Until I moved to the Pacific Northwest, most of the salmon I ate came from cans. I was not fond of it. Then one day I ate fresh salmon and became a salmon lover. An added plus is salmon’s contribution to a healthy diet, one of those foods you can enjoy that is good for you.
Salmon fishing also provides jobs. One of the greatest habitats for wild salmon is Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. Salmon harvesting provides jobs for 14,000 Alaskans, according to Timothy Egan, columnist for The New York Times. It’s a clean and sustainable industry.
However, the Trump administration has recently reversed protection for the bay, favoring a mining conglomerate’s proposed plan to mine copper and gold there. Previous findings indicated the mine could send tons of toxic waste into the bay, harming the salmon habitat.
Scott Pruitt, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, met with leaders of the mining company before the reversal of protection,
In addition, Pruitt has termed President Trump’s intention to end the regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions as the end of the “war on coal.”
Some thought of those regulations as the war on polluted air.
Egan refers to Trump’s reversal of many formal environmental protections as “the war on the planet.”
Thanks for bringing up the deregulation of the oil industry in some of Alaska’s pristine areas. Prudhoe Bay is but one of the areas endangered by deregulation. The U.S. addiction to oil and coal when we could be developing environmentally friendly sources of energy makes no sense for us or for future citizens of both the U.S. and the world.
From what I understand, it would also make sense economically to begin investing in less polluting forms of energy. China, for example, is seeking to be a forerunner in this kind of energy. They and nations such as India are searching for cheaper forms to fight the pollution costs in their countries. In other words, markets are growing for it.