That Exceptionalism Thing

I just finished reading Noam Chomsky's latest work, Who Rules the World this morning, As the craziness of this presidential election unfolds around us both the major party candidates share the dominant script of America the Exceptional.


In fact, both not only wish to preserve and protect that image, but one would even expand it. Both candidates are bully on the War on Terrorism and see nothing that more military punch and power can't fix. Neither willing to consider that perhaps that expansive military approach only accelerates that which they are attempting to end.

Chomsky's work was completed before Mr. Trump had locked up the Republican nomination earlier this year.Nonetheless, all should read his heavily documented review (more than 629 cited references) of the forces alive in our world, their antecedents, and specifically the US actions that have nurtured the world we face together. Whether one disagrees with the complete analysis Chomsky offers, any reader would at least have to begin to be skeptical of the utterances of the dominant narrative that engulfs conservatives and liberals alike.

No one relishes reading about misdeeds of their home team. We might occasionally accept the idea that 'one bad apple' doesn't spoil the whole bushel. Or that OK, no one is perfect (we hear that one a lot during this presidential campaign as supporters of both major candidates defend their support for their favored candidate). Chomsky challenges us to consider why the rest of the world thinks that the US is the "greatest threat" to world peace ( this reported in an international WIN/Gallop poll p.222). He constantly contrasts the myths we live in with the facts that display our utter blindness to the reality as others experience it.

Nowhere is this more evident than the use of the word 'terrorist'. Chomsky, as he has written for decades, notes that we (US) use the term to describe the acts of those we disagree with (our enemies), but absolve any acts by us or our surrogates that have similar if not worse consequences for people outside our borders. So when we send a drone to take out someone we don't like and blow away innocent civilians, that's not terrorism but our right to defend ourselves. Yet when a Palestinian attacks an occupier in his own country, it's terrorism. From the Vietnam War to the debacles in Libya and Syria, Chomsky shines the light on the hypocrisy.

This is hard to read as an American who wants us to live up to the vision of a just, compassionate democracy among democracies. It certainly cries for what Rabbi Michael Lerner so eloquently expressed in a blog this week, "American Politics: The U.S. Needs Repentance and Atonement".


      "We need a New Bottom Line of love and generosity that could reshape every dimension of our economic, political, cultural and spiritual assumptions about reality. To get there, we need a fundamental transformation of consciousness. Although not in the same league of outrage as what Trump has done to legitimate misogyny, racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia, the Democrats would also be challenged by a New Bottom Line–and even Hillary Clinton’s call for a “no fly zone” in Syria would have to be scrutinized against the alternative approach to foreign policy a New Bottom Line would suggest (namely, seeking homeland security through generosity and a Global Marshall Plan so that the US becomes known as the most generous and caring society in the world, not the toughest and most militarist)."

In another penetrating analysis of our current wave of political upheaval Charles Eisenstein actually finds a ray of hope in his "The Lid is Off."


     "Clinton and Trump are a product of their conditions, playing the “game of thrones” according to the secret rules of the insiders, in a system that has long allowed, encouraged, and in some ways nearly required hypocrisy. That system is coming to an end. We are entering by fits and starts an era of transparency in which, we may someday hope, secret rules and hypocrisy will have no purchase."

Speeding Past Complexity and Nuance

As the handful of readers who have visited this blog a few times are likely to notice, I write a lot of things sparked largely by what I read. While some of those reflections are sparked by essays, articles, blogs or shorter pieces, the majority I believe ( although I haven't done a content analysis of the 200+ blog entries scratched out over the last four years) are from books. I've been averaging about 20-25 non-fiction books a year for the past four years or so. And any frequent visitor to this site will note they cover largely political science, philosophy, economics, psychology, theology, environmental science, and international relations.

I finished Thomas Weiss's 2014, Governing the World: Addressing Problems without Passports today.



