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There is a common link between our economic woes and seeming inability to do anything to save the planet on which we live — our own ignorance. In last week’s column "Money," I put forth my theory most of us are not part of the national dialogue on how to fix our economy because we don’t understand how it works. The same can be said for environmental issues.
I count myself as a typical American. I want a cleaner planet. My personal record is not bad: I don’t own a car; I tend to tighten dripping faucets; I turn off the television when I’m not watching it; I don’t smoke; I love most animals; and I have been known to shoo a fly out the back door to avoid swatting it. Normally, however, I will not go out of my way to live greener unless the government forces me.
Let’s face it, living green involves putting up with inconveniences both large and small. The shower head in my bathroom saves water at the expense of being able to rinse all of the suds off my behind. Brisk hand-washing for the prescribed 20 seconds in a public bathroom is difficult because most times the hot water faucet turns off after five seconds. Most of the hand-dryers take forever. I can’t help thinking if we just closed a couple of golf courses we could all go back to cleaning our hands and flushing toilets the way we used to do. There has to be more of a sense we’re all in this together.
I am afraid voluntary action might make an individual feel good, but we need the force of the government to make any serious headway in the battle for a cleaner Earth. It does the planet no particular good if I walk to the supermarket while someone else drives a Hummer. Right wing talk show hosts can rail all they want to against infringements on our freedoms, but without laws against littering, America would be a sea of broken beer bottles. We are a nation with a short attention span. We grew interested in hybrid automobiles when the price of gas went through the roof and became disinterested once oil prices dropped. Without government mandates (in this case, keeping the price of gas high), no real progress is being made.
This goes for ceremonial gestures, too, which are pretty much a waste of time. There is some PR value to Earth Day, but it’s what we do the day after and the rest of the year that really matters. Recently there was a night when people were supposed to turn off their lights for an hour in support of the Kyoto treaty. It was a feel-good moment for the folks who participated, but the fact remains most of us don’t know much of anything about the Kyoto treaty, except America refused to sign it.
And so it goes.
Part of the problem is environmental issues can be arcane. Too often there is a temptation to engage in doomsday scenarios to get people’s attention. The end-of-the-world argument cuts a couple of ways. It is easy to come away with the perception it is already too late to save ourselves, so why do anything? To argue against doomsday is taken by some to mean you are not serious about the issue.
We also give too much credence to the occasional oddball scientist who does not believe in global warming. Scan the Drudge Report on any given day and there is always a meteorologist in Cleveland or somewhere else arguing global warming is about politics, not science. The rare dissenter receives as much credence as the gathering consensus in the scientific community global warming is real and not a figment of Al Gore’s imagination.
I believe we ought to give nuclear power a second look. If this places me with the French and the Republicans, so be it. Nuclear reactors are a way to provide clean energy and, on balance, are much safer than coal, where lives are lost every year in the mines. It may be the problem of nuclear waste is unsolvable, but the debate was cut off based on the hysteria of the time and should be reopened.
In the end, fixing the environment continues to be an issue because we Americans don’t do anything until a crisis hits. We are not a people who like long-range planning. We’ll fix Social Security a day before the fund collapses and not a moment sooner. We’ll get around to saving the planet right before the North Pole turns into Miami Beach.
We can’t afford to be bystanders in the national debate. For once, we’re going to have to see beyond our own noses and worry about the quality of life our grandchildren will have to endure. We need a strong federal government to force us out of complacency.
