We try to avoid straying into politics here in the travel world at Gadling, but occasionally politics strays into travel in a very inconvenient manner.
For those Americans in the crowd, this has occurred most alarmingly in the field of environmental protection. And yes, I’m pointing my finger at the Bush Administration.
Actually, I’m going to let Vanity Fair point the finger. Their Green Issue this month contains the following article: The Bush Administration: Texas Chainsaw Management. The article, by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., tackles the irony of Bush appointing “more than 100 top environmental posts to representatives of polluting industries.” The idea here is that Bush has appointed the fox to guard the hen house.
The most poignant example provided by Kennedy is Mark Rey, the Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment who oversees the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Before landing his position, Rey was a former timber-industry lobbyist who served as Vice President of Forest Resources for the American Forest and Paper Association from 1992-1994. The goal of this organization can be summed up rather succinctly; less trees, more paper. To see more of Rey’s shocking anti-environmental resume, click here.
And then there is the case of Phillip Cooney, who was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute before becoming Bush’s chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Yikes. After “resigning” when it was discovered by the New York Times that he was editing government documents to downplay the oil industries impact on Global Warming, Cooney accepted a job at, big surprise here, Exxon Mobil.
Kennedy goes on to describe a dozen other cases throughout the Bush administration, each as equally frightening as the two mentioned above and equally as detrimental upon our planet.
So, the next time you decide to go for a walk in the woods, and can’t seem to find any, you’ll know where to point the finger.