06.27.09
Posted in Current Events, Governance at 1:26 pm by diantus
The United States government finally passed a set of comprehensive environmental laws today. In them, the nation will be forced to lower it’s emissions by 17 percent by the year 2020 and over 80 percent by the year 2050. While I applaud the government for finally taking issue on a problem that scientific minds have been aware of for almost 40 years, I find the timidity of the bill not only appalling, but a sure-fire way to scuttle the effectiveness of this legislation.
Of course, I’m not the only one who views this as a “too little, too late” offering. In the past year, two independent reports - one in the EU, and another in the United States - have suggested tat the damage to the atmosphere is now so great, the the coming decade promises to be something of a reckoning. Worse, they also suggested that even if we were able to magically eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, the level of buildup already in the atmosphere is so great that our dangerous downhill slide would be set to continue into the foreseeable future.
None of this should not serve as an excuse for people to do nothing. We have a very serious responsibility to get to work on the creation of alternative energy sources, shifting habits as to reduce emissions and waste, and a duty to our children to ensure that the planet remain livable for a little while. These things can be done, but we must accept that the future isn’t looking too bright just yet. We will have to suffer through a continuing shift in climactic patterns that will continue to affect every facet of our existence, and need to start making allowances for that as well.
So the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough. I can only hope that the effect of the various incentives and punishments within it will serve to accelerate the legislation’s effect. Perhaps, once the initial push has been made, we will find that the process moves faster than the bill requires. After all, the Obama administration recently allowed states to set their own emissions benchmarks if the national requirements were seen as to low for them. If individual states decide to start beating the federal quota, it could be that this becomes the sort of low-pressure magic bullet needed to rebuild America’s dirty and outdated infrastructure.
Unfortunately, what bothers me the most about the recent US bill is not that it is less ambitious that what the world’s climate scientists would like. It is the continuing pattern of willful ignorance on the part of our political establishment to address the problem seriously. Instead of planning for the contingencies that climate change will bring and pushing for deep and meaningful reversal of pollution trends, they have offered up the minimum that could be called action. All of this comes on the coattails of eight years that were completely lost in terms of social, scientific, and environmental public policy. Today the problem is twice as serious as it was in 2000, and we are still far behind the curve when it comes to dealing with it.
Our lawmakers refuse to understand the problem. On both side of the aisle, they are relying on that most devastating of all Reganesque political instincts - their guts. When you rely on your gut instead of your head, you make stupid decisions. Gut decisions are what inform drunk drivers that they did not, in fact, have one too many. Our lawmakers should be basing important judgements on facts - not what they think might be right. The should be reading books and journals - not imitating John Wayne. This hyperreal politics of the intestines is getting us deeper and deeper into trouble. It produced Iran-Contra, the Iraq War, Creationism in classrooms, Vietnam, the collapse of the great North American fisheries, and a veritable legion of major tragedies that could have been easily averted by someone looking at the facts on the ground. Unless we really start demanding Reason from our leaders, we are going to, as Al Gore so elegantly pointed out, boil ourselves in a beaker.
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06.20.09
Posted in Politics, Current Events at 12:36 am by diantus
There are moments when history seems to unfold very quickly, and it seems like the wrong decision will poison the well of the future for not just ourselves, but for our children. Today, one of these moments is unfolding in Iran. A new generation is beginning to rally in the streets of Iran’s major cities. These young people are crying out for acknowledgement and for freedom. They are rallying against a system of electoral politics that is rotten to the core, and need the help of the international community if they are to succeed. They are struggling against their government’s ruling clique, and trying to bring change - on some level - to their homeland. We in the United States can only watch, for fear that our meddling might again poison the well of our peoples’ futures.
No one would never dare suggest that there is anything fair and free about the election that just took place in Iran. The better candidate may have been cheated, but let there be no illusions in your mind - Mr. Moussavi was chosen by Iran’s ruling council as an acceptably safe opposition candidate. He would not have changed, nor had the ability to change anything in Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. It is no small shock then, that such a blatant piece of electoral fraud within this political pantomime unleashed nothing short of an overflowing well of revolutionary spirit.
In Iranian politics, everything is fixed by the ruling council of Mullahs. They discussed the election, the candidates, the potential turnout, the opinion polls that all dictatorships periodically run, and took a gamble. However they didn’t plan the protests that have swept the country. They didn’t plan on Mr. Moussavi taking to the streets and encouraging his supporters to organize against the government. No, in an political climate like Iran’s, what we are looking at is a power struggle - two distinct factions are fighting over control of the country.
Many thinkers in foreign policy are debating what the response of the United States should be. While one might be temped to say that Obama has been somewhat timid on this issue, the bitter history between Iran and the United States leaves the bigger question of what CAN the United States do? In 1953, out of a combination of misguided neo-imperialism and anti-communism, American agents with the CIA helped to overthrow the corrupt, but popularly elected Mossadeq government in Iran. This was the moment that defined the future of relations between the two countries. Through this act, the Americans helped to bring to life such virulent, fundamentalist, and nationalistic feelings, that when the 1979 revolution broke out, one could argue that it was not domestic at all. Instead, it was a revolution against America and the world we were trying to create vis a vis the Soviets. It was anger over stolen freedoms. It was the wounded pride of a great people.
Because of the importance of this event, the government of Iran identifies itself in part through its staunch opposition to the west. If the United States were to offer official support to the revolutionary faction, the established powers in the Iranian military and civil society would suddenly be given a powerful impetus to resist the formation of a new government. It would only serve to strengthen the crackdown. Because of the poisoned well of Iran and America’s shared history, we can offer nothing to these young patriots that wouldn’t hurt them in the end by empowering reactionaries within Iran. This is why I believe Obama has been so tight lipped about these incredible events.
The government that the US so thoughtlessly brought down in 1953 was one of the first indigenous democratic regimes in the Middle East. It may have been imperfect, but a terrible injustice was done when the American government colluded in its downfall. However, it shows us that there is a spirit of freedom alive in the souls of the Iranian people. Once again, the people of Iran are taking to the street. And once again, the beauty of the Iranian movement of 2009 is that it is wholly indigenous. This moment belongs to the Iranian people.
Know that we’re with you in spirit.
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