 I am partly through the following titles I alternate between:

Jan Scholte, et. al New Rules for Global Justice: Structural Redistribution in the Global Economy



John Harris, How to be Good: The Possibility of Moral Improvement


Anthony Flaccavento, 

Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up: Harnessing Real-World Experience for Transformative Change

Radhika Balakrishnaan, Rethinking Economic Policy for Social Justice


William Guadelli, Global Citizenship Education


I note this not to display how widely read I am, but to note my own curiosity to better understand the world we share and how we might better reshape it. In each of these books and in all that I have noted in this blog over the years, they share at least one thing in common.

They are willing to wrestle with complexity and nuance. 

Let me cite just one example from Weiss' book this morning. Weiss is a Presidential Professor of International Relations at CUNY Graduate Center. Weiss' book is a relatively short 101 pages of text looking at the feasibility of creating a more effective global governance system. To support his ideas he marshalls more than 240 references, some of course from the same source, but a quick review shows the vast majority of references are unique citations. Reading books with this type of serious thinking and scholarship opens the reader up to complexities and nuances on the topic we would likely miss without the more lengthy space to develop the ideas. (I was told in a former position that if I wanted my reports to be read by upper level administrators they had to have a one page bullet-point summary. The likelihood of them reading the entire report was about nil).

With social media we're now down to 140 characters. Lost in this fast paced race to decide is any real ability to investigate complexity and nuances. Busy administrators, CEO's, elected officials rely on the shorthand version of reality, where those at the table or who have the loudest voice get to have their points raised, but others are left out.

I am fearful as I watch this presidential election campaign move forward, that there will be no room for educating voters about complexity or nuance. The world is painted as black or white, red or blue. Campaigns are built largely on sound bytes to fit the 30 second advertisement, the bumper sticker, the brand and much of it aimed at how bad the other candidate is. Even the upcoming debates (?) promise nothing much different. There is absolutely no commitment to build any deep understanding about issues and the type of decisions and processes we need to employ to come up with workable solutions.

It is perhaps, at least partly, but I would suggest, significantly, because politics has become more of a game, where winning is the only thing. Any way one wins is acceptable. I don't see any long-term benefit from this approach to governing. The process celebrates, if not feeds, public ignorance. Our mass media is in part to blame. The purchase of elections through media sound bytes is surely part of the problem. 

But if we could see elections as a chance for candidates to find common ground instead of bludgeoning their opponent for a misstep, we might increase our chances to craft solutions that stand before us as a human family on a finite planet.Scoring points from simplistic statements is a poison that we might hope education could provide and antidote. 

Appreciating scholarship and how it can help us see the complexity and the interdependencies that surround us,I am reminded of  a fine little film my wife and I watch last night, The Man Who New Infinity, a 2015 film on the life of Indian mathematician, Srinivasa Ramanujan who lived in the early 20th century. We see the struggle of using rigor to strengthening our understanding of the world we share. Reading book length analyses can help us all gain a needed does of humility. We have much to learn, together.

Beware the simplistic statements from candidates.

Days of Decision

                To believe in the possibility of change is something very precise. It means that we believe in the reality of choice. That there are choices. That we have the power to choose in hope of altering society for the greater good. Do we believe that our governments must inevitably tax the poor through stealth taxes such as state controlled gambling? Or do we believe there is a choice? Do we believe that unserviceable Third World debt could be written off, if we choose to do so? The convictions that citizens have such  power lies at the heart of the idea of civilization as a shared project. And the more people are confident that there are real choices, the more they want to vote – a minimal act – and of greater importance, the more they want to become involved in their society. (John Ralston Saul, The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, 2009, pp.4-5)

We Michiganders and citizens of 34 other states have a choice to make in the next weeks, those of us who choose to weigh in on who might lead the federal government for the next four to eight years.  If we are controlled by fears we will be drawn to what we perceive as the safest choice. There are certainly reasons for fear. But just as we keep kicking the response to ever more likely climate destabilization down the road with anemic  actions, failure to change the direction of our political system is more probably leading right to the edge of an abyss we cannot fully fathom from here – a bigger fear, especially for those that live after we older ones expire.

