What We Can Do About Climate Change

This is the birthday of Abe Lincoln who saved the country. It’s our job to keep it safe. My message last week was that government is the key to minimizing world-wide genocide by climate change. And of course, this president is not helping. Now let’s talk about our role.

First, the strongest step we can take is to join organizations that are working to reduce climate change. We can’t turn the ship of state individually, but by joining together we can force government to change. We can force each of the political parties to make a major commitment to the war against climate change.

Second, push industry away from release of greenhouse gasses. One of the best incentives is a carbon tax and every delay in imposing it means the tax has to be exponentially larger. We can strengthen the push for a carbon tax by using our power as consumers.

Third, over the past half-century we have changed agriculture until it is now one of the biggest emitters of carbon and methane, the two principal climate damaging gasses. One of the most important changes is to shift away from beef and other meats. Think about how much carbon beef production releases – initially from the use of power to produce crops whose only purpose is to feed the cows, and then from all the carbon production involved in raising the animals and then the fact that the animals themselves produce huge quantities of methane. And that doesn’t include all the carbon and methane from the transportation of the animals and their feed and the fertilizers used in the process. Farming has gone from relatively clean half a century ago to a major problem now. So cutting down on beef is an important start.

Fourth, we’ve put a lot of emphasis on carbon emissions from transportation but, many of us can improve our health as well as the environment by walking, bicycling or using public transit. Growing up in New York City I had to be a public transit user. One of my happy memories of childhood is standing with my nose pressed against the front window of the front car of the subways and feeling the excitement from the sight and sounds of the train gobbling up miles of track in front of me. Later, I went to work by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. That gave me a gorgeous two-mile walk to work which was definitely good for my health. Coming to Albany, I wanted to get back to walking so we bought within a two mile circle around my office so I could, and did, walk to work. I fully understand the attractions of the countryside but there are huge advantages to city living, especially for the climate.

Fifth, many of us can make our homes much more efficient with insulation, solar panels and other energy saving methods. Reducing what we buy, recycling what we don’t need, and reusing what can be used again, use much less energy than buying and replacing.

Sixth, one step less talked about is passive solar. Zoning and housing codes would help, but windows facing due south get zero summer sun and maximize winter sun. Once the house is designed that way it pays dividends forever. Add a heat sink inside the house and it will spread the heat around the clock in cold weather.

I’ve added some articles and organizations you can look at on the text version of this commentary. But the point is to take action. We need action above all. It’s that or genocide by climate change.

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Recommended articles on climate change:

David Wallace-Wells, UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That, Intelligencer, OCT. 10, 2018, http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html

Overwhelmed by climate change? Here’s what you can do, The Guardian, October 8, 2018,

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/climate-change-what-you-can-do-campaigning-installing-insulation-solar-panels

Some of my personal favorite organizations which focus on science and the environment:

https://350.org/ co-founded by Bill McKibben

The Climate Reality Project founded by Al Gore

Union of Concerned Scientists founded by scientists at MIT

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, February 12, 2019.

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How do you talk about climate change?

I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk about climate change. It’s a scary subject. Climate change is likely to injure and embitter people we care a lot about, our children and grandchildren – hurt them with disease, draught, famine, floods and storms, destroying their homes, houses and business too, indeed their towns and communities. That’s scary all right, but what do people do when they’re scared? Fight or flight? But where do you go? Unfortunately a lot of people do neither. They just can’t bear to think about it. But climate change will find them and their children and grandchildren anyway. What they don’t know will hurt.

Climate change is a big problem. The scale of the problem leads people acting individually to come up with platitudes like don’t cross that bridge ‘til we get there. Of course, the bridge won’t wait. If we don’t plan in advance it won’t be there when we want to cross it, and that’s not just a statement about infrastructure.

My hybrid and my solar panels make me and my family feel good but they only make a small dent – of course they’d make a bigger dent to the extent that the example catches on and government organizes a much bigger, more wide-scale reaction. That after all is what we’re trying to do. Our hybrids and solar panels are like very large lawn signs saying “Join us.” Like lawn signs, the signs don’t make the difference but the cultural statement that this is the right thing to do can carry the day.

That’s the kind of problem government is for, the kind of problem that is way beyond our abilities acting individually. Handling climate change requires coordination on a scale that only government can make happen. When government takes charge, those of us trying to do something about climate change become part of a powerful movement, not weaklings and suckers. Even the most ideological free marketeers have a name for situations where only government can solve the problem – they call it market failure.

