Will future generations enjoy Manatee’s water quality? Your vote may decide | Opinion
“Enlightened self-interest” is defined as a philosophy in ethics when persons who act to further the interests of others ultimately serve their own self-interest.
Now more than ever, it’s critically important to consider our interests, and the public good by scrutinizing who we vote for. All too often, candidates lobby to get our vote and promise to represent us and our interests.
While this doesn’t apply to all politicians, many who claim to represent their constituents instead serve a specific group or industry when elected.
As a resident of Manatee County and an angler on local waters for over four decades, I was shocked when our county commissioners voted to weaken water quality protections (against the advice of their own Planning Commission) by allowing development closer to our wetlands at a time when it’s critical to be strengthening protections.
It’s in the interest of special interests that voters are fooled into voting party instead of vetting the candidates to see how they’ve actually performed in the past. It should be common sense considering that most of us are here because of the region’s natural beauty which serves as the basis of our economy.
If you really care about our coastal resources don’t vote Democrat, Republican or Independent. Check the candidate’s voting record on protecting the water we drink, the fish we pursue and the economy that depends on it.
It’s a sad and self-defeating proposition when we elect people to represent us only because they put the most campaign signs out. Determining whose interest a candidate will actually serve can reliably be known by researching who is funding their campaigns. If we don’t vote or vet our candidates, we may well be voting against our own self-interest.
The threats to our waters and our economy are manyfold — what I consider death by a thousand cuts — stormwater runoff, failed infrastructure, accidents, spills, yard waste and a plethora of other small insults.
We can’t afford to continue with an us vs. them or development vs. environment mentality. Development is going to happen, but if we don’t start doing smart development, everyone will suffer the consequences.
Developers, realtors, real estate agents, environmental advocates and anglers should all be working together. Yes, it will be an expensive proposition but far cheaper than the costs of inaction.
Unfortunately, most humans have a short-term view of how the decisions we make today might affect future generations.
The Seventh Generation Principle, based on an ancient Iroquois philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future, seems a wise course.
When I heard this, my first thought was this is a really long time in the future. Then I had lunch with a friend who has six generations of his family alive, today.
I’m no different when it comes to the age bias, but after reading Jack Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea,” I was struck by the account of the artist Winslow Homer on a fishing expedition to the west coast of Florida in 1904.
Homer reported “a grass bottom flush with mollusks, crabs and a thousand living things unseen and schools of fish as long as freight trains”. After reading that passage I was stunned by the changes I’ve experienced and thought, “Now I see the place I live with new eyes.”
Take a look in the eyes of your children and grandchildren and imagine how your vote and the candidates we elect today will determine their future quality of life. Seven generations from now your ancestors will be looking back and hopefully thanking you for taking the time to consider their well-being.
Florida’s future hangs in the balance. Vet the candidates you vote for, apply enlightened self-interest and VOTE WATER!
Rusty Chinnis is a retired building contractor who has lived in Longboat Key for over four decades.