Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, December 28, 1993 TAG: 9312280168
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Bob McConnell believes that permanent improvements in the environment will require sacrifices that might mean limits on cars and appliances and higher prices for gasoline, electricity and a variety of other staples and services.
"Everybody feels like they have the right to do whatever they want to," McConnell said. "But they don't have that right, or they shouldn't."
McConnell, who teaches environmental geology, expanded on that theme in an essay published a few months ago.
The Chesapeake Bay, the largest and most productive estuary in the United States, will be largely denuded of life and usefulness by 2020 without "major permanent and fundamental changes in the American economic system and personal lifestyles," McConnell wrote.
"So massive is the required change in our society that nothing less than significant new contributions from America's farmers, utilities, motorists and citizens must be obtained," he wrote.
It was the part about contributions that earned McConnell brief celebrity on the nationally syndicated Rush Limbaugh Show.
"He thought I meant taxes, new taxes, but I didn't" McConnell said. "I meant taking responsibility, individual responsibility" for environmental damage, McConnell said.
Limbaugh read aloud from the piece on the air in August, using it to make a favorite point about the extremism of "environmental wackos."
Limbaugh called McConnell a "studied intellectual" with a pipe and a glass of port.
An inaccurate portrait, but McConnell smilingly admits Limbaugh would probably be just as horrified by the real Bob McConnell.
McConnell believes Americans should have tougher environmental laws and be willing to pay for them, although if he had his way the payments might be user fees instead of taxes. If a gallon of gas cost $5.50 in damage to the environment and other costs, it would cost $5.50 at the pump.
And if McConnell were environment czar, America might stop building roads and power plants altogether.
Pleasure boats would no longer zoom about the bay, disgorging sewage and swill.
"A lot of pollution comes from just one individual who thinks his or her contribution is insignificant," McConnell said.
The Chesapeake Bay, where McConnell has concentrated his research, is sometimes picked out as an environmental success story.
A huge public and private effort to save the bay over the past 20 years has produced significant successes, scientists said.
"Real progress has been made in reducing some, but not all, important pollutants," the Chesapeake Bay Foundation wrote in a recent report.
"Much of the easy part is done now," said William Baker, president of the private group.
"But it doesn't have to take new taxes to complete the job," Baker added.
There is no cost estimate for the entire bay cleanup project, Baker said.
"It got so bad, even small successes could be shown to be major," McConnell said.
For example, grass that once covered much of the bay floor is about 90 percent destroyed, McConnell said.
But in the past 10 years, the amount of grass remaining has increased 50 percent.
"That sounds good, until you realize you're talking about going from 10 percent to 15 percent," of the original grass, McConnell said.
Limbaugh probably won't care for McConnell's upcoming article on the same subject.
"What I've concluded is that, ideally, the bay could support a population about half what it is now," McConnell said.
Given that the area's population will probably continue to increase, that puts an even greater burden on people and their government, he said.
"We all have to be responsible for it."
by CNB