So much prognostication about who would beat whom in a November runoff is full of uncertainty – the who’s and the whom’s for starters. The complexities of our interdependent systems are so vast and emergent properties unknowable that, despite our penchant for data based solutions, the forces that are beyond measurement still have much to say about where we go together as a human family on a finite planet.

Who decides to come to the polls that day, or stay home? What shifts might occur in races for local, state and national offices? What events might occur to shift our attention to issues not even on our radar at the moment? What funds of money will be unleashed to sell one candidate or to demolish another? Nate Silver and the other prognosticators of the day, despite their ability to crunch numbers can't answer those questions with anything like certainty. So we will decide based upon a combination of our faith in what we do know and on the hunches that fester inside each of us.

The reality as John Ralston Saul noted is choice matters and we each have it. What do we believe in? What are we willing to work for to make our collective future and that which we hand-off to our granddaughters and grandsons? Are we looking at short-term safety or longer term survival? Those are questions we might contemplate as we make our way to the polls in the coming week. As Phil Ochs once sang, these are the Days of Decision (click to listen).

Oh, the shadows of doubt are in many a mind
Lookin' for an answer they're never gonna find
But they'd better decide 'cause they're runnin' out of time
For these are the days of decision

Oh, the games of stalling you cannot afford
Dark is the danger that's knocking on the door
And the far reaching rockets say you can't wait anymore
For these are the days of decision

In the face of the people who know they're gonna win
There's a strength that's greater than the power of the wind
And you can't stand around when the ice is growing thin
For these are the days of decision

I've seen your heads hinding 'neath the blankets of fear
When the paths they are plain and the choices are clear
But with each passing day, boys, the cost is more dear
For these are the days of decision

There's many a cross that burns in the night
And the fingers of the fire are pointing as they bite
Oh, you can't let the smoke keep on blinding all your sight
For these are the days of decision

Now the mobs of anger are roamin' the street
From the rooftops they are aimin' at the police on the beat
And in city after city you know they will repeat
For these are the days of decision

There's been warnin's of fire, warnin's of flood
Now there's the warnin' of the bullet and the blood
From the three bodies buried in the Mississippi mud
Sayin' these are the days of decision

There's a change in the wind and a split in the road
You can do what's right or you can do what you are told
And the prize of the victory will belong to the bold
Yes, these are the days of decision

Crisis of civilization

As the Paris talks open addressing the human family's response to climate change and as a record number of refugees seek safety from violence, poverty and injustice, and as demagogues aplenty ramp up fear-mongering of others it's hard for this soul not to want to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.

The more common approach in our culture is to look for diversion in denial - watch and be absorbed by the sporting contest du jour, the tv show, the blockbuster new film, or perhaps the latest new gadget or stylish apparel. I've written before on the whole 'bread and circus' phenomena if any of my three readers wants a little more of that fodder.


The potential remedy to this is partially hinted at in a piece I shared some time back by Charles Eisenstein, Climate Change: The Bigger Picture. In it Eisenstein makes the linkage across these crises and more and why a narrow focus on any one of them perpetuates the underlying system that feeds all the crises.

What I think is missing from Eisenstein's sharp analysis is the collective action to change the system. We are approaching an election year in our country that I believe will truly be a turning point in the direction civilization moves in facing these multiple and accelerating crises. Who gets elected from the bottom to the top of the ticket will matter. It is why those with deep pockets who know this have been pouring money into the campaigns and shadow campaigns of those they favor. They have been funding the organizations that crank up the volume on the framing of issues,  most often in simplistic, black and white choices.They are polished, Madison Avenues  campaigns.

I received one in the mail just yesterday from an organization Citizen's for Michigan's Energy Future asking me to forward a pre-printed postcard to my state representative supporting a bill on creating a new energy future for Michigan. There is nothing describing who leads this front organization or who funds it.

