As we fire up the barbecues and ready for our labor day celebrations, I'd like everyone to stop for a moment and think about another reason for honoring labor - how it creates community through sacrifice.
In the wake of hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees and pumps, hundreds of thousand of our fellow Americans have faced disaster of epic proportions.
There are people in dire need of those things all of us need--water, food, clothing, shelter and medicine. It is the labor of other ordinary Americans that is filling the void. Whether it is the preparation of food in Baton Rouge churches, or volunteers from the NYPD piling into police cars and making the long trip to New Orleans. It is the volunteers of the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and neighbors rescuing neighbors with boats. It is the families in Houston adopting evacuees.
It is the labor and sacrifice of these individuals big and small, that is helping to improve the survival and conditions for all of those affected.
That, as much as anything, has always been the function of labor. Through shared sacrifice and effort the American Labor force continues to lift the prospects of all Americans. Whether it is reaching out to the under-compensated sectors of the work force to set the standards across all workplaces, or the determination to take the hit for everyone by striking.
It is the unity of that determination, even in the face of continued pressure from big business, the abandonment of pension plans, or the splitting of the national labor movement. It is that unity--that shared effort--that is the strength of America. So, take a moment today, to say thank you to American Labor, and then go fire up those coals.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Conspiracy of Cool - August 14, 2005
Once upon a time, there was a debate about global warming.
On one side of the debate, many climatologists believed that temperatures were rising on the earth's surface, in our oceans and in the atmosphere. Computer models predicted significant changes in weather patterns over time that could subject the planet's people and animals to catastrophic weather events.
On the other side of the debate were others who argued that the data demonstrating warming was inconclusive. They frequently cited reports by a pair of scientists who have been publishing reports on the temperature of the troposphere (which is the layer of the atmosphere that ends about five miles from the earth's surface). These reports have diverged from the computerized climate models and surface temperature trends, showing no warming of the troposphere.
The existence of these reports have buttressed the arguments of anyone who wanted to argue against global warming by suggesting that the science was uncertain. It has allowed the U.S. to delay taking mitigating actions which are viewed to be harmful to business, especially under this administration.
On August 12th, the NY Times (Errors Cited in Assessing Climate Data) reported that the calculations of air temperatures used in formulating those reports have been wrong all along. When the errors are adjusted for, the results not only show an increase in air temperatures--the increase is consistent with the surface temperature trends and the computer models.
That deafening click you just heard was the last piece of the puzzle snapping into place. We no longer have an excuse to fiddle while Rome sizzles.
So why isn't the sky falling? The Times article appeared in the National Section on page A12. Why not the front page like the travails of the recent space shuttle mission? Why isn't this being presented with the same urgency as other policy emergencies with far less empirical support, such as the social security deficit, or say, WMD in Iraq? Why haven't we lifted the ecological warning alert to code red?
The time has come for us to recognize the seriousness of this issue and do something about it. We cannot hope for that to happen unless our leaders and the press raise the profile of the problem and push for real solutions.
On one side of the debate, many climatologists believed that temperatures were rising on the earth's surface, in our oceans and in the atmosphere. Computer models predicted significant changes in weather patterns over time that could subject the planet's people and animals to catastrophic weather events.
On the other side of the debate were others who argued that the data demonstrating warming was inconclusive. They frequently cited reports by a pair of scientists who have been publishing reports on the temperature of the troposphere (which is the layer of the atmosphere that ends about five miles from the earth's surface). These reports have diverged from the computerized climate models and surface temperature trends, showing no warming of the troposphere.
The existence of these reports have buttressed the arguments of anyone who wanted to argue against global warming by suggesting that the science was uncertain. It has allowed the U.S. to delay taking mitigating actions which are viewed to be harmful to business, especially under this administration.
On August 12th, the NY Times (Errors Cited in Assessing Climate Data) reported that the calculations of air temperatures used in formulating those reports have been wrong all along. When the errors are adjusted for, the results not only show an increase in air temperatures--the increase is consistent with the surface temperature trends and the computer models.
That deafening click you just heard was the last piece of the puzzle snapping into place. We no longer have an excuse to fiddle while Rome sizzles.
So why isn't the sky falling? The Times article appeared in the National Section on page A12. Why not the front page like the travails of the recent space shuttle mission? Why isn't this being presented with the same urgency as other policy emergencies with far less empirical support, such as the social security deficit, or say, WMD in Iraq? Why haven't we lifted the ecological warning alert to code red?
