*Sigh* Obama, why the lies? or That's funny, I thought dictators wore funny uniforms?

 

  " Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold."   Spencer, Herbert
   This is a huge can of worms that is in danger of going terribly off topic, but I will try to remain strong and keep this about the environment. The caveat to this is policies can have a domino effect and will eventually set a precedence that will effect other issues. Before we jump into Obama's environmental promises, um I mean policies, allow me to share my connection to the Obama administration. I not only voted for the man I campaigned for him. In fact on Yom Kippur night my husband and I were at the Democratic headquarters writing postcards to registered voters in Lawrence County asking them to end a Republican controlled White House while we were waiting to break our fast with granola bars. So I feel my feelings of disappointment are legitimate. That being said let us begin.
    As I do research on this topic I am struck with a sense of misunderstanding when I look into Obama's position on the environment. It seems that energy policy has now become synonymous with environmental policy, and this is where there is a butting of heads between environmentalists and Washington. The funny thing is Obama has actually kept some of his campaign promises, however he is doing it in a way that many feel is not sustainable. For example his promise to reduce carbon emissions "Calls for cutting U.S. carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Would accomplish this through a cap-and-trade system that would auction off 100 percent of emissions permits, making polluters pay for the CO2 they emit." (grist.org August 22, 2008), however it now seems the way Mr. Obama wants to reduce CO2 is by using nuclear power and has stalled on cap and trade according to politifact.com. To be fair he did talk about using nuclear during his campaign and is working on seeking safe disposal of nuclear waste. The problem with his love affair with nuclear is that it isn't sustainable because even though there is an endless amount of Uranium-238 the waste it generates can not easily be stored and requires additional resources plus people are scared of it. When I looked into the White House's position on energy the website refers to energy independence as a form of national security "Today, we export billions of dollars each year to import the energy we need to power our country. Our dependence on foreign oil threatens our national security, our environment and our economy. We must make the investments in clean energy sources that will put Americans back in control of our energy future, create millions of new jobs and lay the foundation for long-term economic security." and in effect that's why we need more off shore drilling I had to chuckle remembering Sarah Palin's "Drill baby drill!" slogan and saw how in his attempts to come more to the middle he is in effect going way past middle and all the way right completely alienating his base, most of whom are environmentalists. However there are consequences to that kind of talk and are they worth it? The base mobilized and pounded the pavement turning undecideds into voters and now he stands watch while one of the worst environmental catastrophes takes place and underestimates it, "The Obama administration lost the public trust and may have sabotaged clean-up operations in the Gulf of Mexico by grossly underestimating the amount of oil gushing from BP's broken Macondo well, according to a White House commission appointed to investigate the spill.

In a scathing critique of the administration's handling of the disaster, the two co-chairs of the commission yesterday said government officials made a serious blunder by releasing early estimates of the spill that were about 60 times too low." (Guardian.co.uk) Drill baby drill? or Kill baby kill?Additionally the big rub a lot of environmentalists are feeling is Obama's appointments such as Ingnacia Moreno who was nominated to be the head of environment division of the Department of Justice, raising many eyebrows at the EPA since she is a former attorney for GE. By the way according to opensecrets.org GE contributed $499,130 to his campaign. Now I'm not naive enough to believe that lobbyists don't get jobs in Washington, but wasn't putting an end to that another campaign promise. 

  Now does the executive branch have the power to really do anything close to all of Obama's campaign promises? No, at least it's not suppose to. Under the constitution the Congress is the one with the real power, however President Sweetie Pie is finding a little loop hole around that pesky Congress, "representatives of the people" *psh*. Mr Obama has his czars, they'll do the work he wants with out all those cumbersome checks and balances. "Senator Byrd wrote a letter to President Obama in February, criticizing the president’s strategy of creating czars to manage important areas of national policy. Senator Byrd said that these appointments violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers, and is a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight."(opengov.ideascale.com ) So this has huge consequences not only for the whole nation, it in effect could lead to a dictator, but it also could put a corporate lobbyist in a serious position of power to rule over environmental issues.  Now czars have been around for a while such as the drug czar but by some counts Obama is up to 16 and this is scaring the crap out a lot of people, tea anyone? A president is suppose to keep watch, steer the boat, and keep everyone calm while the Congress does all the heavy lifting, but many feel he is inciting panic by behaving like he's the daddy that knows how to handle all of our problems. To quote  Men in Black  (and how often can you do that) "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. " We ran under the banner of change and we wanted change, change from the corporate interest wiping their ass on our constitution and destroying the natural beauty or our nation. Did we get it? Under Mr. Obama I don't think so. 

