G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Wild Weather Creates Chances for Political Progress
By Paul Rogat Loeb
Created Sep 8 2007 - 8:58am
It's hard to keep up with the crazed weather. As I write, a heat wave has
killed over 50 people in the Midwest and South, with temperatures reaching
112 degrees in Evening Shade, Arkansas. Torrential storms have flooded Ohio,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and South Dakota. California
has its second largest wildfire ever. Texas and Kansas are battening down
for new storms, while still recovering from last month's floods, along with
Oklahoma, which is now getting flooded again. A few weeks before, a massive
rainstorm closed down the New York City subways. That doesn't count over
2,000 dead and millions displaced in India and Bangladesh floods, runaway
forest fires in Greece, the hottest-ever temperature in Japan, or
unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps [1]. Tomorrow the weather will
ricochet off the charts someplace else.
This surge of weird weather offers a powerful warning. Placed in context,
its lessons could also help us overcome the denial that's prevented the
United States from taking action on global climate change. They could give
courage to elected representatives who've wanted to act but have been
hobbled by timidity. They could create a political opening to defeat
prominent elected climate-change deniers whose seats used to seem
unassailable and are running for reelection in hard-hit states. They could
help the Democrats stand strong and call the Republican bluff when they
threaten a filibuster or a Bush veto. As Samuel Johnson wrote, knowing
you'll
be hanged in two weeks concentrates one's mind wonderfully. What's happening
to our weather just might foreshadow that hanging.
A few years ago, global warming felt remote to most Americans. Although they
heard it debated, it didn't seem real. The media gave "equal time" to
deniers and the most respected scientists. Now 84% [2] of Americans view
human activity as at least contributing to global climate change, and 70%
[3]demand greater government action. Responses have shifted in the wake of
Katrina and the succession of local disasters; Gore's Inconvenient Truth;
the international IPCC report and similar impeccably credentialed scientific
studies; and the start of serious media coverage, from Parade and the AARP
magazine to Vogue. Add the impact of so many ordinary citizens speaking out,
and Americans are starting to link the disasters they're seeing around them
with what's happening to the planet.
When people's communities are hit with exceptional floods, droughts,
tornadoes, heat waves, or runaway wildfires, or they see these events on TV,
even conservatives who would have once treated them as random "acts of God"
start recognizing their deeper roots. In a May 2006 poll of South Carolina
hunters and fishermen, for instance, 68% agreed [4] that global warming was
an urgent problem requiring immediate action, and a similar number said
they'd seen the immediate impact of climate change on local fish and
wildlife. Even before this summer's parade of calamities, 75% [5] of all
Americans said recent weather had been stranger than usual
So our national frame on the weather is beginning to shift. Each new
"natural disaster" now reinforces the sense that just maybe not all these
disasters are so natural after all. And if we fail to seriously address
their roots, similar ones or worse will dominate our future.
Of course global climate change doesn't cause every extreme weather event.
And not all our fellow citizens are quite ready to act on the full enormity
of the climate crisis, still resisting much of what needs to be done, such
as increasing gas taxes [6]. But most Americans want someone to do
something, even if they're ambivalent about paying the costs. The more our
warnings resonate with what people see around them, the more they can draw
broader links, and the more the Exxon-funded denials ring hollow.
This situation expands political possibilities. While memory of this summer
of disasters is still fresh, why not begin now to make a major issue of the
rabid global climate change denial of Senators like Oklahoma's James Inhofe,
Texas's John Cornyn, and Oregon's Gordon Smith. Inhofe, who's called global
warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," has
been considered to have a safe seat. But his approval rating, just after
last November's election, was a lowly 46%, and Cornyn's 45%, both lower than
just-defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. So they may already be more
vulnerable than conventional wisdom suggests. Gordon Smith's race has long
been forecast as tight. Instead of writing off the prime deniers as
unbeatable, or dismissing global climate change as too complex to make an
electoral difference, why not brand them with their stands, juxtaposing
their dismissal of the crisis with images of flooded homes and farms?
If the opponents of these officials can really tie them to their words, and
keep asking why they'd rather stick up for Exxon than act on this ultimate
threat to our common security, who knows how the election could turn? That's
particularly true given broader discontent over Iraq, health care, and Bush
administration corruption. Defeating just one or two entrenched deniers will
significantly strengthen the voices of those in both parties who genuinely
want to take action. We might even begin approaching the European
situation, where even conservative political leaders, like Germany's Angela
Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Tory David Cameron, view
addressing global climate change as amont their highest priorities.