The time has come for us to recognize the seriousness of this issue and do something about it. We cannot hope for that to happen unless our leaders and the press raise the profile of the problem and push for real solutions.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Unscientific Method
Thomas Friedman has got it right. The world is getting flatter, but not because of globalization. The erosion of the wall separating church and state is threatening to take us back to a time when common belief was in a flat earth.
The assault on government by the religious has escalated in the last few years, essentially because this administration is viewed as supportive of religion's role in government--a necessary position for a Republican trying to get through a bitter primary against a war hero.
The decades old battle over the teaching of evolution in the schools is being refought, at the very moment in history that our Supreme Court is mulling over the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments in government venues. Creationism has received a reality TV makeover and has been repackaged as Intelligent Design.
Some may view this as benign acquiescence to the majority religion in the country, but it is extremely important that we understand what we are giving up when we give dogmatic belief and scientific theory equal footing.
The discipline of science requires replicatable proof, derived from experiment and observation, before we are permitted to accept any theory as a basis for further scientific inquiry. Religion requires faith in laws that have not been proven. Unproven scientific theory is modified over time, with the introduction of new information. Religious belief requires that people modify their premises to conform with doctrine.
Science applies the same rules to everyone, and everybody can participate, as long as the rules remain intact. When you devalue a scientific theory like evolution, which has not yet been conclusively proven, by equating it with a religious "theory" like creationism, which can never be proven, you create two separate sets of rules. For a democracy, there is nothing more dangerous than that, because the only thing left to settle the argument is force.
This is what came to mind when I read the recent New York Times article On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research.
Here, we clearly have a subset of the population that has taken on faith the idea that thimerisol preservative in childhood vaccinations is the cause of autism. These parents, based upon their own observations, which suggest a causal link because of the timing of the development of the disorder, believe in the face of all scientific evidence to the contrary.
If policy is altered to conform with their beliefs, we will be taking a great step backwards in modern health. However, if someone should undertake a true scientific study to determine the cause of autism, perhaps, we will take a great step forward with development of treatment or even a cure.
Will we walk a flat earth, or sail over the horizon to a yet-unseen future? Believe or explore?
The assault on government by the religious has escalated in the last few years, essentially because this administration is viewed as supportive of religion's role in government--a necessary position for a Republican trying to get through a bitter primary against a war hero.
The decades old battle over the teaching of evolution in the schools is being refought, at the very moment in history that our Supreme Court is mulling over the constitutionality of displays of the Ten Commandments in government venues. Creationism has received a reality TV makeover and has been repackaged as Intelligent Design.
Some may view this as benign acquiescence to the majority religion in the country, but it is extremely important that we understand what we are giving up when we give dogmatic belief and scientific theory equal footing.
The discipline of science requires replicatable proof, derived from experiment and observation, before we are permitted to accept any theory as a basis for further scientific inquiry. Religion requires faith in laws that have not been proven. Unproven scientific theory is modified over time, with the introduction of new information. Religious belief requires that people modify their premises to conform with doctrine.
Science applies the same rules to everyone, and everybody can participate, as long as the rules remain intact. When you devalue a scientific theory like evolution, which has not yet been conclusively proven, by equating it with a religious "theory" like creationism, which can never be proven, you create two separate sets of rules. For a democracy, there is nothing more dangerous than that, because the only thing left to settle the argument is force.
This is what came to mind when I read the recent New York Times article On Autism's Cause, It's Parents vs. Research.
Here, we clearly have a subset of the population that has taken on faith the idea that thimerisol preservative in childhood vaccinations is the cause of autism. These parents, based upon their own observations, which suggest a causal link because of the timing of the development of the disorder, believe in the face of all scientific evidence to the contrary.
If policy is altered to conform with their beliefs, we will be taking a great step backwards in modern health. However, if someone should undertake a true scientific study to determine the cause of autism, perhaps, we will take a great step forward with development of treatment or even a cure.
Will we walk a flat earth, or sail over the horizon to a yet-unseen future? Believe or explore?
Saturday, April 09, 2005
It Ain't Easy Being Green
Are you ready for the new definition of "green"? No, it's not the new black. It's nuclear power.
That's not the punch line to some obscure joke. In the latest Orwellian repackaging of an unpopular initiative, the right is attempting to recast nuclear power as the greenest alternative available to the evil-doer-supporting oil industry.
