Matters of Principle

The views of others would be welcome on this question: If climate is changing in ways that will adversely affect the planet, is this a moral issue?

Let’s assume for purposes of this question that there is a “tipping point” beyond which heating of the climate cannot be reversed and that this change will bring about mass migrations, rise in coastal water levels, upheaval of crop patterns, drying up of major water sources, and so forth.  Assume further that populations in both democracies and autocratic regimes are not responding to arguments having to do with science, politics, policy, international treaties, and the range of debates now surrounding the climate issue.  They are not responding for two basic reasons: the debate is too complex and remote; and they feel helpless about it in any case, even if they took time to understand it.

For those of us who accept the warnings of senior military figures that this is an international security issue of major, historical proportions, what can be done?  Perhaps the whole climate issue is being managed on the wrong plane.  Perhaps the issue isn’t about us.  Perhaps the issue is about our children.  Perhaps public opinion and sentiment can be activated by this argument: we do not have the moral right to risk damage to the planet our children will inherit.

Veterans of this blogsite know that its author is transfixed by the fact that the preamble to our Constitution sets out the purposes for the creation of the United States as being goals and principles ”for ourselves and our posterity.”  The Founders were looking into the future.  They wanted this great experiment in republican democracy to last.  Yet today we live in a culture that principally thinks only of itself and only of today.

So, whatever one’s religion, and whatever one’s politics, we all ought to agree that we have no right to endanger our children.  It has always seemed to me to be a vastly underplayed card in the world of global politics that one common denominator unites all mankind: we care about our children.  It is as fundamental to human nature as any other attribute.  That being the case, could we not agree that, while scientists continue to refine the data and seek concurrence, and diplomats continue to negotiate treaties, and politicians continue (hopefully) to educate their constituents, we are accountable to generations born and unborn for this planet, and that we have a moral duty not to damage it by heating the climate or detonating nuclear weapons.

It has been wisely said that we do not own the earth: we take it from our parents and hold it in trust for our children.  When all is said and done, and we are called upon to account for our lives on earth, this may well be the standard we must meet.

Tags: climate change, global warming
Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, National and international security | | 19 Comments »

In the second half of the 20th century major technologies, mostly having to do with energy production, emerged.  These included offshore oil drilling platforms, giant tanker transportation, and nuclear power plants.  Almost all energy production facilities, such as hydroelectric dams, tar sands, experimentation with oil shale, coal production, and so forth, also got much bigger.  Economies of scale was the usual justification.  If you are going to the trouble of drilling a mile or more down in the ocean or building a nuclear reactor, you got more bang for the buck by doing it on a grand scale.

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, and now Deepwater Horizon, showed that with high production comes high risk.  High risk ventures such as these in the U.S. are licensed by the United States government.  Certain standards have to be met to obtain both a construction and an operating license for a nuclear power plant.  Presumably, some standards of safety and efficiency are also required for an offshore drilling permit.  British Petroleum had a five-story tall “fail-safe” apparatus on the ocean floor to prevent a well blow out.  It failed.

The U.S., and possibly all advanced nations in the world, require a public policy that authorizes high-risk ventures, ones whose failure produces catastrophe, only after very serious requirements are met: every system that might fail must be clearly identified; every system to respond to failure must be thoroughly tested and demonstrated; every technical and human response to failure and catastrophe must be drilled, tested, and proven; every operator must maintain highly-skilled emergency response teams at every facility around the clock; all levels of government emergency response must be integrated, drilled, and ready (including emergency evacuation of civilians); the costs of catastrophic failure must be included in the public record; a large emergency response fund must be maintained by the operator (that is to say, every operator must be self-insured); well-trained government monitors must be at every high-risk facility around the clock and have instant communications access to emergency response teams and senior government officials; and licenses to construct and operate these massive facilities must be signed by cabinet-level officials who personally assume responsibility in cases of catastrophic failure.