Government will organize a powerful response when the people make clear with their votes that they demand action. It will happen when people see their personal welfare, not in opposing climate change, but in demanding that government direct opportunities to those whose livelihoods may be injured by efforts to fight climate change. It will happen when the rest of us understand that we are all in this together and demand that we all have to share the benefits and burdens. This is a war against forces that will destroy our families, our country and our world and it’s not a private opportunity to make big profits at everyone else’s expense. This is a shared problem, a shared opportunity and a shared job. In the past we’ve used an excess profits tax to share the burden of war. And to build the weapons of war we spread the factories all over the country.

We can be fair. We can protect and provide for each other. What we can’t be is cowards looking the other way.

As we gear up for the 2020 election, the politicians must declare what they will do to stop climate change from destroying us all. I know some relish the opportunity to be a war president, to be the great leader that pulls us from the brink of disaster. OK then, this is the war we have to fight. Now lead the charge.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, February 5, 2019.

Our handling of Iran is juvenile

While we have been focused on domestic politics, some of what this Administration has been doing abroad poses serious risks. The Administration has been trying to make Iran the devil behind everything we don’t like and threats have been flying back and forth. That has many of us concerned about where we are going.

The MEK has been the darling of the Administration as a potential successor to the mullahs because they both dislike the Iranian regime. Never mind that the MEK objected when Khomeini decided to release the hostages, that it has been a terrorist organization and killed Americans. Never mind that it has no support in Iran because it backed Iraq against Iran in a war that left 300,000 Iranians dead, and never mind that human rights organizations have documented its abuses. Never mind that Iranians despise the MEK’s version of Islam because it is “worse than the current mullahs.” But it is apparently enough that it dislikes the mullahs regardless of what might happen if they actually tried to take power in Iran, mirroring the tragedy of the second Bush war with Iraq.

Our handling of Iran is both juvenile and dangerous.

We, in this country, are very upset that Russia may have interfered in our elections. Yet we behave dismissively about the American engineered coup d’etat that removed the democratically selected prime minister of Iran and brought the Shah back.

That was a while ago but it led directly to the taking of hostages 26 years later. Everyone in Iran knew that American staff inside the Embassy had reorganized a failed coup d’etat, ended democratic government and brought monarchy back. So yes, the Iranians violated international norms by storming and seizing the Embassy, but would we do less if we believed that Russia was organizing a coup in their Washington embassy? Or would it have been our patriotic duty to stop it by any means necessary?

Yet all the enmity between Iran and the US stems from those two events and we don’t seem to be able to get past it. Iran tried on several occasions to reestablish a decent relationship with the US. It offered to negotiate the full panoply of differences between us. But no president before Obama was willing to deal with them. It was considered unpatriotic even to talk with Iran.

We changed the balance of power in the Middle East by defeating Iraq, leaving Iran the sole major local power and target because power in the region had become unbalanced. This country then worked to complete their local isolation, refusing to include them in regional meetings and arrangements. Their relationship with Israel had been fine and productive until we tried to squeeze them out. Like Germany in NATO, Iran could easily have been included in regional security arrangements. It could and would have become a much better friend than the likes of the Saudis.

But we got furious at every step, shaking fists, making threats, even threatening war, instead of using our heads to create a peaceful Middle East. It’s been much like a fight between kids in a sandbox except that all the kids have powerful weapons. Some presidents need to grow up, for the sake of our fellow citizens.

Tyrants want enemies to vilify in order to unite the country behind them instead of against them. It’s also a distraction from the embarrassments of domestic politics. But warlike behavior can get out of hand, leading some young men to their deaths and families to become refugees. Getting people to unite behind an unpopular president is a sick reason for people to go to their deaths.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, January 29, 2019.

 

 

Others on the plight of America

Others on the Plight of America

Permit me to recommend three articles. Each goes well beyond Trump but Trump sharpens and becomes an engine of each. I thought I already posted this but it showed up on my system only as a draft. I think these are important.

 

Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale who wrote The Road to Unfreedom, reviewed Benjamin Carter Hett, The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic. Comparison with contemporary America are uncanny. Snyder ends his review saying “The conclusions for conservatives of today emerge clearly” from this history of the fall of German democracy: “Do not break the rules that hold a republic together, because one day you will need order. And do not destroy the opponents who respect those rules, because one day you will miss them.” But recent events suggest little respect for those lessons.