In an eerie replay that is reminiscent of the run-up before the Iraq war, the passing of No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Drug Benefit, suddenly the opinion pages are littered with commentary that is critical of other alternative power sources, claims that conservation efforts will be too little-too late and downplaying the dangers of nuclear power.
My favorite bolstering claim is the one that suggests that imposing an $X per ton tax on carbon emissions renders nuclear power's costs competitive. Tack that sentence onto any energy analysis and substitute another number for X and anything can be made to look cost-competitive, even using the ambient heat from your television set.
To understand why nuclear energy isn't green (and all those conservation groups that are allegedly forging alliances over this issue ought be ashamed of themselves), the nuclear advocates have to be sent back to the dictionary to re-learn the definition of another important word--pollution. The pollution that causes global warming is not the only kind of pollution, and some kinds are far worse than others.
Truly green solutions view the earth as a living organism with systems that are vital to it's survival (not our survival, but survival of the organism as a whole). Viewed through that lens the costs of nuclear power are infinitely expensive because the polluting by-products of nuclear power are impossible to ameliorate. We must necessarily pick sections of the earth (mostly underground) to permanently poison, and hope they remain isolated. Yes, carbon emissions are bad, but with enough determination, they are reversible, and not immediately toxic. It is the difference between drinking alcohol and drinking arsenic.
The true cost of each power source in this country will never be clear to the consumer until the costs of ameliorating the pollutive by-products are integrated into the supply cost. Nuclear energy, in particular, has never been subject to true market costs in this country, because it has always been highly-subsidized by this government, and clean-up costs invariably get shifted to someone else. And, if the government's cost to attempt to restore New York after 9/11 were $20 billion, what will the cost of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility be?
And, all of those costs assume that everybody is playing by the rules. Past human behavior suggests that there is bound to be cheating and cutting corners as these plants seek to maximize profits--either by illegally disposing of wastes, or by skimping on maintenance or security, which means untold health costs down the line for invisible exposures. When the victims of those cancer clusters seven, eight, ten, twenty years down the line decide to sue, the government will surely have to step in and rescue a "necessary" industry, considered vital to our nations security because it reduced our reliance on foreign oil. By then, switching back to oil won't even be an option, because there will be such a small supply left that it will be too expensive for mass consumption.
We need a new paradigm that stops forcing these trade-offs and allows the consumer to weigh the real costs of their energy choices. Only then, can the market truly tell us what we feel comfortable living with (or dying with). Just as consumers have increasingly shown a preference for healthy, sustainable food production through higher prices for organic food, and a disdain for polluting, wasteful practices by putting pressure on tuna producers, milk producers, chicken factories, hog factories and veal factories, so they will weigh in on nuclear energy.
In the meantime, scientists, environmentalists and greens need to speak up now, before this nonsense picks up steam and overwhelms the public with misinformation. Democrats are going to need to provide a united front, even though they are overwhelmed in Congress.
Otherwise, we can go back to the old definition of green--it's what you get when you mix blue with yellow.
That's not the punch line to some obscure joke. In the latest Orwellian repackaging of an unpopular initiative, the right is attempting to recast nuclear power as the greenest alternative available to the evil-doer-supporting oil industry.
In an eerie replay that is reminiscent of the run-up before the Iraq war, the passing of No Child Left Behind and the Medicare Drug Benefit, suddenly the opinion pages are littered with commentary that is critical of other alternative power sources, claims that conservation efforts will be too little-too late and downplaying the dangers of nuclear power.
My favorite bolstering claim is the one that suggests that imposing an $X per ton tax on carbon emissions renders nuclear power's costs competitive. Tack that sentence onto any energy analysis and substitute another number for X and anything can be made to look cost-competitive, even using the ambient heat from your television set.
To understand why nuclear energy isn't green (and all those conservation groups that are allegedly forging alliances over this issue ought be ashamed of themselves), the nuclear advocates have to be sent back to the dictionary to re-learn the definition of another important word--pollution. The pollution that causes global warming is not the only kind of pollution, and some kinds are far worse than others.
Truly green solutions view the earth as a living organism with systems that are vital to it's survival (not our survival, but survival of the organism as a whole). Viewed through that lens the costs of nuclear power are infinitely expensive because the polluting by-products of nuclear power are impossible to ameliorate. We must necessarily pick sections of the earth (mostly underground) to permanently poison, and hope they remain isolated. Yes, carbon emissions are bad, but with enough determination, they are reversible, and not immediately toxic. It is the difference between drinking alcohol and drinking arsenic.