 
For those willing to dig a little deeper the Michigan Campaign Finance Network's Rich Robinson released a study earlier this month that showed that the state's two biggest public utilities, DTE and  CMS (Consumers) Energy have added more than $400,000 to the campaign kitties of select legislators and spent more than another $300,000 on lobbying.

There is nothing but empty platitudes in the mailing. Not a single specific fact from which to understand how the proposed legislation will actually work or who would benefit. It's my opinion that this has been sent to  tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of residents. A report from early in the year by the Sunlight Foundation, indicated this dark money group had made ad buy commitments of $120,000. No doubt they have likely magnified that amount in recent months. Too many residents will receive this mailing and fall unsuspectingly for it's false claims. They will have no understanding that the propaganda they are holding was created by the two largest public electric utilities in the state for legislation that really just frees them from any legal responsibility to address the energy challenges before us.

And so, many, thinking their civic responsibility to communicate with their representative will sign their name on the postcard and send it in. Of course, most who receive it, will ignore it and turn back to the football game or latest episode of a favorite tv show. Some very few of us will see the mailing for the fraudulent fluff it is. Some of these, even fewer, will contact our representative and let him know we think otherwise. We need many more of us to become citizens. To be more than those liberals or conservatives grousing about the state of affairs and to engage with the system. Questioning its failures, offering alternatives, bearing witness to the injustices, shining light on the hidden agendas and dark money is essential if we are to steer away from precipitous decline.

Bernie Sanders may be wrong on many things, but of one claim he makes I feel pretty certain - citizens need to get engaged to shape our future. If we leave it up to the others with the power and money to control and direct the issues, we will not live in a democracy. Some would say that's already the case. I'm not giving up the hope yet, but the tipping point is near. Time to get up folks. As Rebecca Solnit poignantly asserts, 

 

       Hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.

 Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.

 

The emergency is upon us.

    

Running into Roosevelt

On my weekly visit to the MSU Libraries new book shelf, I've been running into books that in some way or another bring up Franklin Roosevelt and his presidency. One of my more recent finds is Professor Scott Myers-Lipton's Ending Extreme Inequality: An Economic Bill of Rights to Eliminate Poverty (Paradigm Publishers, 2015).
Myers-Lipton looks at the proposed Bill of Rights put forth by Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union address and builds the chapters around the six rights:

• The Right to a Job
• The Right to a Living Wage
• The Right to a Decent Home
• The Right to a Good Education
• The Right to Adequate Medical Care
• The Right to Adequate Protection from Economic Fears of Old Age, Accident and Unemployment

As Myers-Lipton reviews each of these rights he updates us on the current economic status in employment, wages, housing, etc. In each section he reviews the history, earlier attempts to address the issue, and some currently proposed solutions. He is not an armchair scholar nor a pessimist. But that doesn't make him an optimist either. He has helped raise the minimum wage in San Jose where he teaches from $8 to $10 an hour and founded the Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign, an initiative to develop 100,000 prevailing wage jobs for local and displaced workers after Hurricane Katrina.

In his short two page epilogue, he makes a compelling argument for using the Economic Bill of Rights as a framework for ending extreme inequality.

The United States takes pride in being a democratic nation and the leader of the free world. However, I argue that if the United States is to continue on the path of becoming "a more perfect union," it must now turn its attention to implementing the constitutional commitments first set out by President Roosevelt seventy years ago in his 1944 State of the Union address. Otherwise, the United States is destined for plutocracy, where the top 1 percent of income earners controls the vast economic wealth and political power, and the 99 percent are left with economic scraps and little political power. For as Louis Brandeis, a former Supreme Court justice, postulated, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."(p.135)

In addressing the question that many pundits and critics would lob at him, how will the nation pay for it, especially with a  projected deficit of $492 billion in 2014 and a deficit of $17 trillion he responds.

