If the USA is the greatest country in the world....

Why aren't we at the top of the list in environmental health? According to the Sierra Club magazine (May/June 2006 issue), the USA is number 28 in a study of world environmental health. The data of 133 nations was compiled by researchers at Columbia & Yale Universities and "measured how well nations are doing in areas such as air, water, energy, biodiversity & habitat. The study's authors also compare each nation with its geographic and economic peers."

The top six environmental performers are: New Zealand (go NZ!!!), Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, The UK & Austria. Chile, Colombia, Japan, Malaysia, Slovakia & Taiwan, and most of Western Europe are all ahead of the US in the rankings.

The US did get good marks for water quality (thank God for that!) and pace of timber harvest. We failed in ozone emisions (score=.1 out of 100) and RENEWABLE-ENERGY PRODUCTION (okay that's not really a surprise. Score =4).

So tell me again, why we didn't join in the Kyoto Treaty? Was it because we are already so ahead of the rest of the world in protecting our environment?

Hmmm.....When smaller, so-called "less developed nations" are doing better than we are, maybe we'd better rethink what we're doing & how our actions affect the rest of the world because they do not only affect us (think wind & current).

I also have to question why our cars haven't evolved much in the last 50 years; other than creating a bigger, more gas-guzzling engine in the 50s or 60s. Think about it...most cars still get about the same Miles Per Gallon as they did decades ago. In some cases, like SUV's, they actually get less MPGs than cars from the 50s.

Of course, you can't think of that without questioning why we still rely on fossil fuels tho power our vehicles and cities. But I already have an answer on that one. It's because gas has been so underpriced for the last several decades.

Totally unrelated to the physical environment. If we are so great in our FREEDOM....why is is that our government has been SPYING on its own citizens for decades since the Cold War? And that some corporations (phone companies) have been aiding them?

Why aren't we pissed about this? Why aren't we protesting this? If our government has disregarded that freedom, what other rights are they disregarding?

Are we US citizens so afraid of Commies/terrorists/chaos/life that it's okay to lose rights in order to protect ourselves (thus leaving us more vunerable in other areas or to different tyrants)?

If we're such a Christian nation, why are we afraid anyway? Where's our faith in GOD to protect & keep us? We shouldn't have faith in man or government.

Or are we too busy consuming or in an entertainment-induced stupor to notice?

Socrates believed that living in a nation means residents give tacit consent to government activities. I'm sure wiser people than me have expressed this, but only when we do nothing, do we give tacit consent, while the government/nation, does immoral (even if they couch them in moral terms) things in our name.