Even with our existing Congress, the more the temperature keeps soaring and
the rainstorms keep pounding, the more political leverage we have. The
timidity of elected leaders who've acknowledged the crisis but done little
to address it has been nearly as much a barrier as the blindness of those
who deny it. So when the weather begins hitting home it gives us a chance to
insist our elected officials actually lead.
They have this chance now with a renewed version of a bill that would have
reversed oil company tax breaks to pay for $32 billion of incentives [7] for
renewable energy production. Given the magnitude of the crisis, that's still
far too modest an investment, but it would help. This past June, the
Democratic Senate leadership dropped the legislation when they fell three
votes short of overcoming a threatened filibuster; they also dropped a
companion bill requiring all U.S. utilities to get 15 percent of their
electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, a requirement already law
in 23 states. They dropped these measures to be able to pass a larger bill
that raised automobile mileage standards, supported biofuels development,
created new appliance and lighting efficiency standards, and supported
research into fuel-efficient vehicles and carbon sequestration.
Now, the Senate and House are about to take up renewable energy measures [8]
incorporating their earlier core proposals. The House and Senate versions
have some important differences: The Senate bill contains a dangerous
sentence, slipped in by nuclear lobbyists, that would let the Department of
Energy underwrite virtually unlimited loans for nuclear construction [9].
But if they can eliminate that provision and combine the best of their two
bills, passing them would be a valuable step.
So what do they do about the filibuster? They need to call the bluff of the
obstructionists. They have one of the necessary three votes with the return
of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson from his brain injury. Barbara Boxer,
who was attending the birth of a grandchild, gives them another. As they
need only one more vote, and didn't have the support of ostensible global
climate change activists like John McCain, who opposed rescinding the tax
breaks for oil companies, they can begin by denying the opponents the power
simply to table the bill by threatening endless debate.
Imagine if opponents filibustered, and instead of just letting them log in
and register their vote, the Democratic leadership forced them to defend and
keep defending their position for the duration of the debate. Suppose they
didn't just do it for a single day or two, as with the Iraq timetable
resolution, but used the resistance as an opportunity to hold a national
discussion-extended as long as needed-on this fundamental issue. If
opponents quoted the scientific deniers, supporters could cite the 99.9% of
climate scientists who've described this as a human-caused crisis of the
greatest magnitude. They could talk about how oil and coal corporations, led
by ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, have used the strategy of the tobacco
companies (and even some of the same Thank You for Smoking-style PR firms)
to create a strategy of deliberately sowing doubt [10] by supporting these
same deniers and the front group institutes that host them. They can talk
about how much these corporate interests have given to specific Senators
blocking the vote. If the debate goes long enough, the supporters can read
the list of political contributions repeatedly, until the links finally
begin to register in the public mind. This could even pose an
opportunity-before climate change fatigue, like compassion fatigue, sets
in-to draw the links between solving the climate crisis and eventual
necessity of real campaign finance reform.
After a season of caving until Congressional ratings are now below those of
Bush, Democratic leaders in charge of bringing legislation to the Senate
floor should welcome a filibuster, not fear it. So should their handful of
Republican allies who want to pull their party back to the "reality-based
community. [11]" What a chance finally to address core issues, beginning
with the costs of doing nothing on climate change. Supporters could discuss
the disasters in their own home states and in the states of the
legislation's opponents. They could talk of the 200,000 Katrina exiles still
dispossessed from their homes. They could describe melting polar icecaps and
the potential for a world of climate refugees. They could highlight the
value of actually building an American renewable energy industry and moving
down a sustainable path. The longer the debate dominated the headlines, the
more they could make clear what's actually at stake.
