The logic of maintaining forest health by intelligent logging, and maintaining roads to facilitate such logging and aid in fire suppression, seems irrefutable. We watch in amazement when modern herbicides and pesticides are labeled as harmful to our health when our lifespans have increased nearly 40 percent since we began using modern agricultural chemicals in the late 1940s. And we are baffled when the public accepts the notion that air pollution is responsible for increased asthma, even when presented with the facts that asthma has increased as air pollution has fallen, and the greatest increases in asthma have come in undeveloped countries. This list of amazing contradictions between fact and public perception could go on forever. The explanation, we fear more and more, is becoming clear.
Some personal examples seem to be powerful indicators of what is at work here.
We talked with one such couple recently. She's in her late 30s, he just turned 50. An interesting age spread. The talk eventually came around to how little we have in common, they expressing their total lack of interest in politics and government, let alone environmental affairs. We did have very little in common.