As citizens, we are often unaware of our complicity in the mishandling of specific arguments.
I will leave for another day the debacle of choice versus life that reduces the argument to two moral sayings and instead address our perceptions of the climate debate.
When we separate ideas into irreconcilable moral categories, we abandon any possibility of reasonable and acceptable compromise. If Senator Joe Manchin could reduce the energy problem to such an argument, he would gladly thwart any serious attempt to solve our energy problems, instead he prefers wind-twisting obfuscation.
The environmental problems we face have not yet been presented as purely moral problems, but it is within reach. Manchin’s apologetic refusal to honestly address the current situation is surpassed only by our own individual disregard for facts. Facts backed by the reality of air pollution, oceans and drinking water, forests and many natural habitats, or our effect on the global climate. Our unquenchable thirst for energy and its products prevents us from any necessary action. Reducing the argument to “climate change” simplifies the complex issue for political gain and reduces all environmental concerns to a current sounding phrase in an attempt to apply a moral code to a specific effect that is generated from a concept wider.
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This concept is an inclusive and coherent energy policy. A policy that addresses the problems encountered on several fronts. One that does not reduce the problems of the continued use of plastics without adequate recyclable facilities or sensible packaging alternatives to economic impossibilities. A policy of transport alternatives and the promotion of goods, products, products and methods that create efficient networks instead of the hodgepodge of land, air and sea routes. A comprehensive policy that looks at our needs and the economic effects on human existence and not the portfolio or bottom line of corporations, hidden investors or multiple oligarchs who now benefit from our policy of doing nothing but obfuscate .
A multi-pronged policy that addresses the myriad of issues that the all-encompassing phrase “climate change” seeks to embrace. The one who recognizes our thirst for things to the detriment of a quality of life that quickly escapes us. The inevitability of existing in a deliberately poisoned and irreversible environment. It takes a major pull to the mindset, perhaps beyond the human ability to adapt to a reduction in desire. A politics that seeks an attainable vision that is not a strict utopian universal but applies sound knowledge to the problems we face.
It’s not asking too much of our governing bodies to try to manage these things. There are several small incremental functions that start to address the issues. We must extend the approaches already launched, ie recycling, drinking water, solar and less dependence on fossil fuels.
Energy is inseparable from our environment, our economy, the quality of our lives and our existence. Our national policy is now spread across many cabinets all with distinct responsibilities, ultimately dealing separately with the issue of most concern, in particular a combined cohesive energy policy that includes the sub-categories of housing and urban development, commerce, agriculture, interior, health and social services. , transport, energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. Each of these cabinet-level departments applies or implements the policy, but in an uncoordinated manner. They diffuse effective policy-making and are subject to political whims.
This polyglot inhibits action on vital issues. They can be useful in their individual spheres, but not to implement a large coherent plan of action. Competition for funding among them defeats many of their stated purposes, in fact, they add to the price tag that prohibits legitimate compromise on many issues. That the economic and energy interests of the nation and the world are held hostage by a small state is a shame. We should not allow this to turn into moral outrage as other prominent features of our national society have. Outrage certainly but not an outrage reduced to a non-negotiable morality.
Without a comprehensive and effective energy policy that includes regulation of natural resources, alternative forms of energy, a national and global recycling effort, and a move away from large internal combustion engine-dependent vehicles in our transportation system, there is no There is no relief from an increasingly brutal future crisis for most humans everywhere. We must seek policies that move us away from fossil fuels and from exploring better sources of renewable energy at a higher level than is currently practiced. We need to pursue viable initiatives and discourage reliance on current coal and oil bans.