This may not happen on its own. It will likely take sustained citizen
pressure. But the floods and droughts signal a world of catastrophe that
we've been moving toward, mostly unknowingly, our entire lives. With the
scientific consensus on global climate change nearly universal, innocence
and ignorance are no longer an excuse. We have an opportunity both to talk
about the profound recklessness of our current path and to invest in
alternatives that can avert the worst disasters. If we're gong to change
America's political culture enough to respond adequately to the crisis,
we'll have to link the stories of disaster hitting America's eyes with the
root choices that have helped make them happen.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Paul Rogat Loeb
Created Sep 8 2007 - 8:58am
It's hard to keep up with the crazed weather. As I write, a heat wave has
killed over 50 people in the Midwest and South, with temperatures reaching
112 degrees in Evening Shade, Arkansas. Torrential storms have flooded Ohio,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, and South Dakota. California
has its second largest wildfire ever. Texas and Kansas are battening down
for new storms, while still recovering from last month's floods, along with
Oklahoma, which is now getting flooded again. A few weeks before, a massive
rainstorm closed down the New York City subways. That doesn't count over
2,000 dead and millions displaced in India and Bangladesh floods, runaway
forest fires in Greece, the hottest-ever temperature in Japan, or
unprecedented melting of Arctic icecaps [1]. Tomorrow the weather will
ricochet off the charts someplace else.
This surge of weird weather offers a powerful warning. Placed in context,
its lessons could also help us overcome the denial that's prevented the
United States from taking action on global climate change. They could give
courage to elected representatives who've wanted to act but have been
hobbled by timidity. They could create a political opening to defeat
prominent elected climate-change deniers whose seats used to seem
unassailable and are running for reelection in hard-hit states. They could
help the Democrats stand strong and call the Republican bluff when they
threaten a filibuster or a Bush veto. As Samuel Johnson wrote, knowing
you'll
be hanged in two weeks concentrates one's mind wonderfully. What's happening
to our weather just might foreshadow that hanging.
A few years ago, global warming felt remote to most Americans. Although they
heard it debated, it didn't seem real. The media gave "equal time" to
deniers and the most respected scientists. Now 84% [2] of Americans view
human activity as at least contributing to global climate change, and 70%
[3]demand greater government action. Responses have shifted in the wake of
Katrina and the succession of local disasters; Gore's Inconvenient Truth;
the international IPCC report and similar impeccably credentialed scientific
studies; and the start of serious media coverage, from Parade and the AARP
magazine to Vogue. Add the impact of so many ordinary citizens speaking out,
and Americans are starting to link the disasters they're seeing around them
with what's happening to the planet.
When people's communities are hit with exceptional floods, droughts,
tornadoes, heat waves, or runaway wildfires, or they see these events on TV,
even conservatives who would have once treated them as random "acts of God"
start recognizing their deeper roots. In a May 2006 poll of South Carolina
hunters and fishermen, for instance, 68% agreed [4] that global warming was
an urgent problem requiring immediate action, and a similar number said
they'd seen the immediate impact of climate change on local fish and
wildlife. Even before this summer's parade of calamities, 75% [5] of all
Americans said recent weather had been stranger than usual
So our national frame on the weather is beginning to shift. Each new
"natural disaster" now reinforces the sense that just maybe not all these
disasters are so natural after all. And if we fail to seriously address
their roots, similar ones or worse will dominate our future.
Of course global climate change doesn't cause every extreme weather event.
And not all our fellow citizens are quite ready to act on the full enormity
of the climate crisis, still resisting much of what needs to be done, such
as increasing gas taxes [6]. But most Americans want someone to do
something, even if they're ambivalent about paying the costs. The more our
warnings resonate with what people see around them, the more they can draw
broader links, and the more the Exxon-funded denials ring hollow.
This situation expands political possibilities. While memory of this summer
of disasters is still fresh, why not begin now to make a major issue of the
rabid global climate change denial of Senators like Oklahoma's James Inhofe,
Texas's John Cornyn, and Oregon's Gordon Smith. Inhofe, who's called global
warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," has
been considered to have a safe seat. But his approval rating, just after
last November's election, was a lowly 46%, and Cornyn's 45%, both lower than
just-defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. So they may already be more
vulnerable than conventional wisdom suggests. Gordon Smith's race has long
been forecast as tight. Instead of writing off the prime deniers as
unbeatable, or dismissing global climate change as too complex to make an
electoral difference, why not brand them with their stands, juxtaposing
their dismissal of the crisis with images of flooded homes and farms?
If the opponents of these officials can really tie them to their words, and
keep asking why they'd rather stick up for Exxon than act on this ultimate
threat to our common security, who knows how the election could turn? That's
particularly true given broader discontent over Iraq, health care, and Bush
administration corruption. Defeating just one or two entrenched deniers will
significantly strengthen the voices of those in both parties who genuinely
want to take action. We might even begin approaching the European
situation, where even conservative political leaders, like Germany's Angela
Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Tory David Cameron, view
addressing global climate change as amont their highest priorities.
