Month 10, Day 9: The Immortal Billionaire Brats.

The Wall Street Journal notes that corporate groups are busy trying to sue the EPA to get its endangerment finding reversed or overturned, thereby making it even easier for them to go on polluting. These people are like bratty teenagers getting pissed off because their parents don’t want them sniffing glue.

In refusing to reconsider its endangerment finding on atmospheric carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency is acting entirely correctly. The bitter complaints and threats of legal action from corporate groups are reflective of a profound immaturity that pervades our nation’s private sector. It is immature to think and plan only for the short run, focusing entirely on profits while ignoring the deterioration of the infrastructure and environment. The whining of the business sector when faced with the fact that at some point they’ll have to clean up the messes they’ve helped create is disturbingly similar to that of a spoiled child refusing to pick up his room. Whether the corporate sector wants to recognize it or not, anthropogenic global warming carries a statistically significant probability of human extinction — which would definitely be bad for business. The E.P.A.’s policy of long-term responsibility is for the benefit of us all.

Warren Senders