The other day I published a post on Hannah Blog, which I thought too quirky to publish elsewhere, but the editor of LiketheDew disagreed, so, in the interest of promoting that site, here's the link to The Ethical Man Lusts in his Heart--a conclusion that was obviously prompted by Jason Carter's focus on ethics in his campaign for the governorship of Georgia.
Ever since, ethics has been on my mind and today it surfaced in contemplating our relationship to water, particularly the Water Quality Standards which the state of Georgia has adopted in accordance with promulgations from the Environmental Protection Agency.
If you don't want to be preached to, stop reading here.
"Take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints" needs to be matched with "take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but waves" for man's casual relationship to our watery world. The formal classification of water bodies according to use/abuse is another example of hubris in the extreme.
Illogical thinking is a clue. Some of these things are not like the others:
Water Use Classifications. Water use classifications for which the criteria of this Paragraph are applicable are as follows:
Drinking Water Supplies
Recreation
Fishing, Propagation of Fish, Shellfish, Game and Other Aquatic Life
Wild River
Scenic River
Coastal Fishing
Use is not really the issue. Exploitation is. To use is to leave an item in the same condition it was found. To exploit is to abuse. Which means that "use" is being deployed as a euphemism. But then, abuse has been the historical ethic of the USA. Perhaps people who exploit their own kind can't really be expected to respect the integrity of their environment.
The definition of "recreation" pretty much sets the stage:
Recreation: General recreational activities such as water skiing, boating, and
swimming, or for any other use requiring water of a lower quality, such as recreational fishing. These criteria are not to be interpreted as encouraging water contact sports in proximity to sewage or industrial waste discharges regardless of treatment requirements:
Funny how creation has been stripped from recreation, much as the public has been stripped from republican. Somehow, the meaning of 're' as 'to do again' has been lost. Is it because these people don't do to begin with? They don't create because they just take what they want?