The Environment, Introduction.

Don't call me a Treehugger. Because I'm not. I'm a corporate attorney at a large law firm that defends industrial polluters against enforcement actions brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Don't call me an Eco-freak, or Enviro, or Stinkin' Hippie. Because I'm not. I negotiate slaps on the wrist, and influence regulatory agencies to write rules that are lax on industry.

But don't say "The Environment" like it's a smear like "liberal" or (god-forbid) "socialized medicine."

The environment is apolitical. Rivers don't catch on fire because of Democrats. And clouds of toxic pollutants don't just kill Republicans. We all breath the air, and drink the water, and want our kids to have the opportunity to see wildlife in its native habitat.

But the Politicians have made The Environment political. (The Environment is a political construct, the environment is where we all live.) They have convinced the 95 percent of Americans who know little or nothing about the environment that people are either liberal, treehugging, Environmentalists (the worst smear); or they are freedom-loving, god-fearing Americans. (Americans do not want The Government protecting the Spotted Owl at the expense of the corporate bottom line - I mean the jobs of hardworking loggers.)

And when I say 95 percent of Americans know nothing about the environment, I don't mean it as an insult - I understand, that most people have other things to worry about. All I mean is that most people don't actually know what is being emitted from factories or in what quantities (actually, quite a lot of bad stuff), and they don't know what is being done about it. Which is not to say that they should. Environmental professionals can spend their whole career working on just a piece of the Clean Air Act.

If I could do one thing to improve the environment, I would de-politicize it so that we can all figure out how to live in a cleaner, healthier place. Because if The Environment continues to be political tool wielded in the battle between Democrats and Republicans, "Liberals" and "Conservatives," Hippies and Corporate Fascists, the only thing that will suffer will be all of us.