John Walsh shoots himself in the foot
Daily Inter Lake editor Frank Miele must have been delighted to have published the John Walsh op-ed on July 13: “Obama misses the mark on coal’s future.” If John wants to ensure he loses to Steven Daines in the U.S. Senate race in November 2014, articles like this one will assure it.
What few environmentalist constituents Walsh might have had will not vote for him now. The man just doesn’t get it. We DO NOT want dirty coal mined and shipped from Montana any more than we want the Keystone XL pipeline built. And, John, carbon sequestration does not technologically work. Under the intense pressure deep underground, carbon returns to its gaseous state (CO2) and seeps back up to the surface through microscopic fissures in the soil and rock and escapes, undetected, into the atmosphere. One can’t see it, smell it, or taste it to know it is happening. It spreads out too far and wide to monitor it with instrumentation above the ground where you sequestered it.
It’s not like John Walsh doesn’t already know this, as I have told him about it to his face before. No, he just has the misguided notion he can appeal to moderate Republicans and garner their votes. Belittling Barack Obama seems to be part of that strategy of ingratiating himself to the Republican majority in Montana.
As for Walsh’s recent call for wind energy development, he never accounts for the many majestic bald eagles, and others, that have been sucked into the huge spinning turbine blades and instantly killed. After all, what’s wrong with slaughtering/exterminating our national symbol, despite ESA protections, in the name of jobs and corporate profits and political votes?
Walsh’s lust for power by getting elected is understandable, but hardly commendable. He also very much needs to distinguish himself from Daines’ similar philosophy on forest ecology and hating wolves and bears if he has any expectation of capturing the significant environmentalist vote and serving again as a U.S. senator from Montana. So take a deep breath, John, if you dare, and do the right thing.
While you are at it, John, you need to develop a better attitude towards wildlife and their habitat, along with protecting the Endangered Species Act, or forget about our support.
“We will fight for these lost causes more than any other.”
Baum is a resident of Martin City.