environment Politics: economics GDP Genuine Progress Index Gross National Happiness measurement Redefining Progress
by Warren
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The Tyranny of False Measurement
First, watch this.
Bobby Kennedy on “Gross Domestic Product”
“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product … if we should judge America by that – counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”
Yeah. What Bobby said.
The irrefutable fact of our environmental crisis is linked with the irrefutable fact of our economic crisis.
Our economy sucks for the same reason our environment is being destroyed: we’re measuring success with the wrong set of tools.
environment: Conservatives idiots Time Magazine
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Month 6, Day 6: Grandpa, What Did You Do In The War On The Environment?
Time Magazine ran a column by Strobe Talbott and William Antholis basically pointing out that there are many wonderful and intellectually consistent reasons for conservatives to agree that climate change is a threat and we should do something about it. Of course, conservatives never will.
Talbott and Antholis are entirely correct that climate change upends the notion of bequeathing prosperity to our posterity. Our money and possessions will be useless on an uninhabitable planet. Alas, there are two reasons why conservatives cannot follow their advice. First is the fact that conservative politicians have allied with fundamentalist religious leaders who uniformly embrace both Young Earth Creationism and the notion of an Apocalypse, a relationship exemplified by Reagan’s Interior Secretary James Watt, who memorably said, “We don’t have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand.” The second is simply that it is essentially impossible for a conservative politician to admit error in matters of policy (personal behavior is a different story). This inability to recognize the need for a change in position may well prevent passage of climate legislation, thereby leaving a heritage of ignorance and environmental devastation to our grandchildren.
Warren Senders
environment: Barack Obama Chicago Tribune
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Month 6, Day 5: We Cannot Afford This Kind Of Cheap.
The Chicago Tribune ran the same AP story, but they handled it a little differently. Since they’re not a Murdoch paper I felt more comfortable using words of more than one syllable.
The destruction of the Gulf of Mexico makes it clear: fossil fuels are far more expensive than we think. Years of extensive government subsidies to the oil industry kept prices artificially low, and “externalities” like environmental destruction, health effects, expensive wars and catastrophic climate change are never figured into the price we pay at the pump. That must change if we are to survive and prosper. President Obama is absolutely correct: we can procrastinate no longer when it comes to building a clean energy future. When nay-sayers claim that getting off fossil fuels entirely is “unrealistic,” they forget two important facts: first, America has a long history of solving difficult problems with creativity and gusto — and we’ll create a renewable energy system with the same spirit. Second, the devastated Gulf of Mexico makes an irrefutable case that continuing to depend on oil is more than “unrealistic.” It’s suicidal.
Warren Senders
environment: addiction Boston Herald Oil
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Month 6, Day 4: Time For An Intervention?
The Boston Herald ran an AP story on Obama’s recent words about our national addiction to oil. My response:
President Obama is correct. America’s behavior when faced with the fact of our national dependence on oil is that of an addict confronting unpleasant truths. Fact: burning oil adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Fact: BP (and other oil companies as well) are demonstrably incompetent when it comes to disaster response. Fact: sooner or later, we will have burned all the oil there is to burn. Fact: thousands of smaller spills all over the world have devastated local communities and ecosystems. Fact: much of our oil comes from countries that (to put it mildly) don’t have America’s best interests at heart. Each of these truths is a good reason for a huge national initiative to shift us off oil within the decade. Taken together, they are irrefutable, yet it seems that the country that gave us “a giant leap for mankind” has become the country of “we can’t do it — it’s too hard.”
Warren Senders
Tired.
I was at a conference all day today. Rode my bike into Cambridge from my house, did the conference from 8:15 to about 5:15, then rode home…and got caught in a torrential rainstorm on the way. Monsoon-type rain; by the time I got home I was soaked to the skin. At least it was warm.
Enough time for dinner, then two hours of teaching.
Normally I’d be writing tomorrow’s letter now…but I’m gonna hang it up in about 30 seconds and go to bed. I’ll write tomorrow’s letter tomorrow. That’s what tomorrow is for.
environment Politics: Barack Obama Bill McKibben Bonn Conference Deepwater Horizon
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Month 6, Day 3: Disaster Spells O-P-P-O-R-T-U-N-I-T-Y ?
This DK diary contains two fantastic essays by Bill McKibben and Adam Siegel. Go read it. And while you’re at it, read this. These two posts are what brought this letter bubbling up.
More personal than usual, but I’m starting to really take this stuff personally, y’know?
Dear President Obama —
I just read that in its opening addresses at the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, the United States never once mentioned a readiness to accept a binding agreement on carbon emission reductions.
Mr. President, I love my country.
Like you, I have lived abroad. When I first went to India to live, in the mid-1980’s, people asked me over and over again, “the Americans we meet are such wonderful people. Why is it that your government does such terrible things?”
That was during the Reagan years, and those of us with conscience were outraged by the behavior of our government. And all I could do was shake my head sadly, and say, “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”
When the U.S.negotiator states that the negotiation text which had been approved by every country in the world at Copenhagen ‘had no standing,’ I can only shake my head sadly and say, “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”
When my government’s negotiator promotes the Copenhagen Accord, a political agreement which takes seven degrees Farenheit of global warming as a given, I can only shake my head sadly and say, “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”
When I look at the consequences of that level of warming and realize that it will mean millions and millions of deaths due to food and water shortages, I can only shake my head sadly and say, “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”.
