Enviro,
You may have noted that I used the word "broad." I was not suggesting that there is zero to the Green Party's ideas concerning health and environment. For example, how many cancers are simply genetic, as in being plain unlucky to have the genetics that work against you? Nobody really knows. Does the Green party know for certain that all cancers are caused by degradations to the environment? Degradations to what degree?
My point is that for a party that puts the environment and health front and centre, there is not much clarity concerning the certainty of many of their assertions with respect to these concepts.
Unless one is making the accepts that the human race is meant to degrade and become more sick over time then it seems obvious that the alternative idea is that what we are eating, drinking, breathing, and doing is what is causing trends towards a sicker population. The environment obviously plays into the eating, drinking, and breathing part of the equation and the Green policy to encourage greater emphasis on physical fitness plugs into the "doing" part of the equation. With studies now starting to show that water quality is causing fish to be almost dangerous to eat because of the toxins in their bodies and cows getting diseases caused by cows eating feed containing beef byproducts there is cause for concern. We shouldn't do what is unnatural to animals, our bodies, and the environment until science tells us there is something wrong... we should be taking the opposite approach by looking at what is most natural and only do otherwise if it is proven safe.
I'm not too sure by what you mean, but in fact all individual human beings get sicker over time and eventually die. That is quite natural. What is "un-natural" is that as a group we are actually living longer and healthier lives. We are now, in terms of numbers, the most plentiful large mammal on the planet. Over the last seventy years we, as a species, have actually done some quite "un-natural" things that have extended life, such as eliminating cancer from bodies, innoculating against numerous diseases, creating effective drug therapies to extend life where there otherwise would have been death. Genetic breakdown, infection, disease and death are all "natural" occurences. What we do to stave them off is often contrary to what some people have called "the natural order of things."
As for the idea of not doing things unnatural to animals and our bodies, well, too late. We can't turn cows, pigs, bananas, tomatoes, domesticated dogs, numerous bacteria and so on back into their natural, earlier forms. As a species, we can't do well by giving up that unnatural act of agriculture. But we can do some more things to make it less damaging to the environment. That will take knowledge, and will potentially have people doing more unnatural things in the process.
The Green Party has not cornered the issue of pollution for itself. The idea that they sell themselves as the only party that will do something about pollution and health is a bit rich in my opinion. Simply put, if one does not understand the causes and complexity of processes in the environment, then one is doomed to fail at dealing with them. So what I am saying is that while the Greens are big on promises, they are quite weak on specifics in numerous instances. That is not saying that environmental degradation is not a serious issue; it is suggesting that the Green party has too many platitudes in its platform, and not enough verifiable data to back up many of their claims. But in politics, they are not alone in this. It is their Adamistic "back to nature and we shall return to eden" attitude that I find so patently unrealistic (quotes are mine for emphasis).
The understanding of the environment should be pursued with a deliberate and impartial approach. I am concerned that politicizing it with an aim to accessing power will only obscure and potentially polarize attitudes to what should be considered as serious issues. Sadly, this is what is happening to much of the Greenhous/global warming/climate change debate. Politics is gradually snowing the science just as much more concerted research is required in order to understand a fabulously complex phenomenon.
Personally, I find the dichotomy between natural and "un-natural" (as in human made) an unrealistic one. We are part of the global environment, we and what we do are all "natural" and a product of our evolution and the on-going evolution of this planet. We have brains, the capacity to learn and to adapt, and depending on what we do and on what the world throws at us, we could continue to quite well on earth, and quite well for the earth.
Sorry about the longish post everyone.