Even with our existing Congress, the more the temperature keeps soaring and
the rainstorms keep pounding, the more political leverage we have. The
timidity of elected leaders who've acknowledged the crisis but done little
to address it has been nearly as much a barrier as the blindness of those
who deny it. So when the weather begins hitting home it gives us a chance to
insist our elected officials actually lead.
They have this chance now with a renewed version of a bill that would have
reversed oil company tax breaks to pay for $32 billion of incentives [7] for
renewable energy production. Given the magnitude of the crisis, that's still
far too modest an investment, but it would help. This past June, the
Democratic Senate leadership dropped the legislation when they fell three
votes short of overcoming a threatened filibuster; they also dropped a
companion bill requiring all U.S. utilities to get 15 percent of their
electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, a requirement already law
in 23 states. They dropped these measures to be able to pass a larger bill
that raised automobile mileage standards, supported biofuels development,
created new appliance and lighting efficiency standards, and supported
research into fuel-efficient vehicles and carbon sequestration.
Now, the Senate and House are about to take up renewable energy measures [8]
incorporating their earlier core proposals. The House and Senate versions
have some important differences: The Senate bill contains a dangerous
sentence, slipped in by nuclear lobbyists, that would let the Department of
Energy underwrite virtually unlimited loans for nuclear construction [9].
But if they can eliminate that provision and combine the best of their two
bills, passing them would be a valuable step.
So what do they do about the filibuster? They need to call the bluff of the
obstructionists. They have one of the necessary three votes with the return
of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson from his brain injury. Barbara Boxer,
who was attending the birth of a grandchild, gives them another. As they
need only one more vote, and didn't have the support of ostensible global
climate change activists like John McCain, who opposed rescinding the tax
breaks for oil companies, they can begin by denying the opponents the power
simply to table the bill by threatening endless debate.
Imagine if opponents filibustered, and instead of just letting them log in
and register their vote, the Democratic leadership forced them to defend and
keep defending their position for the duration of the debate. Suppose they
didn't just do it for a single day or two, as with the Iraq timetable
resolution, but used the resistance as an opportunity to hold a national
discussion-extended as long as needed-on this fundamental issue. If
opponents quoted the scientific deniers, supporters could cite the 99.9% of
climate scientists who've described this as a human-caused crisis of the
greatest magnitude. They could talk about how oil and coal corporations, led
by ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy, have used the strategy of the tobacco
companies (and even some of the same Thank You for Smoking-style PR firms)
to create a strategy of deliberately sowing doubt [10] by supporting these
same deniers and the front group institutes that host them. They can talk
about how much these corporate interests have given to specific Senators
blocking the vote. If the debate goes long enough, the supporters can read
the list of political contributions repeatedly, until the links finally
begin to register in the public mind. This could even pose an
opportunity-before climate change fatigue, like compassion fatigue, sets
in-to draw the links between solving the climate crisis and eventual
necessity of real campaign finance reform.
After a season of caving until Congressional ratings are now below those of
Bush, Democratic leaders in charge of bringing legislation to the Senate
floor should welcome a filibuster, not fear it. So should their handful of
Republican allies who want to pull their party back to the "reality-based
community. [11]" What a chance finally to address core issues, beginning
with the costs of doing nothing on climate change. Supporters could discuss
the disasters in their own home states and in the states of the
legislation's opponents. They could talk of the 200,000 Katrina exiles still
dispossessed from their homes. They could describe melting polar icecaps and
the potential for a world of climate refugees. They could highlight the
value of actually building an American renewable energy industry and moving
down a sustainable path. The longer the debate dominated the headlines, the
more they could make clear what's actually at stake.
This may not happen on its own. It will likely take sustained citizen
pressure. But the floods and droughts signal a world of catastrophe that
we've been moving toward, mostly unknowingly, our entire lives. With the
scientific consensus on global climate change nearly universal, innocence
and ignorance are no longer an excuse. We have an opportunity both to talk
about the profound recklessness of our current path and to invest in
alternatives that can avert the worst disasters. If we're gong to change
America's political culture enough to respond adequately to the crisis,
we'll have to link the stories of disaster hitting America's eyes with the
root choices that have helped make them happen.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson