Changes

* Liberal environmentalist demands for cleaner burning [[gasoline]] led to the addition of MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) into gasoline starting in 1979, with higher levels of MTBE mandated after 1992 to comply with the demands of the [[Clean Air Act]].  The leakage of MTBE from tens of thousands of storage tanks has contaminated tens of thousands of water wells throughout the U.S.  An even small release of MTBE can render a large supply of water unpotable.  MTBE was finally banned in some states in 2004-2005, but the damage has already been done.  The cost of environmental cleanup and lawsuits  from its use range upwards of $30 billion.

* Liberal environmentalist demands for cleaner burning [[gasoline]] led to the addition of MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) into gasoline starting in 1979, with higher levels of MTBE mandated after 1992 to comply with the demands of the [[Clean Air Act]].  The leakage of MTBE from tens of thousands of storage tanks has contaminated tens of thousands of water wells throughout the U.S.  An even small release of MTBE can render a large supply of water unpotable.  MTBE was finally banned in some states in 2004-2005, but the damage has already been done.  The cost of environmental cleanup and lawsuits  from its use range upwards of $30 billion.

* Liberal environmentalist opposition to [[logging]], including any [[selective logging]] at all, on public lands has caused an excessive fuel buildup in forests and wildlands.  While periodic [[fire]]s are a natural part of the ecology and most forest and grassland types are dependent on fire to one degree or another, the fires resulting from excessive fuel buildup are neither natural nor environmentally benign.  This buildup is thanks to the near-ban on logging in 1992 when a federal judge halted all logging in National Forests until the [[northern spotted owl]] could be protected, and the resulting [[William Jefferson Clinton|Clinton]] administration's forest policy which drastically cut logging in the National Forests.

* Liberal environmentalist opposition to [[logging]], including any [[selective logging]] at all, on public lands has caused an excessive fuel buildup in forests and wildlands.  While periodic [[fire]]s are a natural part of the ecology and most forest and grassland types are dependent on fire to one degree or another, the fires resulting from excessive fuel buildup are neither natural nor environmentally benign.  This buildup is thanks to the near-ban on logging in 1992 when a federal judge halted all logging in National Forests until the [[northern spotted owl]] could be protected, and the resulting [[William Jefferson Clinton|Clinton]] administration's forest policy which drastically cut logging in the National Forests.

* [[Animal rights]] activists, in the name of defending animals have broken into laboratories and released the animals thus "rescued" into the wild.  If these "rescued" animals are non-native species they can become invasives, causing ecological harm from having been released and then multiplying in an ecosystem in which they lack natural enemies.

* [[Animal rights]] activists, in the name of defending animals have broken into laboratories and released the animals thus "rescued" into the wild.  If these "rescued" animals are non-native species they can become invasives, causing ecological harm from having been released and then multiplying in an ecosystem in which they lack natural enemies.  This has happened, among other places, in the [[United Kingdom]] where non-native [[mink]] were released into the wild by animal rights activists. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1617919.stm] In addition, at least one case exists where [[vegetarian]] activists purchased [[fish]] with the intention of setting them free, releasing non-native sea lampreys into New Jersey's Passiac River.  This same species has wreaked havoc on native species in the Great Lakes [http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/vegetarian_reli.php].

==See also==

==See also==