The true cost of each power source in this country will never be clear to the consumer until the costs of ameliorating the pollutive by-products are integrated into the supply cost. Nuclear energy, in particular, has never been subject to true market costs in this country, because it has always been highly-subsidized by this government, and clean-up costs invariably get shifted to someone else. And, if the government's cost to attempt to restore New York after 9/11 were $20 billion, what will the cost of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility be?
And, all of those costs assume that everybody is playing by the rules. Past human behavior suggests that there is bound to be cheating and cutting corners as these plants seek to maximize profits--either by illegally disposing of wastes, or by skimping on maintenance or security, which means untold health costs down the line for invisible exposures. When the victims of those cancer clusters seven, eight, ten, twenty years down the line decide to sue, the government will surely have to step in and rescue a "necessary" industry, considered vital to our nations security because it reduced our reliance on foreign oil. By then, switching back to oil won't even be an option, because there will be such a small supply left that it will be too expensive for mass consumption.
We need a new paradigm that stops forcing these trade-offs and allows the consumer to weigh the real costs of their energy choices. Only then, can the market truly tell us what we feel comfortable living with (or dying with). Just as consumers have increasingly shown a preference for healthy, sustainable food production through higher prices for organic food, and a disdain for polluting, wasteful practices by putting pressure on tuna producers, milk producers, chicken factories, hog factories and veal factories, so they will weigh in on nuclear energy.
In the meantime, scientists, environmentalists and greens need to speak up now, before this nonsense picks up steam and overwhelms the public with misinformation. Democrats are going to need to provide a united front, even though they are overwhelmed in Congress.
Otherwise, we can go back to the old definition of green--it's what you get when you mix blue with yellow.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Voters Get It...They Just Don't Like It
A recent Op-Ed piece by David Brooks in the New York Times (A Requiem For Reform), suggests that the failure of the Republicans to secure so-called 'Social Security reform' represents a textbook case of politics gone awry.
In this view, the Republicans have played a tone-deaf tune to the American public, who would surely follow the Piper's tune, if only the dissonance were removed. He seems to think that better presentation would also have solved the cross-party issues in Congress.
In the same vein, Democrats are equally at fault for failing to look forward and fearing to cross the "Howard Dean hotheads" in the party. He indicts an unwillingness to compromise, or even to make a counteroffer.
Finally, he takes a slap at the American voter, who, according to Brooks, has apparently been racking up high entitlement spending and low taxes for thirty years, and charged the tab to their grandchildren.
I take issue with the idea that the failure of Social Security 'reform' is a failure of politics.
First of all, the whole issue isn't dead yet. Look for a repackaging of the whole program, bundled with a tax cut, or tacked onto a military-spending appropriation to be floated shortly. Failing that, I expect we will see a number of executive directives with the force of law that effectively force changes to the system without a vote.
Secondly, just because someone suggests something, doesn't mean it is a failure if it is not enacted. It is one of the great strengths of this system that vigorous offense and defense blend together to form a sieve that filters out the worst ideas. Sometimes the best thing we can do is take no action, or 'do no harm'.
The suggestion that Republicans have somehow failed to get their message out, or have somehow flubbed, it is patently ridiculous when entire government agencies have been turned into propaganda machines, and public relations firms and reporters alike are being hired to preach to the masses. It is far more likely that Americans have chosen not to drink the kool-aid on reform just yet.
To complain about Democratic intransigence willfully ignores the three trends which have made it politically impossible for them to do otherwise (and none of the three has anything to do with Howard Dean).
The first trend was set into motion by Republicans when they decided that the only way to keep the country from drifting leftward was to refuse to compromise with the moderates and liberals in Congress. This strategy, once the party got its members in line, has been so effective as to permit both the Executive and the Legislative branches to be controlled by Republicans, even though Americans tend to favor a divided government. Democrats have little choice but to dig their feet in if they wish to pull the country back to the center.
The second trend falls into the 'once-bitten, twice-shy' category, and the blame falls squarely on this President, the standard-bearer for the new "Reagan Republicans". Every time a moderate Democrat has reached across the aisle to co-sponsor favored administration legislation, he or she has been burned politically. Even moderates within his own government have been undercut, ousted or sent into the political wilderness.
