Did you hear the one about: How many EPA administrators does it take fix the environment?

Relax, Inboxers

Relax, Inboxers. I, the guy who usually writes this column, haven´t been kidnapped. (Though if I ever were, now would be a better time than most for that to happen.) No, it´s just that I´m swamped this week with extra work, most of it having to do with our 2006 Municipal Recycling Survey, which mails Monday. So today Inbox presents a guest column by Waste News Editor Allan Gerlat. The topic: a recent get-together of former EPA bosses to commemorate the agency´s 35th birthday. The event, as you may have heard, turned into something different than its planners had envisioned. Take it away, Allan. -- PF

Six former heads of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with current chief Stephen Johnson, discussed the state of the environment at a roundtable meeting to commemorate the EPA´s 35th anniversary. What they talked about most was global warming. All the ex-administrators agreed that there should be a greater sense of urgency about addressing this issue than is taking place under the Bush administration.

More than one of the participants made the strong point that we can´t wait until 100 percent of the scientists in the world agree that global warming is a problem, or how much of a problem it is. Even if that happened, by then it´d be too late.

That´s one of the difficulties with global warming, and a lot of environmental issues. Depletion of resources, overpopulation, water treatment infrastructure, recycling vs. disposal -- they all can be seen as down-the-road matters, not in-your-face emergencies. The solutions are enormously complex and challenging.

Johnson, not surprisingly, defended the administration, saying it´s spending $20 billion in research and technology to reverse global warming. Bush wants the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas intensity, while maintaining economic competitiveness. There´s the rub: Let´s address global warming, but within reason. Is that good enough? Johnson´s peers don´t seem to think so.

But no one´s going to know for sure. What it´s going to take is a leap of faith on the part of enough politicians in the United States and abroad to make this a priority. Essentially, if we´re going to err, let´s err on the side of the environment.

It´s basically the same philosophy the Bush administration took toward those infamous weapons of mass destruction. We weren´t sure they were there; but better to be safe than sorry, was the thinking.

Isn´t the risk of global warming just as big a threat, one over which we don´t want to be caught unprepared?

Allan Gerlat is editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.