J500 Media and the Environment

Editor’s note: The following is part of the Tangled Up In Green series put together by yours truly and Adam. This piece was originally published last week. Our current topic addresses the environmental concerns linked to rising corn prices. Rather than post the entire piece here, I thought I’d provide a snippet and allow you to continue reading it at RedGreenandBlue.org if you’re interested. Feel free to leave a comment at either site if you feel so moved.

We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that’s all we’ve got

Okay, so maybe the above David Bowie lyric was about alien invasion and the impending end of humankind as we know it, but it’s been playing on a loop inside my head ever since last Wednesday, when we “celebrated” the fifth anniversary of our war in Iraq.

Five years. My brain definitely hurts a lot.

While the current administration will have us believe that the surge is working and that stability has returned to once volatile regions, the truth is probably closer to a “whack-a-mole” strategy that shows no signs of leading to a peaceful resolution for this ongoing nightmare. A majority of Americans now say this war was a mistake, and we continue to hear reports—be it from the peripheries—of civilian lives lost, soldiers’ lives lost, soldiers injured, vets suffering from PTSD, tax dollars spent, etc. Still, perhaps one of the greatest casualties of this war gets very little mention.

I’m speaking, of course, of the environment. Read the rest of this entry