 

Kori Schake, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote The Trump Doctrine is Winning and the World is Losing. Summarizing a magnificent article is difficult but for me the kernel was that “if the United States doesn’t sustain” cooperation among the world’s democracies, “a rising power will eventually force it to defend its interests or succumb.” That’s been the pattern of power transitions except the transition from Britain to the United States, “an exception born of their democratic similarities, and one unlikely to be repeated between the United States and China.” At this point the U.S. handed over leadership in Asian trade to the Chinese with our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and weakening alliances among democratic nations allows China to intimidate weaker countries and reshape Asian geography and maritime rules without cost. Moreover, the costs of the American led world order were small and declining, especially by comparison to the benefits.

 

And David Sanger, national security correspondent  for the Times and author of the forthcoming The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age, after exploring the extent of cyber-sabotage and American vulnerability, shows the cost of not dealing with growing Russian capability because of its political implications.

 

Will America choose another Roosevelt to pull us out of this deepening vortex of destruction or will it choose a Hindenburg to hand the reigns to a beast preparing to roast, gas and kill us all?

 

 

Democracy Needs Generosity

What’s wrong with our politics is its too common don’t-tread-on-me selfishness.

“What’s-in-it-for-me” politics in the early republic held up roads, canals and other internal improvements for decades until we learned to share. Democracy needs some generosity.

After 9/11, Congress passed appropriations for local safety and security. I spoke with a former congressman from this area about New York City’s share. He responded about his district’s various rural areas. I pointed out that the people in his district had important ties to New York City – family or friends there for jobs or schools. Others with close business ties. He responded that he hadn’t thought of that. Frankly that’s what’s wrong with our politics. We need to think about what binds us together instead of what splits us apart. And yes, even the subways New York City depends on. If we starve the subways because it’s there, not here, we starve ourselves; and vice versa.

The same connections are true of our ethnic, racial, religious and gender groups. Some hate paying for anyone else’s schooling. Yet it’s even costlier to clean up after or imprison people who’ve never been given the tools to pull their weight in society.

Should God forbid equalizers like Social Security or Obamacare, though they’re cheaper than the costs imposed by inequality?

The alt-atrocious white supremacists would give us a war of all against all, which makes only corpses and refugees, leaving no one safe – not supremacists, minorities, family, men, women or children.

Since Revolutionary America, colleges kept inviting broader, more diverse groups of students in order to sustain themselves. Industry learned production required people working together regardless of language or faith. Commercial firms learned that lesson to sell their products. The military learned that successful missions required soldiers to support each other regardless of color, origin, language, faith or sexual orientation. Whenever diversity looked problematic, it ended by strengthening American institutions.

America IS great, not in spite of diversity but because of it. Our ideals have led Americans to work well together. The lesson of brotherhood has been our great strength.

Meeting and introducing my classmates to an African-American Olympic champion who won four medals in front of a fuming Hitler did me no harm. Befriending fellow law students from every faith and continent hurt none of us! Just the contrary as we became comfortable with and learned from each other. Perhaps the biggest lesson we all learned is that both lovely and nasty people come in all colors, cultures and tongues.

Climate change, terrorism, threats of war, and economic collapse truly threaten to embitter our lives. Pulling together will be essential to combatting them. Prejudice is a distraction and an obstacle. No children should be left behind. We all have to take care of each other. From federal workers to the homeless, we all have to take care of each other.

Remember President Kennedy’s call: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Some of what we do has to benefit others. Without sharing the gains, there may be no gains to share.

The second President Bush turned Kennedy on his head. He wanted us to counter terrorism by shopping. Bush’s vision was victory without blood, sweat, tears, money or sacrifice. After all we’re number 1. But that’s a fantasy. People unwilling to take pains for the benefit of America and its democratic inheritance cannot enjoy its gains.

It’s broader than that. We must care about the welfare of the European Union, Mexicans, Hondurans and each other, or reap the whirlwind.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, January 22, 2019.

Another Black man shot in the back by police

Albany’s DA recently decided against prosecuting anyone in connection with police shooting of a Black man and paralyzing him. He may have had a hunting knife. But police first charged that he was  charging them. So the apparent justification was that the police were scared. Then reports of a video showed that he was running away and was shot in the back.

I have no inside knowledge of this case but, unfortunately, it’s part of a pattern. Police claim that a Black man was charging them when a video shows that the guy was running away with his back turned. Or the police acknowledge that he was running away but claim to be scared because he was carrying something, maybe a knife or the keys to his apartment. One Black man after another has been shot in the back by police who claim to be scared that he would turn around, too scared of Black men to hold their fire when they have no reasonable fear of his behavior.

