The most recent editorial from The Eagle editorial board is one that provides yet another confirmation of a long held belief about Progressives: their self-professed love of reason and science only go as far as reason and science reinforce their ideological aims. In the middle of The Eagle's condescending lecture to us about how awful we all are to the environment, this observer cannot help but noticed the ink used by The Eagle to advocate for a policy that they themselves admit has "lacking" evidence in order to avoid what they call "a future environmental apocalypse." One hopes the ink used to produce such illogical nonsense does not prevent the paper their editorial was printed on from being recycled, for there are clearly better uses for it than that.
The Eagle has decided to endorse the permanent removal of trays from the Terrace Dining Room in order to force us to reduce our environmental waste because, as The Eagle alludes, we don't do a good enough job on our own. More absurd than the proposal itself however, is the way in which The Eagle justifies their support for it. The proposal came from a class studying the amount of waste that TDR puts out, and the class is currently testing to see if removing trays will actually reduce waste. The Eagle, apparently deciding that the scientific method takes too long, wants to, as they say, just "do this already." Now, given that the effectiveness of the proposal has yet to be proven, one wonders what has made The Eagle so smitten with it as to endorse it without proof. Well, they quite literally tell us that it will help forestall an environmental apocalypse, and cite "reports from TDR workers" who want fewer things to wash as their support for this illogical leap. Now, TDR workers not wanting to do their job comes as no surprise to someone who has watched everything from pirated movie deals and workers' children swipe people into the dining hall occur so they can spend their time turning up the radio volume. So I hope you will forgive me if I think their desire to "wash fewer dishes" has less to do with the environment than The Eagle does.
There is not a good reason for individuals to be indifferent to how they treat the environment; we are stewards of both society and our surroundings. But, much like those at the national political level who wish to impose baseless environmental regulations after years of global temperatures cooling to the point where they have negated their net rise at the end of the 20th century, we must be wary at the local level when the "enlightened" among us want to decide things for us. For, as is so often the case, their arguments amount to little more than hot air.
William J. Haun Senior, School of Public Affairs and former president of the AU College Republicans
