Media AWOL As Earth Day Goes Up In Smoke

Along with the usual cable suspects, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC were sporting so much green yesterday that I thought I it was St. Patrick’s Day and that I had awakened from a Rip Van Winkle-like coma after sleeping for almost eleven months. Nope, it was Earth Day 2010.

All day we were blanketed with stories and information about our responsibilities to the planet and how we could change our lives to pollute less. And I wondered what the leaders of this great nation were doing today. How were they leading by example?

Well, as it turns out, our leaders did some big things for the planet on Earth Day:

• President Obama flew Air Force One to New York City so he could address the Wall Street people and the country about plans to clean up the financial industries.
• Vice President Joe “BFD” Biden fired up Air Force Two and also came to New York so he could be a guest on “The View” and finally address the issue of his profane outburst at the signing of the Health Care Bill (a month ago).
• The U.S. Air Force launched a “secret space plane” last night as well.

The simple act of bringing the President to New York City changes everything in the air space over the Eastern corridor of the U.S. Add Joe Biden to the mix and you get the equivalent of the worst gridlock you have ever experienced. The skies over New York were literally blocked for hours. Planes scheduled to arrive at any of the three local airports were re-routed and or circling the area until the Feds decided it was “all clear.” Aside from the thousands of gallons of fuel burned flying Air Force One and Air Force Two to New York, you must consider the added fuel that was burned as planes were circling over the city waiting for permission to land, many of them filled with planes returning from a week of being trapped in Europe by the Icelandic volcano.

And look at the launch of any spacecraft, it kicks out lengthy trails of exhaust from the burning of the engines required to leave the planet. I am a huge fan of science and space exploration, but couldn’t we have picked another day besides Earth Day to launch this? It’s not like Earth Day sneaked up us.

Did anyone mention this on any network? I did not see a single reporter questioning this blatant waste of fuel. But why would the media bring it up? They hardly mentioned Obama’s last Earth Day trip when he flew to Iowa and back. A flight that reportedly burned almost 9,000 gallons of jet fuel. I wonder how many trees had to be planted to make that a carbon-neutral trip? Couldn’t we start using some of those fancy video conferencing facilities installed in the White House Situation Room?

I have lived through of every Earth Day, all 40 of them. Who doesn’t want clean air and water? The year before the first Earth Day, we had rivers could be so polluted by toxic chemicals that they would actually catch on fire.

After that summer, America seriously started recycling, became environmentally aware and in many places we have improved the air and water quality here in the good old U.S. of A. In short, over the past 40 years we have made big progress on the environment, without killing the engine of capitalism. And yet the administration is constantly telling us that we have so much more to do.

So why aren’t they doing it themselves? And why isn’t the media pointing out the obvious lack of personal environmental responsibility coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?