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

-Leonard Cohen

Regulations (or The Big Band-Aid)

   The issue with regulations is that there is a major paradox about them. On the one hand it is absolutely important for there to be regulations in place to prevent the big bad companies drunk on greed from destroying the water, air, soil, and the whole world so that they can make an additional billion before they die and leave a planet in tatters in their wake. However, on the other hand regulations usually don't actually do anything but fine large companies that can afford the fines while pushing out small companies that can't comply. They also stink at enforcing the criminal behavior of some of these companies because they either A) don't actually care or B) afraid of the political back lash by their wealthy lobbyists. I have been thinking of this image of me with crates of the old fashioned thermometers and cracking them open, depositing the mercury into a major water way. Now what do you think would happen if I did that? I'd get put in jail. Yet large corporations are doing that very thing every day and may get a slap on the wrist. In my opinion regulations are treating the symptom of a much larger problem, which is big business. I'm all in favor of money but, I question if the wealthiest nation on the planet isn't also the dumbest. Meaning is it better to have a million small companies that make jobs and are law abiding or a hand full of super corporations that have done nothing for the world except contaminate it and brought down the economy?
   Congress, due to public out cry, stood up and said "yes we care about the environment too, and we're going to do something about it"(I'm paraphrasing of course) so under Nixon they started up a bunch of regulatory agencies including the EPA and passed the Clean Air Act and others. Through all the administrations between Nixon and Obama the congress has had the environment on their minds. Whether they actually cared or simply were doing this out of feeling the political tide turning doesn't really matter, what dose matter is that they were completely unqualified to handle this multi- headed beast and several times refused to listen to the data that was coming in from the researchers. For example The Ocean Dumping Act of 1988, according to Rosenbaum Making Policy: Institutions and Politics after the beaches in New York were contaminated with medical waste and raw sewage there was a public out cry to correct this problem that lead to an impassioned Congress to pass an act that would halt any ocean dumping, however they ignored the experts' testimony that the actual cause was an over flow problem of the dilapidated sewer system and it would take billions to correct it. "... the New York City sewer system is the greatest cause of water pollution in the region. But a sewer system isn't sexy. It's expensive to fix, and nobody wants to hear about it."(the chief engineer of the regional waste management agency,  Rosenbaum Making Policy: Institutions and Politics p75). Additionally I question if the people making these decisions are not in effect the fox in the chicken house since several have corporate ties for example Representitive Dingell Head of the House Energy Commerce Committee is the husband of Deborah Insley Dingell, a longtime senior executive at the General Motors Corporation. If I were to site every time the compromise was made between solving the problem and a quick and dirty rubber stamp way of conducting business I would be writing into my aged years. I also can't say I blame them that much because the problems are expensive and highly emotional. So what is an inept government to do? Well perhaps the problem can be examined more meticulously if one was to notice that these problems began with the industrial revolution and have become exacerbated by the continued growth of industry. If we could help to redesign the size of business by having many small companies spread over the whole country we could reestablish ourselves and enter into an era where we are economically supreme with the modern technology to improve and stabilize the environment. By doing this we can redistribute the wealth more evenly.  Additionally, environmental regulators could enforce laws more easily by monitoring the company's waste stream and if there is an increase in pollutants such as heavy metals that are poisonous to citizens then the company should be prosecuted for committing a public health hazard.

  To conclude this week's ranting, regulations are necessary however they are really a big Band-Aid on the symptom of emissions while the disease is the ultra large corporation. We can preserve our environment while still maintaining our love affair with capitalism by being smart and focusing on small business, reduce waste, and enforcing anti pollution laws by criminal prosecution to serve the public interest.

