, wrote a sobering piece, October 18, 2007, "Activists urge stronger
CO2 controls". She reported, "Oil and gas producers, whose activities
generate thousands of tons of carbon dioxide annually, should be forced
to install new technologies to reduce those emissions, clean air activists
said Monday."
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- Above her report, a 1996 picture of Denver's smoggy,
toxic, thick Brown Cloud blanketed the skyline. This past summer, that
same air pollution failed Environmental Protection Agency tests for too
much ozone. In other words, cars, trucks, homes and industry create toxic
air that each of us breathe every second of every day of our lives in Denver.
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- What's amazing about the report stems from a quote under
the picture, "Though significant improvements have been made since
then"
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- Let's look at the facts "since then" in 1996.
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- The Brown Cloud still blankets the skyline 24/7. Since
11 years ago, Denver added tens of thousands of new homes, buildings, over
200,000 cars and more coal burning to add millions of pounds of carbon
dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate, toxins and chemical waste into the
air over Denver.
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- Jeremy Nichols of Colorado Clean Air said, "We must
start somewhere."
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- If we're going to start "somewhere", why don't
we start at the source of all our air pollution problems in Colorado?
Why do we dance around the big bad population gorilla growing by the day
around our state? Why do we pretend that the main cause for all air pollution-overpopulation--isn't
the problem? How can rational, reasonable, educated people stand in denial?
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- If Denver enjoyed a population of 250,000, we wouldn't
have an air pollution problem! However, Denver's population exploded past
2,000,000 several years ago. It's expected to double to 4,000,000 within
the next 30 years. How stupid are we to add that many people to a state
without enough water, today? How stupid are we to add that many people
to create that much more air pollution in the future?
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- No matter how many methods of mitigation we employ like
scrubbers, clean air technologies, cleaner fuels, ad nausea-none will solve
our air pollution problems unless we stabilize our population.
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- Who in their right mind thinks that adding 200,000 or
500,000 or 1,000,000 cars in the coming years, tens of thousands or millions
of homes with exhaust stacks or thousands of more buildings that must be
heated and cooled will solve the problem?
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- I challenge John Temple, Publisher of the Rocky Mountain
News, along with Jerd Smith, to write about people who address these problems
with more rational minds. Report on people who bring ideas to the table
that work. Quit dancing around the realities by giving us a bunch of unworkable,
worthless 20th century sure-to-fail policies. Quit selling stupid idioms
like "Smart Growth, Slow Growth and Managed Growth" which, in
the end, add up to growth that poisons the air.
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- What do we need? We need mandates like a "Colorado
Carrying Capacity Policy" ; "Colorado Maximum Population Policy"
; "Colorado Environmental Impact Policy" ; "Colorado Water
Policy" and "Colorado Quality of Life Policy."
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- How many people can this state hold in order that all
enjoy enough food to eat, water to drink, animals to have a place to live,
clean air and quality of life? That limit can be our choice or nature
will create a brutal response in the coming years.
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- That's what we need to solve our air pollution, water,
too many people, species extinction and other dilemmas. In the end, we
either deal with reality or reality will deal us one heck of a nasty bundle
of consequences. The more extreme our numbers, the more extreme our children's
consequences. It's as simple as the nose on your face.
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