New Venice Jim Culleny There's a lake in north-central New Jersey called Hopatcong which was a 2,500 acre, blue-and-white-collar water park long before the idea gained a foothold in the family recreation industry. Over-looking Hopatcong, you might have called it idyllic. But, when I was growing up, the lake had a major problem. Besides being a family fun retreat, it was also, in part, an open sewer. It’s not like that today, of course. Eventually people got squeamish about vacationing in a toilet. Even as a boy, when I was told this, I was puzzled. What would possess normally common-sensical people from Jersey City or Newark to come to beautiful Hopatcong to cool off in its waters, build little cabins around it, then do something as masochistic as flushing their waste into it? It was probably one of those schizophrenic economic decisions we all make now and then: a case of instant gratification wrestling with long term good. After all, laying pipe from latrines directly into the lake was way cheaper than investing in septic systems. They must have all been Republicans. In fact, to date, the Bush administration’s environmental strategy has been founded upon this Lake-as-Sewer principle. This is nothing new; but, ever oblivious-to-the-obvious, they’ve pushed such financial considerations to new extremes of sellf-abuse. In her June 6th column, Texas commentator Molly Ivins says, "Throwing around words like "fantastic" and "stupefying" is considered bad form outside the tabloid press. But I'm damned if I know what else to say about the news that the Bush administration has decided that global warming is indeed taking place and they are planning to do exactly nothing about it." Ivins was referring to a June 5th New York Times article that tells us the U.S. has just reported to the United Nations that global warming will substantially alter our climate in the next few decades. Finally, in the face of impossible-to-deny scientific evidence (but with the lethargy of oil-logged seals surfacing in a Texas-sized spill), the Bush administration admits that global warming is caused, for the most part, by humans burning fossil fuels. Duh. But environmentalists should not exult. The report’s solution is that we should "adapt to inevitable changes", rather than do anything about it. The president did not challenge this view. What vision! Oh boy, a president even more self-absorbed than Bill Clinton. Sticking with our Lake Hopatcong analogy, what the administration is saying is that we’d better learn to free-style through our fecal deposits no matter how thick they get because the president is not sending in any marines with skimmers. Why? Could it be because it might cramp the style of his primary constituents, stubborn and greedy corporate moguls? How can we trust a President to keep us safe from terrorists who reports a global environmental disaster in the making and, in the same breath, tells us to keep on flushing? We can’t. Though the report was issued quietly by the Environmental Protection Agency, whose top officials are appointed by the president, he expressed doubt about its accuracy. His problem with it is probably that its findings seemed to back the view of many scientists who believe that global warming is caused primarily by emissions from automobiles, power plants, and oil refineries, all of which are industries heavily invested in the president’s continued political success, and with which he shares an intimate and lasting bond. The report warns of of drought, damage from melting snow and permafrost, public health dangers caused by extreme heat and air pollution, and the disappearance of many unique ecosystems. It predicts the barrier islands of the east coast may well be engulfed by the Atlantic. Reckless as ever, George Bush remains a sceptic. Given his dangerous financial affiliations, it occurs to me that if terrorists really want to harm us they should forget about weapons of mass destruction and concentrate on accumulating enough stock in U.S. Auto and Oil companies to really impress Republican corporate suck-ups. This would be perfectly legal and doesn’t involve circumventing the INS, or immediate suicide (globe-icide is another issue). Then, with a liberal slathering of campaign contributions they might be able to keep George Bush in office long enough to make the bible-belt as sandy as Saudi Arabia, turn Texas into one huge barbecue pit, and transform Manhattan into a new-world Venice complete with 400 horse-power, carbon-spewing, gondolas. The truth is you can do more long-lasting and widespread damage with a well placed political contribution than you can with a jumbo jet.