This final measure would certainly sober up those, including “drill, baby, drill” politicians, who might have their names on the line.  Right now we do not know what officials in the U.S. government finally authorized Deepwater Horizon, what safety measures its drilling permits required, what tests of the “fail-safe” apparatus were conducted, what plans, if any, BP and government agencies had for catastrophic response, and a host of other questions.

The alternative, of course, is to accept the risks of major failures, more Deepwater Horizons, as the way the world works.  Stuff happens.  Public memory is short.  Rare brown pelicans are expendable.  Gas in our tanks is not.  Gulf fishermen are on their own.  Besides, offshore drilling, massive coal extraction, and nuclear power plants create jobs.  Get rid of government, eliminate regulations, let free markets work, accept risk, forget catastrophies.  What are a few Deepwater Horizons in the great scheme of modern life.

The arc of the moral compass bends toward justice.

Tags: British Petroleum, Deepwater Horizon, public policy, regulation, risk
Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, Government and public policies | | 7 Comments »

It is universally acknowledged that the United States is a capitalist economic system embedded in a democratic republic political system. When both system function smoothly, few question this arrangement.

But when one system or the other malfunctions, fingers are pointed and blamed is shifted…all according to one’s ideological beliefs. Take the British Petroleum/Gulf of Mexico oil spill for instance. The people of Louisiana and the vehicle drivers of the nation were happy to have the oil the offshore facilities produced. Jobs were created in Louisiana and the rest of us had gas for our cars. Both assumed the operator, British Petroleum, knew what it was doing and that the appropriate agencies of the U.S. government were regulating its behavior.

Problems arose, however, when BP’s “fail safe” system failed. Turns out it didn’t know what it was doing. And regulators in both the Bush and Obama administrations weren’t paying enough attention. Now the “free market” disciples are blaming the government, and the critics of corporate excess are blaming BP. The purpose here is not to join one side or the other (though both entities and both systems failed), but rather to encourage both warring sides to consider a new model.

Anyone who takes the trouble to read American history knows that, left to their own devices, corporate interest more often that not put profits ahead of the public interest. (Consider not only British Petroleum but also the operators of the West Virginia coal mine.) Likewise, the same history tells us that, when government relaxes its protection of the public interest and the common good, whether out of lassitude or belief that government should not reign in excessive corporate excess, bad things happen.

A mature society, one that understood both history and human nature, would reach a thoughtful balance that permits private corporate interests to drive economic growth, and make a reasonable profit, under conditions where the public interest, the common good, and the interests of future generations and nature were represented by well-trained, alert, dedicated, disinterested (that is to say, not regulators drawn from the industries they are sworn to regulate), and knowledgeable government officials made fail safe systems work.

This is not an impossible dream. It is how reasonable people behave. It is how a mature nation, which the United States of America should be by now, acts. It is the very least the people of the United States should expect from both corporate interests and their own government.

Tags: capitalism, economic growth, public interests, regulation
Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, Government and public policies | | 14 Comments »

One of the perennial questions we ask ourselves is whether all of nature is there for us to use and then discard or whether mankind owes a debt to nature.  Many humans do have an instinct to personalize the natural world in the form of Mother Nature and to see the planet as a complex living thing…the so-called Gaia outlook.  Questions like this are usually raised when a man-made disaster, such as the current Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, occurs.

When we, and much of the world, were agrarians, we took better care of our natural surroundings.  We needed the land and water for nourishment and the air for breath itself…and we still do.  But we continue to pay a heavy price for a century and a half of industrialization, much of it pursued as if the land, water, and air were free goods that would have to somehow heal themselves or that we would leave to our children to clean up.  The industries that poisoned the waterways, soil, and air were almost never around to pay for the damage.

As there are born liberals and born conservatives, I’ve come to believe that some of us have an instinct to protect nature and some do not.  Barring some magical transformation of human nature, that will probably always be so.  But, as mankind makes war on nature as we are now doing in the Gulf, little is heard from the “drill, baby, drill”  crowd, so willing to take risks at nature’s expense recently.  And the president, himself recently converted to off-shore drilling, is now having second thoughts.

