Prisoners and the Price of Anger

People are angrily attacking Gov. Cuomo’s proposal to provide a college education for some prisoners in order to put them on a path toward more constructive, and law abiding, lives.

How much is anger worth? I understand the anger at funding an education for prisoners. They’re in prison because they have been adjudged guilty of a crime – some pretty minor but some pretty nasty. 

Environmental Degradation as Murder

I don’t think of myself as a motivational speaker. I try to explain, and hope my commentaries provide helpful explanations. But this time, I want to challenge and motivate everyone to take strong action on the environmental catastrophe facing us.

We know burning gas, oil, coal and wood release carbon and help produce global warming. Some of that carbon acidifies the oceans when it’s absorbed. Air and water contamination destroy our food supplies, by destroying habitat and causing draught, among other ways. That destroys us. Global warming and ocean acidification threaten the oxygen we breathe. They threaten to sicken us with new diseases. The science is now well known.

Law generally defines murder as an intentional killing. And we infer that people intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions. And we know. Aren’t those of us who stand by guilty of mass murder-suicide, intending the natural and probable consequence of our use of carbon fuels, the death of many, perhaps billions, of human beings. Isn’t it reckless indifference to human life to fire global warming into this crowded planet.

Carbon Certificates and Global warming

I was proud and delighted during the fund drive to find Joe Donahue and this station helping to prevent 600 tons of carbon emissions by offering carbon certificates so that the big power companies could not get the permissions those certificates represented to pollute our atmosphere.

The carbon certificates we all pledged for, or the solar panels we installed or the Prius we drive will not save the atmosphere by themselves. But they matter.

They matter because we are doing our part. But more than that, they matter because industries will not save our planet out of the goodness of their hearts. If they make environmentally sound products that we don’t buy, or sell them at prices we won’t pay, they will either have to make the same things and make them the same cheap but destructive ways that their competitors do, or they will go bankrupt and leave the field to others less honorable. Business is the crucial link. But they can’t do their part unless we do ours.

There are three ways. We can show by our buying habits that we have built a market and they must change or we’ll all switch to the first businesses that give us the chance to be environmentally conscious with our dollars. That takes time to build but it ultimately makes a difference. So keep up the pressure, retiring carbon certificates through WAMC, buying wind and solar power wherever we can and other environmentally sound products and practices. Keep up the pressure.

Another way is regulatory. We can get our elected representatives to “Just say no.” Of course we all know who’s on the other side and how much money they give to the politicians and how many lobbyists they throw at the legislators. But then some of us enjoy the battle.

And the third way is a carbon tax, or a BTU tax which is more comprehensive. Sure that’s a tax. It will make some things more expensive. But John F. Kennedy is still right when he told us not to ask what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. This is about what we can do for our own future, our children’s and grandchildren’s future, and our country’s future. The consequences of global warming are enormous but we can and must deal with it. Our job as citizens is to support the steps that need to happen to curb the use of carbon based fuel. We need not to allow ourselves to be bamboozled by empty and ignorant shouts about government and regulation. This is a task that we can accomplish only with the help of government. It is the kind of thing that government is for – to organize our energies to protect our country, our future, our children and grandchildren. And answering President Kennedy’s call, supporting that effort is something we can do for our country.

We will want to use the tariff system to impose the equivalent of a BTU tax on imports from countries that don’t have one. This is a big international problem. The solution is one that only America can lead. Let’s get going.

— This commentary was broadcast on WAMC Northeast Report, Feb. 11, 2014.