The Economist does an excellent job in this article of finding and describing an unexpected political fault line in this country. However, the author glosses over how this chasm surfaced and why it’s widening. It’s not so much about the purported principles embraced by Republicans and Democrats as it is about the haves and have-nots, and we’re not talking money. We’re talking about faith, of a few varieties. What the article does very well is explain who has the faith. It notes that in West Virginia a Texas inmate beat Obama 58-41 in the Democratic primary this year. Let’s let that percolate a moment: a convict serving a 17-year sentence for extortion in a Texan jail whipping the president in the president’s own primary in a state with twice as many Democrats as Republicans. Why? Because of environmental regulations, according to the article. The article goes on to suggest the good folks of West Virginia are also offended at the President’s embrace of environmental policies at the expense of tightly-held beliefs in those parts, of the sovereignty of property ownership. A leading state Democrat, who hates Obama, portrays these convictions as a faith in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. NBN thinks considerably less noble human traits are being tapped here and not just in Appalachia.

What the article misses is a key geographic difference between the disaffected Democrats in Appalachia and the party standard bearers along the coast: the Appalachian Democrats are upstream. The Economist says these folks are older, whiter, less educated, and more religious. These are attributes the Republicans are quite successfully leveraging to their political advantage. it's also quite likely these traits are shared by the Democrats voting for the inmate over Obama in West Virginia. But anyone who has hiked the Appalachian Trail through that state knows, these folks live in a cathedral of greenery that can quite understandably leave its occupants wondering: what’s all the crap about environmental problems? These folks live at the source the East Coast’s watersheds. The poultry farms and mountain top mining these folks embrace as livelihoods are just the start of an avalanche of pollution dumped into these watershed that eventually washes past downstate Democrats’ homes and into oceans and estuaries the good folks of West Virginia rarely see, let alone swim, fish or snorkel in.

So, with all due respect to The Economist—which is a great magazine—and with all due respect to the folks living in Appalachia—NBN has hiked these mountains and met many of these warm, wonderful folks—Obama lost his own primary in West Virginia to a convicted felon not because Appalachians hold more tightly their faith in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He lost because these folks don’t see as clearly as those living downstream what all this environmental handwringing is about. What if those Appalachian poultry farms didn’t have access to clean water? What if the coal mining Democrats lived well below the sources of the streams and rivers their livelihood contaminates. From a slightly flatter perspective, how many Iowa corn farmers fully grasp the breadth and depth of the marine deadzone growing at the mouth of the Mississippi. The political dispute in this country really isn’t much different from fights over natural resources that have spanned history. Those living upstream benefit at the expense of those living downstream. Since we can’t settle these disputes with guns in this country, despite the NRA’s best efforts, this is where politics comes into play.

NBN loves wetlands as much as life itself, because wetlands are life itself. So, upon hearing of a recent federal study saying wetlands are being lost at an alarming rate we decided to wade into the discussions. First, a study saying wetlands nationwide  are being lost and an "alarming" rate is due for some serious clarification, because not all wetlands are created equal. Next, we notice the headline doesn’t seem to completely jibe with the conclusions of the study it cites. On one hand the study says, “The difference in the national estimates of wetland acreage between 2004 and 2009 was not statistically significant.” On the other hand it says, “There were notable losses that occurred to intertidal estuarine emergent wetlands (salt marsh) and freshwater forested wetlands.”

Back to that 1.5 percent loss of salt marsh. Again, it sounds like nothing. At that rate it will take more than 300 years before we run out of salt marsh. But what NBN found in its sudden marsh die-off study is that salt marshes are dying all over the country for all manner of reasons. On Cape Cod a crab is believed to be the culprit. In New Jersey a grasshopper. Farther south a fungus is thought to be involved and, of course, rising sea levels are taking a toll everywhere. In other words everything is killing the salt marshes and where fresh water wetlands can be replaced by bulldozers and backhoes, salt marshes are much more delicate and complex. Moreover they support and produce many, many times the biomass and biodiversity of fresh water wetlands.