Pretty Countryside While The Planet Fires Up

Republican John Loughlin is currently the only candidate for the House of Representatives in the first congressional district in Rhode Island. Incumbent Patrick Kennedy has announced his intention to step down from the seat after the current session of Congress. Loughlin’s campaign troubling news for people who understand environmental issues at more than a superficial level.

Loughlin claims to support the environment. “I built a strong record of protecting the environment. I was instrumental in amending the 2009 budget to include money for Open Space and preservation of farms,” he says of his record as a state legislator.

Look at the details, however, and Loughlin’s approach to environmental issues becomes rather troubling. While Loughlin supports the preservation of farms in Rhode Island, he opposes legislation to deal with climate issues that threaten the environmental integrity of ecosystems around the world. Loughlin opposes climate legislation because of worries that it would increase the price of oil.

Loughlin’s idea of protecting the environment seems to focus on an elitist, unsustainable vision of the environment as a landscape to be enjoyed by people in their cars while on weekend drives out into the country. With cheap gasoline in our tanks, we can speed by at 60 miles per hour, too fast to notice the details of a changing climate, happy so long as we see a few red barns and a holstein cow chewing its cud.

We need leaders in Congress who understand the details about how the ecosystems of our planet function when healthy. Politicians like John Loughlin, content to drive us to disaster so long as the view is pretty on the way, don’t fit the serious demands of our times.