It is my belief that once people begin to organize around the implementation of an Economic Bill of Rights, and begin to educate and convince the majority of the US population that this is a necessary step in the country's development, the nation will find the money. And we will find it because we will develop a sound tax policy that has shared responsibility, where corporations and the economic elite pay their share of taxes. Just sixty years ago, corporations paid over 30 percent of all federal taxes, and the 1 percent had a top marginal tax rate of 90 percent and an effective tax rate of 60 percent. Today corporations pay 9 percent of all taxes, and the top 1 percent now has a marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent (up from 35 percent from 2012) When there is more shared responsibility, our nation's deficit will be decreased, and the pundits will not be able to claim that the nation cannot afford an Economic Bill of Rights. (p.136)

I wish our Michigan Legislature and the governor would read this book as they have been assaulting the low income citizens while relieving the business and economic elite of responsibility. They have recently passed legislation outlawing prevailing wage contracts by cities/and counties in the state. They are proposing total elimination of the Earned Income Tax Credit that benefits the working poor stuck at minimum wage. And they have all but eliminated business taxes in recent years. No wonder they can't repair the roads, funds the schools, or help those struggling to house, feed, and care for their families.Their playbook is destroying our communities and creating ever greater gaps between the poor, the middle class and the elite.

Which brings me to another tome I stumbled upon and finished recently. The Unsustainable Presidency: Clinton, Bush Obama and Beyond (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014) Political science faculty members William Grover and Jospeh Peschek review the role of recent presidencies in the context of dominant theories of the presidency within political science.
 

What they argue is fascinating. Their concluding chapter begins with an interesting hypothesis:


     "If Senator Bernie Sanders(I-VT) were elected president in 2016, "what do you think that would do?"

As they demonstrate in the review of recent presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama, the presidency is captured by forces of power, that regardless of political rhetoric or party, is constrained within narrow bounds of acceptable actions. While they demonstrate how this works across recent presidencies, their take on a president sanders election is most compelling.

On the morning after his election they note, "The most predictable immediate impact of a Sanders victory would be the sharp decline of global financial markets, as investors registered their displeasure, possibly panic, at the "reckless" decision rendered by US voters.... FOX News would be apoplectic with visions of impending "communism", even terrorism leaping out of every news report.... The one economic bright spot would be a spike in sales of Sanders book The Speech, the full account of his historic December 10, 2010 senate filibuster, where for more than eight and one half hours he spoke against the agreement between the Obama administration and congressional Republicans that extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, lowered estate taxes for the  superrich, and diverted revenue from the Social Security through a payroll tax holiday."(pp.141-2).

Grover and Peschek go on to describe in more detail how the powers that be would completely hamstring the Sanders presidency as they have Clinton, Bush, and Obama before him. Unlike Professor Myers-Lipton they seem more pessimistic.

"In short, we live in a catastrophic world. And unless a president -- emboldened by a long term social movement and acting in concert with other world leaders __ is willing to challenge the interests of corporate power and financial capital that underlie our political economy, the office of the presidency will remain wedded to outmoded and destructive definitions of economic growth and national security. And theories of the presidency within Political Science will remain as intellectually imprisoned as Lindblom warned they were at the dawn of the Reagan Revolution. Neustadt once referred to Eisenhower as a sort of "Roosevelt in reverse," discounting the possibility that public expectations for the president could ever be lowered save for very limited periods of time. Reagan also was characterized the same way, for mobilizing the powers of the office in the pursuit of conservative purposes. But for the American presidency to be really sustainable -- for it to survive as anything more than a Kabuki drama off spectacle and self-defeating partisan ends -- we need not a "Roosevelt in reveres." Rather, we are in dire need of a Roosevelt reconfigured, a Roosevelt redefined. Absent that type of transformational leadership, the American presidency is likely to remain our Catastrophe-in-Chief -- an unsustainable catastrophe of an office, situated in a catastrophic world. " (p.154)

Which is why Myers-Lipton's recipe is all the more compelling. But given Peschek's and Grover's keen analysis of the presidency those Bernie Sanders for President fans will need to more than get him elected. 