Actually it’s systematic partly because police are trained that they have no time. So they shoot first and ask questions later. Shooting is a first, not a last, resort. As a result of that training, even some Black officers have bought into it.

Think about it. If you were charged with shooting a man in the back and you told a jury that you were scared because the man was carrying something, you’d be convicted of manslaughter at the least. You and I have no right to shoot on the basis of speculation of what could be. You can’t mow people down because one of them might turn around revealing an unseen weapon, perhaps a gun in his briefcase. That’s not reasonable behavior; it’s not a rule we can live with. A rule of fear would put us all under ground. The law properly requires more before you can kill. But put on a badge and strap on a holster and suddenly there are no rules.

If this were the Philippines or Indonesia we’d call it “impunity.” When big shots over there act with impunity it means they are not accountable for their behavior. It’s here too when police treat Black men as if their lives do not matter.

The public seems to think that brave people must be honest and decent. But what do you do with the bravery of athletes who abuse women? I don’t know the percentages, but what do you do with the regular revelations of police who commit crimes, frame people for crimes they didn’t commit, and abuse women and Blacks? In addition to repeated revelation of Black men shot in the back by police, we’ve had revelations in New York about police ordering women to strip on the highway and revelations about frame-ups on the southern tier. We know that prejudice compounds the message of training that drives police to shoot African-Americans in the back. Should we assume that badges and guns will produce honorable behavior, make police feel empowered to take advantage of others, or both?

I would make it illegal to shoot anyone in the back unless they are in fact armed and dangerous. Or I’d require a warrant before police get to strap on weapons. A free country cannot have armed men acting with impunity, with or without badges. It is totally unacceptable. You can’t correct death.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, January 15, 2019.

What’s Nancy up to?

If you or I were in a negotiation, we wouldn’t start with something that looked like the other side’s position – the bill that passed the Republican-controlled Senate, a bill that the man in the White House once said he’d sign. We’d load the proposal with other stuff we wanted and let the other side try to bargain us down with concessions of their own. Is Nancy nuts? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Bargaining in public is a very different game. This negotiation isn’t about horse-trading; it’s about bringing the public along, not just liberal Democrats like me – there aren’t enough of us to win elections by ourselves, and the power is in the prediction of future elections – that’s what pushes both sides around. So, she took a very conciliatory position, a Republican position, a position both houses of Congress had supported, and said, in effect: Here’s a reasonable position, Mr. President; why don’t you be reasonable too?

Of course, the big game down the road is impeachment. That will take a good deal of Republican support. The more unreasonable Nancy can make Donald look, the quicker he becomes a powerless lame duck. Then it will be time to talk about what I want.

The Constitution allows the House to stop Donald from appointing any more partisans to the federal judiciary. The Republicans have understood for years that judges are central to getting what they want and the Supreme Court has been giving it to them:

• The Republican judiciary blessed gerrymandering and Republican efforts to keep Democrats away from the voting booths, decisions that took power out of the hands of Americans and undercut self-government across the board
• The Republican judiciary turned the clock back on unions, women’s rights to control their own bodies, and the right of people of color not to be killed by people claiming to be terrified by the backs of African-Americans who might have turned around
• The Republican judiciary stopped the count and sent Al Gore, the Democratic candidate for president, back into private life, choosing instead to elect George Bush, and ultimately tearing both the American economy and the Middle East apart – decisions that did a great deal of damage to huge numbers of Americans.
• The Republican judiciary penalizes people, whites as well as Blacks, for being poor
• America needs and deserves a fair, not a partisan judiciary making decisions by whose side it helps or whose party line it follows

Democrats could simply refuse to appropriate funds for open judicial seats. The number of seats on all federal courts are just statutory and can be changed so long as the positions and salaries of sitting judges are not diminished. Seats on the Supreme Court have varied from five to ten; there’s nothing sacred about nine. Seats on the lower courts have varied even more. Can’t stand allowing Barack Obama to nominate the centrist Merrick Garland? Democrats need not give Donald the power to fill open positions with partisans whose main goal is to keep him and other Republicans in power.

But leadership isn’t just about making good decisions; it’s about bringing the people along. A leader must have the humility to understand that they can’t produce shifts by snapping fingers. That’s one of the attributes for which I have always admired Franklin Roosevelt. I’m rooting for Nancy.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, January 7, 2018.