I know that it takes a long time to turn things around. I am not so naive as to think that wishing will make it so — but I still wish.
Bill McKibben said recently that the Deepwater Horizon disaster has offered you the perfect platform for a genuinely transformative approach. While the oil chokes the water and poisons all the life in the Gulf of Mexico, you must remind us all that fossil fuel is dirty. It’s dirty when you take it out of the ground, it’s dirty when you process it, it’s dirty when you burn it…and, of course, as it burns it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Dirty. With the ruined ecosystems of the Louisiana coast as a backdrop, you need to ask the American people, “Is this what you really want?” And you need to offer some alternatives. McKibben notes that his organization, 350.org, is planning a “Global Work Party” for energy conservation and efficiency on the 10th of October of this year. He concludes with this wish: “Let’s hope the president is up on the roof of the White House, hammering in the solar panels that Ronald Reagan took down.”
Mr. President, that’s my wish for you, too.
I wish for an America that embraces the idea of energy independence, that acknowledges its global responsibilities, that recognizes that the global engine of predatory capitalism is causing irreversible damage to the planet we share. I wish for an America where I don’t have to keep shaking my head sadly and saying, “I know. It’s a terrible thing.”
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment Politics: British Petroleum criminal irresponsibility Eric Holder
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Month 6, Day 2: I Hope They Grind Exceeding Small
The Attorney General is going to the Gulf. String ’em high, Mr. Holder, string ’em high!
Dear Attorney General Holder,
I’m glad to learn that you’re looking into a possible criminal investigation of British Petroleum and the other companies which are partnered in the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon rig. As you and your staff begin your investigation, please keep in mind that BP may reasonably be suspected of not acting in the public interest — something President Obama said last week. To be sure, we need the company to continue mitigating the environmental damage it has caused, but it is terribly naive to think that this will be their primary concern. BP’s principal focus will be on maximizing return to its shareholders and protecting its management — and these goals (while inherent in the capitalist system) emphatically do not serve the public in a time of crisis.
BP has been limiting media access to the devastation it has caused, making it more difficult for press and broadcast media to get a clear picture of the destruction of the Gulf Coast. Furthermore, there are ample reasons to suspect the company of the possible manipulation and destruction of physical evidence. Their response to the disaster has been conditioned by the requirements of public relations from the very beginning, and you should expect that they will continue to try to “game the system” as your investigation continues.
While no formal statement of guilt is possible from your office until the wheels of justice have turned, you and your staff need to keep in mind that British Petroleum has displayed criminal irresponsibility toward the needs of environmental protection for years. Do not trust these people; they are not America’s friends.
The fact that BP continues to control clean-up efforts and mitigation processes is tainted by the likelihood that they have been attempting to limit the visible damage, thereby reducing the likelihood of significant penalties.
Because BP has practical authority over the people of the Coast who are involved in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, they can now intimidate witnesses and workers, conceal damage, and stall investigations. As long as the company is considered essential by the government, there is a strong likelihood that your investigation will be forced to compromise. This cannot be allowed to happen.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
environment: conservation Dick Cheney Nathan Myhrvold
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Month 6, Day 1: A Sign Of Personal Virtue.
I am a great fan of appropriate technology, and as such I don’t respond in a reflexively negative way to people like Nathan Myhrvold — even when he comes off as dismissive of environmental concerns, as in his interview with Fareed Zakaria in this week’s Newsweek:
Zakaria: Why do you think that people in the environmental community dismiss geoengineering?
Myhrvold: They have this attitude for two reasons. One is that much of the environmental movement is anti-technology. They’ll say, “Isn’t there going to be an unintended consequence?” And I say, yes there is! When a heart surgeon does bypass surgery on you, you’re left with a big scar—but it saves your damn life. I think another reason is more political. A lot of environmentalists feel that if everyone believes there’s a simple fix, they’ll demand that. And then they’re never going to get rid of their SUVs and they’re never going to tax carbon.
The interview reads like the transcription of a television appearance, further illustrating the inability of our media (even with someone as perspicacious as Zakaria involved) to handle intellectual complexity. But to me, what was significant was a word that never appeared. This is the first time to my knowledge that I have used the phrase “vocabula non grata” in my discourse. I am pleased.
Nathan Myhrvold is correct in stating that America’s energy needs can never be met completely through the use of renewable sources, but his interview with Fareed Zakaria is notable for a significant omission: neither man ever mentions energy efficiency and waste reduction. Ever since Ronald Reagan took the solar panels off the White House roof, discussion of conservation has been ridiculed by politicians and the media, and the word is now vocabula non grata in “serious” discussion. Which is, to put it bluntly, stupid. In every single area of our national patterns of energy usage there are opportunities for significant reduction in demand, most of which would actually improve our quality of life. If Americans decided to make carpooling into the rule rather than the exception, petroleum use would diminish drastically and traffic congestion would ease. The fact that these measures are not now the norm in our country shows how the disdain for conservation has crippled our ability to respond to circumstances like B.P.’s destruction of the Gulf of Mexico. When Dick Cheney sneered, “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy,” he illuminated the mindset that has brought us to this pass. The likelihood of catastrophic climate change may not be a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive conservation policy, but it should be.
Warren Senders