They will need to build a movement that pushes him and the other elected representatives to act on behalf of ensuring an economic bill of rights becomes the practice, not simply an idea.

Climate, Prosperity, Economic Growth, and Governance

     "It must always be remembered that the greatest barrier to humanity rising to meet the climate crisis is not that its too late or that we don't know what to do. There is just enough time, and we are swamped with green tech and green plans. And yet the reason so many of us are greeting this threat with grim resignation is that our political class appears wholly incapable of seizing those tools  and implementing those plans> And it's not just the people we vote into office and then complain about  - it's us. For most of us living in post-industrial societies, when we see the crackling black and white footage of general strikes in the 1930s, victory gardens in the 40s, and Freedom Rides in the 60s, we simply cannot imagine being part of any mobilization of that depth and scale. That kind of thing was fine form them, but surely not us - with our eyes glued to our smartphones, our attention spans scattered by click bait, our loyalties split by the burdens of debt and the insecurities of contract work. Where would we organize? Who would we trust enough to lead us? Who, moreover, is "we"?

     In other words, we are products of our age and of a dominant ideological project - one that has too often taught us to see ourselves as little more than singular gratification - seeking units to maximize our narrow advantage. This project has also led our governments to stand by helplessly for more than two decades as the climate crisis morphed from a "grandchildren" problem to a banging-down-the-door problem." Naomi Klein, in The Nation, October 6, 2014

British economist, Tim Jackson writes in last week's Guardian about the conflict between economic growth and climate change. In The Dilemma of Growth: Prosperity vs. Economic Expansion, Jackson asks:


"Rethinking prosperity is a vital task because our prevailing vision of the good life – and the economics intended to deliver it – have both come badly unstuck. Financial markets are unstable; inequality is rising; and despite the 500,000 or so people who took to the streets before Tuesday’s UN Climate Summit in New York, tackling climate change still faces a “frustrating lack of progress”. If this were not enough, the proposition that more is always better has signally failed to deliver, particularly in the affluent west. But questioning these values is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries."

Add me to that list.

But wait, there are signs of hope. From author Terry Tempest Williams blogging at the NYC Climate March, just a week ago -
    
     "They just kept coming in waves, in torrents, a river of people convening on the streets of New York City in the march for climate justice. They just kept coming, hundreds of thousands of individuals, indigenous, black, white, brown, yellow, and red, a rainbow of colors winding through the canyons of Manhattan.
     This movement of climate justice is no longer segregated, is no longer privileged, is no longer young or old, or the radical fringe moving toward the center. Instead, this movement resides in the core of a collective concern: Earth has a fever. There is no Planet B. What we witnessed on Sunday, September 21, was 400,000 individuals standing in the center of this crisis with love."

Maybe, there is just enough hope, that readers will throw off the shackles of hopelessness and take up the hard and long work of redirecting our future.

An election is only five weeks away. It's not too late or too early to work for a candidate or proposal in your community that can point us in a new direction. Not sure who? LOOK HERE

 

Now, not tomorrow.

Candidates, Elections and Citizens

As we approach the fall elections to many positions in our communities and state there arises a little more interest in politics, even as most of us decry the increasing partisanship. My thoughts wander a lot these days as I am simultaneously a candidate, a supporter of other candidates, and a citizen concerned with the decisions made in our name at various levels of governing. As the story below from Bill Moyers.com indicates


Will Americans Set a New Record for Political Apathy in 2014? | Blog | BillMoyers.com

     "The United States is supposed to be a beacon of democracy, yet Americans have one of the lowest levels of electoral participation in the world. In fact, a 2012 study found that the US ranked “120th of the 169 countries for which data exists on voter turnout, falling between the Dominican Republic and Benin.”

