SS Badger - Trains Magazine

schlimm

Exactkt. The issue will never end as long as polluters continue.  And using the excuse that "others are polluting" is as lame as it is when a teen tries that one on his parents in regard to other "substances."

With respect to the lameness of excuses and the non-lameness of arguments against excuses, I believe that whatever the laws on recreational drugs, an regardless as to whether they are legal such as alcohol in most places and marijuana starting in some states, parents should have the authority to proscribe their use by their minor children.

I also believe that a municipality should have the right to ban coal-burning locomotives or ships or boats if they enact such laws, or even ban windmills or cellphone towers if that is what their residents want to do.

But the analogy between coal smoke from the SS Badger or from a restored steam locomotive and the use of recreational drugs by teens is a weak one.  Is a person drawing a moral equivalence from some persons deriving recreation from a steam locomotive excursion and minor child seeking recreation from drugs or alcohol that are either illegal or illegal for that child?

Do we want or even need a zero-tolerance policy for the emission of pollutants such as coal smoke?  Are we going to extend that policy to backyard cooking, wood fireplaces, bonfires, and two-stroke engines in chainsaws, string trimmers, and motor scooters, all of which give off polluting smoke?

And who are these "polluters"?  The word has an air of scapegoating as in "gangs", "Wall Street",  "slum lords", "monied interests", "immigrants", "international banking" or other dog-whistle terms for whoever both the Far Right and the Far Left want to blame our difficulties upon.

The polluters are you, me, and you over there, and hey, you too.  To the extent that we all drive cars (and ride trains, too) and eat farmed food, transport and refrigerate that food, and heat or cool our houses or even have houses to live in instead of sod huts, we all benefit from commercial activities that include combustion of fuels, smelting of metals, synthesis of chemicals, and the disposal of wastes.

Many of us conduct our lives without partaking of recreational drugs or in some cases, without consuming more than trace amounts of alcohol.  But I doubt that any of us could live without placing some waste burden in the environment.  That handling our natural biological waste has become a major industrial activity in the form of sewers and treatment plants is what distinguishes a "first world" society with much lower infectious disease rates and much longer life expentancy.  And that industrial activity with its own pollution problems comes into play everytime you flush.

I guess if as a society we want to ban coal-burning steam excursions and ban the SS Badger, that is a choice we can make through our representative government.  And maybe breathing the coal smoke is an anachronism that we can do away with, much like I doubt the historical recreation Colonial Williamsburg doesn't require its visitors to use Colonial Period rest room facilities.

If protecting the environment is a religion, I guess we can have a Religious Police chasing down sinners such as persons enjoying a campfire or a coal-burning steam locomotive excursion.  If protecting the environment, on the other hand, is a balancing act between allowing some pollution, emission, or waste discharge of minimal impact while prohibiting, restricting, or regulating more serious sources of pollution, taking into account both the quantity of the pollution as well as the benefit people derive from conducting the activity, I believe there is a place to allow the SS Badger to continue to operate.