"Since the Waxman-Markey bill left the Energy and Commerce committee, yet another fleet of industry lobbysists has weakened the bill even more, and further widened the gap between what Waxman-Markey does and what science demands. As a result, Greenpeace opposes this bill in its current form. We are calling upon Congress to vote against this bill unless substantial measures are taken to strengthen it. Despite President Obama's assurance that he would enact strong, science-based legislation, we are now watching him put his full support behind a bill that chooses politics over science, elevates industry interests over national interest, and shows the significant limitations of what this Congress believes is possible.
"As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.
"With many others in the environmental, faith and consumer rights communities, Greenpeace has expressed tremendous concern about the role of offsets in this legislation. Unless strictly controlled, the abuse of offsets could prevent real emission reductions for more than a decade. The decision to move authority over offsets from EPA to the Department of Agriculture further reduces the likelihood that such controls will be maintained and increases the likelihood they will undermine real reductions. ..."
And out of all the hubbub, sweat, tears and arguing poured into the climate legislation debate, points like this have yet to be gotten across to the public, which is another type of failure:
"If you talk to the man on the street, there is a lot more awareness of the concept of renewable energy than there is about the need for a zero-carbon source," said Mundie, Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer, in an interview on the sidelines of a major electricity conference.
I disagree with Mundie on the issue of nuclear power, but the fact that this debate didn't start from the premise that we need to completely neutralize carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions, that's a fail. Everything about our future comfort and way of life depends on figuring out how to curb emissions before resource shortages force us to do so anyway. Yet the debate over this bill was instead between climate change deniers and people who want to roll the dice on doing the minimum.
As tempting as it would be to blame someone like Rep. Collin Peterson for the whole ACES debacle, the bill sucked before he got there and he had a lot of help.
Bill Scher writing at OurFuture.org argues that everyone did all they could and it's pointless to argue about it now. I disagree. I think it should be regarded as an object lesson in how much change the system requires before it will start producing results that look more like democracy and less like feudalism.
Even outside the climate debate, the problems are obvious. The mere fact that we have a Congress that interprets support for single payer as an irrelevance instead of as an overall weighting towards the public option side of the debate -- it's a deliberate misreading of public will that's being used as a convenient excuse to go ahead and do what they wanted to all along, which is protect the health insurance racket -- is the whole problem. If it can credibly be said that single-payer advocacy undermines healthcare reform, one might as well say that Congress is determined to find any excuse to get out from under the responsibility of representing their constituents.
We have an unresponsive and corrupt Congress that no amount of organizing, weight of fact, or citizen consensus seems to budge. If Congress was instead populated by Feingolds, Boxers, Waxmans and Markeys, etc., we wouldn't have to watch over their shoulders every damn minute to see if they were doing the job they were elected to do, and we really shouldn't have to.
As any Republican could tell us, this is a representative republic and not a direct democracy. Pay attention and engage; yes, we should do that. Have to beg and plead every time for them to do the right thing, and be outgunned no matter what every single time; that's ridiculous as a premise and a waste of resources in practice.
Particularly recalcitrant members of Congress need to be primaried and made to fight for their seats. Problematic regional power bases need to be identified and have their rugs pulled out from under them. Local organizing should focus on finding ways to directly pick up the slack for the federal government's dereliction of duty. Charitable donations to 'green' organizations need to be put under a more critical lens, and should stop going to groups that have stopped getting results and don't even seem to realize it.
Mileage may vary as to best strategy in any specific case, but it's beginning to look like a futile time suck talking to this current crew in DC at present levels of focus. There may need to be several rounds of layoffs before the rest get the picture, but congresscritters clearly need to get fired.
This has to be the other side of supporting the people who tried to do the right thing, that we have to go after the people who did the wrong thing.
I mean, it'd be great to just be nice and positive all the time, but millions of people are going to be killed or starved or displaced from their homes if we don't get climate right. NGOs/non-profits who refuse to work on fixing the system and members of Congress who abdicate responsibility towards public well-being on such a grand scale, they need to go.
Update: In preemptive response to the argument that we needed to have been organizing around this issue for a longer period of time, Peterson started agitating for what he wanted about a month or so ago. He has clout, we don't, end of story. |
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