My Environmental Position (Oh I'm so flattered you asked!)

  The technical term for how I recognize myself environmentally would be an anthropocentric conservationist, meaning I believe in conserving resources in order to promote the interest of human survival.  Humans are apart of the ecosystem and like any other species use resources to increase their population and humans should not be faulted for this biological impulse. The problem however the human species faces is that we have out smarted the natural ebb and flow of nature. The natural cycle of populations is that when a species begins to consume more resources than its environment can supply the population is pushed back to more manageable numbers. However humans have developed technologies to prevent the natural contraction of our population, this is more dangerous than the cornucopians (which can best be defined as duffuses that believe that world has a never ending abundance of resources) believe. With the development of more and more technologies, medical technologies included, we are adding in the natural development of catastrophic population controls including super bugs i.e. drug resistant tuberculosis.  In order for our species to not become extinct we must manage our population to resources ratio.
  Suggesting controls on population and resources is a dangerous thing to say since it implies that some people should die and some should live, people get really upset at this idea and rightly so because it removes the right of the individual, and I do believe in the autonomy of the individual. Still the question remains who should live and who should die? Well I have no problem giving the answer based on history. I, as a human, have evolved to write this because my ancestors chose to survive and reproduce, which is the biological impulse of every individual wether man, insect, plant, or animal. They didn't try make sure the neighboring tribe survived and reproduce. In fact in the ancient world tribes were constantly fighting for resources in order to survive. So who should live and who should die? Well according to the genetic impulse to survive I should live and everyone else should die. Also to ensure my genes go on to the next generation I am also concerned about my families survival.  However in the modern world we have evolved to live in larger communities and developed governments because we have recognized the danger in fighting and we are healthier by ensuring our neighbors wellbeing. Now we are faced with the problem of our success as a species which is over population and a depletion of resources, but we don't want anyone to die, and this puts an incredible amount of stress on our ecosystem.  So what are we to do? People have the right to reproduce and live the way they see fit, so we agree that eugenics and killing people are wrong.  As for the earth we can agree that it has intrinsic and instrumental value so its resources must be conserved and responsibly managed. For example one of the resources that must be mentioned are undisturbed virgin forests, yes they are so pretty but they also serve us by cleaning the air and water.
  As for how this reflects my personal political position, as a true moderate I believe that this is a compromise between both extremes. By the compromise of conservationism we are saving both humans and the environment. The ultra liberal idea of holism I feel places humans outside of the ecosystem and vilifies our existence. While the ultra right view is that the earth is here to be striped of its resources to make a profit which is short sighted and vilifies the natural world. We must see that each position has pros and cons and only through understanding and compromise can we try to achieve the necessary balance needed to maintain the natural and man made worlds. We also can't vilify the people of the past, as they felt they too were doing the right thing based on their resources and information just as we do today. We must continue to right the wrongs of the past while heralding the successes while we keep moving forward.
  My opinion stems directly from my own experiences and relationships with people of several different backgrounds and opinions. I was raised with the idea that questioning inflexible ideas and examining each side of an argument. This way of analyzing ideas leads one to see that almost always either side is extreme and dogmatic and the best answer is usually somewhere in the middle. Learning to be less idealistic and more pragmatic is most likely due to me becoming a parent and trying to make a pile of dirt and weeds into a profitable farm while be responsible enough to not use chemicals due to the fact that they hurt people and the environment. I really can't see my opinion changing, but I am fascinated in how environmental policy effects our culture and how our culture pushes against it.
  As I step down from this weeks soapbox I would like to conclude by restating that my position is based in balance and the environmental problems we face are due to excess in our population leading to a depletion in resources and if we agree that killing everyone is wrong then we must learn to live with in our natural means and conserve. We need to also resist that this has a moral solution. Morals are based on cultures and religious in nature and no one likes to have others religion or culture pressed on them. If we want to save ourselves save the planet, but if you want to save trees because you believe in the wisdom of plants then I'm going to file that right next to virgin birth.