Does President Bush, powerfully astride a proverbial aircraft carrier rocking on the ocean's perspiring surface undulating like waves, survey the nation’s hoary horizon of power plants erect like smokestacks, not misunderestimating the dirty deed he did for these dischargers, and does he (flush with satisfaction) boast, “Emissions accomplished"?
Are we to believe that the Bush administration pursued a cynical agenda over the past eight years to delay and avoid air pollution reductions by utility companies, ending up with no significant, mandated reductions in smog, soot, toxic and global warming air pollution from power plants? Or was that just the outcome based on some combination of intentional risk-taking, negligence, unintended consequences and/or bad luck? What explains the Bush administration’s air pollution agenda for power plants?
We interrupt this previously scheduled post for an important announcement: NRDC bloggers are participating during the upcoming week in the inaugural NRDC Bulwer-Lytton © Environmental Blogging Competition to select the worst opening sentence of a post on Switchboard. The competition follows the deliciously dreadful example of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a literary parody contest that San Jose State University sponsors each year. This year’s awesomely awful winner in the actual contest can be read here.
NRDC’s competition will follow the same model, with the difference being that the opening sentence of a Switchboard post must address an environmental or energy or public health topic that an NRDC blogger otherwise would cover. Plus, the blogger must go on to complete a post that otherwise would stand on its own on Switchboard.
The competition will run for a week, starting today, and the winner will be announced at the end of the week after next, following voting by Switchboard’s bloggers. Switchboard readers are encouraged to cast their votes by commenting on individual posts, and those votes will be factored heavily into the final tally.
Let the contest begin!
I’m taking the liberty of not responding to my own questions above for now, in order to kick off the contest for my fellow Switchboard bloggers. I will explore the questions above and related issues in a more focused post later. Stay tuned.
And in the meantime, read more of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest entries here.