Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Climate Diet Times blog has moved
Come join me at my new blog site, http://climatediettimes.wordpress.com/ and join in on the fun as we discuss COP15 in Copenhagen. I just arrived on 12/9 and we are all hoping for some positive results from this critical event.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Turning the Page on the Reagan Era?
Now that the cheers, tears and sloganeering have died down, the time has come for President Obama to begin governing. Few presidents have faced more adversity as they entered office; two wars, a collapsing labor market, an international reputation maligned and worn from a decade of ‘go it alone’ approaches to the world’s problems, a financial meltdown, an energy crisis and growing environmental degredation. Obama’s predicament has variously been compared to that faced by illustrious predecessors; including Truman, Roosevelt and Lincoln. But one president in particular comes to my mind as we forge ahead into an uncertain future, Ronald Reagan. For it is Reagan’s footprint, and particularly his environmental legacy, that is a primary source of our present day problems.
Twenty-Eight Years
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan faced similar challenges. Sensing a once in a generation chance to turn the tide on what he believed was the pernicious growth of the ‘welfare state’ and government regulation at all levels, the new president chose a radical path. His mantra was simple: smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation at all levels. He believed that allowing the captains of industry (oil, mining, finance, retail, auto and pharmaceuticals) free reign to extract and use the bounty of this great land, unfettered by the bonds of overreaching government, would herald in a golden age of growth and prosperity. The masses were told that there were plenty of resources to go around. Reagan rejected the drab and depressing exhortations of Jimmy Carter to conserve and live with less in a resource constrained world. Carter-Era alternative energy and conservation programs were dismantled. Certainly, our captains of industry would pass on some of the bounty generated from their free or near free use of public goods (air, water, public lands, functioning ecosystems and natural resources) and preferential tax and regulatory treatment to the masses. Certainly, they could also be counted on to voluntarily fill gaping holes in our health care system and social safety net weaved over decades, right?
Divided Government: A Recipe for Inaction
As fate would have it, Reagan’s deregulatory drum beat still lives on. The pernicious constitutional quirks of divided government have allowed successive Republican administrations and/or Congresses to slow both national international efforts to preserve the global commons from further degredation, stop global warming and save scarce resources for future generations. Oil and mining interests have been awarded free or near free extraction rights to vast expanses, allowing them to strip this great land of every barrel of oil and lump of coal they could get their hands on. Successive Republican administrations have placed ideologues in charge of the main agencies and departments responsible for environmental protection. Remember Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, or Bush’s self appointed energy Czar, oilman Dick Cheney, who invited his old energy industry buddies to the White House to rewrite and further weaken the few remaining constraints on their power while shutting out environmental groups and other stakeholders?
Twenty-Eight Years is Enough
For twenty-eight years, right-wing political and corporate elites have told us that the dual imperatives of economic development and environmental renewal are diametrically opposed. The power and wealth of these elites is predicated on maintaining the status quo; high consumption, economic inequality, resource depletion, economic exploitation, government subsidies and free or near free use of the global ‘commons.’ However, from the vantage point of our present day predicament, it is clear that continuing along this same tired path endangers all that we have worked so hard to achieve. Hopefully, the new Obama administration and the 111th Congress will have the foresight and courage to turn the page on the Reagan Era, so that ourselves and our progeny may again protect and enjoy the rich bounty of our Mother Earth.
Twenty-Eight Years
On January 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan faced similar challenges. Sensing a once in a generation chance to turn the tide on what he believed was the pernicious growth of the ‘welfare state’ and government regulation at all levels, the new president chose a radical path. His mantra was simple: smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation at all levels. He believed that allowing the captains of industry (oil, mining, finance, retail, auto and pharmaceuticals) free reign to extract and use the bounty of this great land, unfettered by the bonds of overreaching government, would herald in a golden age of growth and prosperity. The masses were told that there were plenty of resources to go around. Reagan rejected the drab and depressing exhortations of Jimmy Carter to conserve and live with less in a resource constrained world. Carter-Era alternative energy and conservation programs were dismantled. Certainly, our captains of industry would pass on some of the bounty generated from their free or near free use of public goods (air, water, public lands, functioning ecosystems and natural resources) and preferential tax and regulatory treatment to the masses. Certainly, they could also be counted on to voluntarily fill gaping holes in our health care system and social safety net weaved over decades, right?
Divided Government: A Recipe for Inaction
As fate would have it, Reagan’s deregulatory drum beat still lives on. The pernicious constitutional quirks of divided government have allowed successive Republican administrations and/or Congresses to slow both national international efforts to preserve the global commons from further degredation, stop global warming and save scarce resources for future generations. Oil and mining interests have been awarded free or near free extraction rights to vast expanses, allowing them to strip this great land of every barrel of oil and lump of coal they could get their hands on. Successive Republican administrations have placed ideologues in charge of the main agencies and departments responsible for environmental protection. Remember Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, or Bush’s self appointed energy Czar, oilman Dick Cheney, who invited his old energy industry buddies to the White House to rewrite and further weaken the few remaining constraints on their power while shutting out environmental groups and other stakeholders?
Twenty-Eight Years is Enough
For twenty-eight years, right-wing political and corporate elites have told us that the dual imperatives of economic development and environmental renewal are diametrically opposed. The power and wealth of these elites is predicated on maintaining the status quo; high consumption, economic inequality, resource depletion, economic exploitation, government subsidies and free or near free use of the global ‘commons.’ However, from the vantage point of our present day predicament, it is clear that continuing along this same tired path endangers all that we have worked so hard to achieve. Hopefully, the new Obama administration and the 111th Congress will have the foresight and courage to turn the page on the Reagan Era, so that ourselves and our progeny may again protect and enjoy the rich bounty of our Mother Earth.
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