My earlier post on Canada geese reminded me of the importance of environmental issues in the last election.

According to this survey:

24% of respondants considered the environment as an "extremely important" issue (compared to 53% rating terrorism, the top spot, as "extremely important").

I'd almost forgotten about the other issues, so I returned to the CNN poll to see how the environment fared on the list.

Well I'll be horn-swaggled! Here, once again, are the topics in the CNN poll, folks:

Taxes (5%)

Education (4%)

Iraq (15%)

Terrorism (19%)

Economy/Jobs (20%)

Moral Values (22%)

Health Care (8%)

What would you have told the CNN pollsters if you were an environmental activist? The environment certainly isn't taxes, Iraq, education, terrorism, jobs, or health care, so I guess you'd be stuck with "moral values."

Hmmmm......

I'm getting confused. Considering that there are at least two cabinet level departments dedicated to environmental issues, that environmental regulations affect nearly every large company in the United States, and that international treaties are the subject of much debate, why didn't the environment at least show up as a issue?

Maybe it is one of the "moral values" after all. Here's an environmental activist who sees abortion not only as an environmental issue, but as a profoundly moral issue:

We must begin to directly address the true moral implications of abortion, which are these:

It is utterly immoral to force a woman to bear an unwanted child. It is immoral not just because of the impact to women but because of the impact to the earth and future generations. Billions of people today live in poverty on the edge of starvation. The World Wildlife Fund reports that we currently consume 20 percent more natural resources than the Earth can produce and that we have permanently reduced Earth's capacity to support life. The skyrocketing curve of population growth is about to meet the plunging curve of resource depletion.

If a woman does not want a child, then the Earth does not want it either. Far better to let a tiny embryo, the merest spark of life, be extinguished, than to risk the lives of so many who are already here. This is a moral choice of the highest order and it is one that all women are empowered to make.

Those who oppose abortion and reproductive choice are the ones who are anti-life.

Those who support a woman's right to choose and who want to help women all over the world gain access to reproductive health care are the ones who are morally righteous and who are on the side of life.

There is no cause more moral than this one: We shall leave a living planet to our children, not a wasteland.

But if abortion is a moral good because there are too many people, then why expend money and manpower to save oiled geese if there are already too many of them?

I suspect that what's good for the goose is a moral lesson for the goslings. Utilitarian arguments are for adults. There's an ostensible audience out there who are seen as in need of moral values.

And like it or not, oiled geese beat dead fetuses!

Don't ask me why; the manipulation of the human mind is something I abhor as much as groupthink. Watching the process is bad enough.

MORE RELIGION: Who's "in charge" of the Delaware River? Today I read there's actually someone with the title of "Riverkeeper" -- one Maya K. van Rossum. Among other things, she's opposed the Delaware Deepening project. (Deepening the river might well have prevented the recent spill -- a point highlighted by new post-spill restrictions on vessels at low tide). But whatever anyone might say about her, she's a true believer:

The Delaware Riverkeeper is not an elected official.

Van Rossum, a lawyer by training, is more of an environmental evangelist.

The river is her religion. And it needs our prayers.

The Delaware is home to the second-largest petrochemical complex in the country, she explains.

Seventy percent of the oil that winds up in Northeastern SUVs first makes a pit stop along the Delaware.

Don't get me started on home heating oil! That's even more evil than SUVs!