While this probably comes as no surprise, what isn't reported here is how even those who do opt to vote, only a very small percentage involve themselves otherwise in election or public policy arenas. Very few donate cash or time to campaigns. Few are willing to publicly endorse candidates whether by bumper sticker, yard sign, or letters to the editor. Yet we know that name recognition and personal contacts from these activities make all the difference in election campaigns. In local, small communities name recognition and face-to-face meet-ups are time consuming but possible. But in larger communities or at the state level one must rely on advertisements and press coverage as substitutes. The former takes cash, the latter is difficult when the news hole shrinks and becomes limited to discussion of the horse race - who's leading, who has momentum, who has made the biggest gaff.

If we want our democracy to work better, we need better information when we shop for candidates to support. Without an even playing field, those that have the resources have the upper hand. The equalizing factor should be citizen involvement. If you don't have time, give money. If you don't have money, give time. Find the candidates you can believe in and support, and then do so. Otherwise our democracy will continue to be run largely by those the system favors - the wealthy and well-connected.

I suspect that many would-be candidates and potentially good elected officials, decline entering the fray because of the barriers and lack of support available. That's why when candidates do receive a check in the mail, or someone volunteers to hand out campaign literature, or write letters, they feel that their wish to serve the public good is not in vain, it is not time wasted. The feeling that someone believes in you, in your ability to improve the community is a powerful tonic. This is the time to find the gumption to dig a little deeper and support the kind of democracy our hearts know is possible.

As the activists of the 1950's chanted, "better active than radioactive". Let's make our democracy live up to its promise. This will not happen by harping at all the flaws of our system from our armchairs. Time to find your voice and align it with candidates you believe in. Time is wastin'!

Politics and Climate Change

Scientific evidence that climate change is real and raising havoc with our collective lives has been steadily mounting. This is all the more clear given recent reports emanating from many quarters,

 

including the International Panel on Climate Change,

the National Climate Assessment, and

 

the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, on the impending collapse of the East Antarctic Ice Shelf. Even conservative columnist David Brooks believes we need to institute a global carbon tax with rebates shared with those on the bottom end of the inequality ladder.

But if we read our local newspaper or listen to newscasts we find a vacuum of serious discussion about anything we might do to mitigate this global disaster or adapt to challenges facing the human family. There is nothing visible in the Michigan legislature or executive branch showing any real leadership on the issue. What is going on in local city or county government is a mystery. 

From my vantage point I see no local or state official who sees this worthy of their time. Perhaps the problem is the human inability to fathom the impacts of parts-per-billion or with projections longer than daily stock reports. Perhaps the size and complexity of the threat has so many in positions of leadership frozen in their tracks. Perhaps we have a predisposition to look for a silver bullet, usually one that has a technological sheen to it, that we’re waiting to arrive gift-wrapped on our doorstep.

Regardless, we can no longer use denial as an excuse, and what the best science can tell us is that once we reach a certain tipping point, the genie cannot be put back into the bottle for hundreds if not thousands of years. So how might we move from our catatonic state into one that begins to face and address the challenges? What are the possibilities and how might we unleash the creative juices of the human family to dream up new solutions?

We know the most effective, fastest, and least expensive approach is to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels from production through disposal. We each are empowered to do so. Turn stuff off except when we’re actually using it. Insulate. Drop the thermostat a degree or two in the winter and raise it a degree or two in the summer. Drive less. Ask our government and businesses to do the same. One way or the other we will share the hardships of nature’s response, so why not start now and think of it as preventative medicine?

While individual actions definitely matter, policies can make better choices easier. The carbon tax with rebates based on income needs would transform the marketplace. Currently the market ignores the costs of climate change, shifting them onto not only future generations but those least able to adapt to the impacts now being felt. We need leadership. In this election year, we should ask every candidate for every office what they propose to do about it if they are elected. Their answers should determine which lever we pull in November. Time is wasting