As, in a more perfect world, it would be civilized and mature to hold public discourse without the screams and finger-pointing of the day, so it would be helpful if to no one else but future generations and Nature herself to take into account the damage we so casually do in order to drive inefficient vehicles and burn lights in empty rooms.

For a time, as after Exxon Valdez, we will look with sorrow at the oil-coated birds and beaches and sympathize with the out-of-work fishermen.  “How’s that drilly, oily stuff workin’ for ya’ these days,” no politician will cutely ask.  But, not long thereafter, “drill, baby, drill” will return, and with it the scorn for those who think we all might owe Nature a little more respect.

Tags: environment, Exxon Mobil, gulf of mexico, industrialization, nature, off-shore oil drilling, oil industry
Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, Government and public policies | | 11 Comments »

As in many things, American citizens cannot decide whether they want to vote for followers or leaders.  While decrying the lack of leadership in America, they punish elected officials who take unpopular, but forward looking stands, by turning them out of office.  Though claiming to want leaders, most Americans vote for followers.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, for a politician to be both leader and follower.  Let’s consider three examples: climate; defense; and health care.  Suppose a member of Congress is absolutely convinced we are near a tipping point where further increases in carbon emissions could have disastrous consequences for generations to come.  She is also convinced that the most effective way to avoid this catastrophe is a carbon tax or even, for that matter, a system of caps and trades.  The people of her State or district resist any change that would affect the status quo.  She follows the popular will, votes against dramatic change, and is reelected.

Where defense is concerned, a majority of voters believe the Pentagon budget is too large.  But the Senator from any given State knows that pieces of almost every weapon system are made in every State.  In addition, any vote for reforms in troop structures, weapons systems, or foreign deployments will be subject to the campaign charge that the Senator is “weak on defense.”  Better to follow the popular will than to lead.

Except for the very wealthy, almost all Americans know “something” must be done about our health care system.  They just don’t want any changes that might affect them, even changes that don’t have negative consequences.  How far out in front does a candidate or office-holder get in solving a problem that has refused solution for almost seven decades?

Inability to resolve contradictory wants is a sign of adolescence.  We can’t have leadership if we persist in voting for followers.  It is tempting to conclude that, if Americans truly want leadership, as they claim, that they reward it and not punish it—in effect, that they grow up.

There are ways out of this dilemma.  One is for leaders to become better at educating constituents.  In office my experience was that I could convince skeptical voters of the need for change if I took the time and trouble to explain why they couldn’t have it both ways, why we had to choose between the status quo and the future.  Another was to offer new approaches that the political system hadn’t already produced.  In a surprising number of cases, people would be attracted to an idea or new approach that was neither of the traditional left or right.  A third is to remind people that the big issues of the day do not affect just our generation but have profound consequences for their children as well, that there is a moral component that trumps immediate self-interest.

We are too far along in our history for Americans to continue to believe that they can persist in voting for followers and expect true leadership.

Tags: leadership
Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, Government and public policies, Uncategorized | | 13 Comments »

An earlier comment questioned my use of the word commonwealth as describing all those things Americans hold together—our public lands and resources, our defenses, our air and water, our government, and the list is long.  A commonwealth is described as “a community in which all have an interest.”

Though we are a capitalist economy which respects and protects private property, we also are a commonwealth of all those things in which we all have an interest.  A variation on this ancient notion is the commons.  That word describes not only the British parliamentary house of the people but it also, in early American terms, was the New England green, a common grazing area for everyone’s cattle and eventually a park and meeting place.

As some of my submissions suggest, I’ve always been puzzled by our efforts to leave a private legacy for our children while neglecting our public legacy, the character and quality of our commonwealth and its resources that we also leave to our children.

If a few of us are smart and fortunate, mostly fortunate, we leave large amounts of money, houses and land, maybe yachts and cars to our heirs.  But that private wealth is not worth much if our public resources have deteriorated or been plundered, our climate is warming, our rivers are polluted, or our education and health systems are in decline.  The transfer of massive private wealth does not ensure that our progeny will live in a better nation or world.

So, it seems to me we must all think about our public legacy, our commons and our commonwealth.  That is true of the United States, but in a shrinking world of globalization, information, and necessarily closer inter-national relations, a global commons is also emerging.  Climate and environment are universal.  Security and peaceful trade are of interest to all but the radical few.  International investments, student exchanges, and shared knowledge and research are among the many things the global community has a common interest.

Our leaders and policy makers would do well to focus on the American commonwealth, our public legacy, the global commons, and the “more perfect union…and blessings of liberty” we seek for ourselves “and our posterity.”

Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, World events and foreign policies | | 7 Comments »

For many years the United States has been the de facto guarantor of world oil supplies.  We maintain one and more recently two aircraft carrier task groups in the Indian Ocean and near the Persian Gulf.  They are there not only to support our forces in Iraq and throughout the region.  They are there, and will remain there, so long as the region produces a substantial portion of the consuming world’s oil supplies.

Someone has to do it, you might say, and that is true.  But does that “someone” always have to be the United States? 

First of all, it is possible for us to reduce our dependence on Persian Gulf oil, roughly 20 to 25 percent of our imports which themselves represent almost 70 percent of our total consumption.  Suppliers such as Canada and Mexico, among others, are reliable.  The Persian Gulf is not.  We can choose to continue to depend on unreliable Persian Gulf oil, but we will do so at the cost of thousands if not tens of thousands of American lives in future Persian Gulf wars and tens if not hundreds of billions of tax dollars in maintaining a third to a half of all our military forces in the greater region permanently.

Instead, a new sense of international responsibility would organize a consortium of oil consuming nations, including much of Europe, that would assume collective responsibility for policing the Persian Gulf oil export routes and sea lanes.  Other nations have navies and they can increase them if we convince them that, free of our dependence, we will no longer underwrite theirs.

To make matters even clearer, a zone comprising much of the Persian Gulf oil production region could be designated something like a Zone of International Interest by the United Nations which would empower the international community to guarantee the continued production and exportation of oil supplies regardless of regional political upheavals.  Even if we are free of our dependence on that region, much of the world’s economy will continue to require its oil.  All the more reason to make the greater Persian Gulf a specially-designated area of international responsibility.

All that is lacking is imagination and leadership.

Posted in Energy, climate, and environment, National and international security | | 8 Comments »

Not too long ago, issues came in boxes.  There was a health box, an education box, an economy box, a defense box, and similar boxes for dealing with energy, environment, and national security.

No longer.  The realities of the 21^st century world have been shattering these boxes and merging these issues with massive force.  An argument, though a complex one, could be made that all major social and political issues now interrelate.  But for my purpose here, I argue that, at the very least, we cannot separate consideration of and a search for solutions to energy, climate, and security.

We have an energy policy: we will continue to import up to 70% of our oil from abroad, including from the most dangerous region of the world, the Persian Gulf, to fuel energy inefficient vehicles, and if that oil gets cut off we will sacrifice the lives of our sons and daughters to get it.  Thus, experts estimate that between a third and a half of all our defense forces are engaged, one way or the other, in protecting the flow of world oil supplies for ourselves and our allies.

But the scientific community is overwhelmingly of the opinion that combustion of fossil fuels is warming the planet.  And increasingly the defense community now states that climate change represents a threat to our nation’s security.

So, energy, climate, and security.  One big box that must be addressed inclusively.  Though this conglomerate must be the subject of continuing discussion here and elsewhere, suffice it for now to say that reduction of wasteful energy consumption will reduce global warming, make us more secure, and save many lives.

Posted in Energy, climate, and environment | | 10 Comments »

Welcome to Matters of Principle, Senator Gary Hart’s personal blog.  More content is coming soon, so please visit the blog section of the site to see the most recent posts.  Thanks for dropping by.

Tags: Books, climate, elections, energy, ideas
Posted in Books and ideas, Energy, climate, and environment, National and international security, Our Constitution and laws, The changing nature of conflict, World events and foreign policies | | 5 Comments »