The third trend is procedural within the Congress itself. House Democrats have been hamstrung by procedural changes that prevent them from proposing bills or participating in law-making in any meaningful way. (For an excellent read on the subject, see Michael Crowley's "Oppressed Minority" in the New Republic). Being the minority in the Senate presents a similar problem. It has grown so bad that Republicans are seeking to rewrite the rules on breaking a filibuster (the so-called 'Nuclear Option') because the Democrats have had to threaten it so often to gain any leverage at all. So its a bit disingenuous to suggest that a counterproposal could have been made.
As for the blame allocated to the American people, this amounts to indicting the victim instead of the mugger. The last time the American voter actually went to the polls to vote over an economic issue, they put Reagan in office (think "oil crisis"). The politicians in this country have spent the last twenty five years exploiting culturally divisive class, race and religious issues for the express purpose of diverting attention from economic issues. The growth in corporate welfare, unnecessary and wasteful military spending and the huge disparities in return on federal tax dollars between red and blue states are just a few of the "entitlements" we have apparently been "demanding".
Meanwhile, schools are in scandalous disrepair, pensions have been replaced by 401K plans, families have gone from one job to four to make ends meet, homeownership is out of reach for huge swathes of the population, health care has been priced out of reach, pollution is on the upswing, traffic has made everyday tasks herculean and there are virtually epidemic breakouts of asthma and autism with no apparent cause. Please, please congressman! Raise my taxes back up to pay for these "entitlements". I can't live without them.
The truth of the matter is that most Americans are too busy trying to keep afloat to have the time to pay attention to politics the way the boomers did. Therefore, they feel more comfortable voting on issues for which opinion (or well-settled belief) is the only requirement for making a judgement. We shouldn't be blamed for using the cliff notes provided by politicians and (increasingly) ineffective media.
Politics should be about representing everyone, not blind obeisance to the dominant political party. On that score, politics may be failing...but on Social Security it's working just fine.
In this view, the Republicans have played a tone-deaf tune to the American public, who would surely follow the Piper's tune, if only the dissonance were removed. He seems to think that better presentation would also have solved the cross-party issues in Congress.
In the same vein, Democrats are equally at fault for failing to look forward and fearing to cross the "Howard Dean hotheads" in the party. He indicts an unwillingness to compromise, or even to make a counteroffer.
Finally, he takes a slap at the American voter, who, according to Brooks, has apparently been racking up high entitlement spending and low taxes for thirty years, and charged the tab to their grandchildren.
I take issue with the idea that the failure of Social Security 'reform' is a failure of politics.
First of all, the whole issue isn't dead yet. Look for a repackaging of the whole program, bundled with a tax cut, or tacked onto a military-spending appropriation to be floated shortly. Failing that, I expect we will see a number of executive directives with the force of law that effectively force changes to the system without a vote.
Secondly, just because someone suggests something, doesn't mean it is a failure if it is not enacted. It is one of the great strengths of this system that vigorous offense and defense blend together to form a sieve that filters out the worst ideas. Sometimes the best thing we can do is take no action, or 'do no harm'.
The suggestion that Republicans have somehow failed to get their message out, or have somehow flubbed, it is patently ridiculous when entire government agencies have been turned into propaganda machines, and public relations firms and reporters alike are being hired to preach to the masses. It is far more likely that Americans have chosen not to drink the kool-aid on reform just yet.
To complain about Democratic intransigence willfully ignores the three trends which have made it politically impossible for them to do otherwise (and none of the three has anything to do with Howard Dean).
The first trend was set into motion by Republicans when they decided that the only way to keep the country from drifting leftward was to refuse to compromise with the moderates and liberals in Congress. This strategy, once the party got its members in line, has been so effective as to permit both the Executive and the Legislative branches to be controlled by Republicans, even though Americans tend to favor a divided government. Democrats have little choice but to dig their feet in if they wish to pull the country back to the center.
The second trend falls into the 'once-bitten, twice-shy' category, and the blame falls squarely on this President, the standard-bearer for the new "Reagan Republicans". Every time a moderate Democrat has reached across the aisle to co-sponsor favored administration legislation, he or she has been burned politically. Even moderates within his own government have been undercut, ousted or sent into the political wilderness.
The third trend is procedural within the Congress itself. House Democrats have been hamstrung by procedural changes that prevent them from proposing bills or participating in law-making in any meaningful way. (For an excellent read on the subject, see Michael Crowley's "Oppressed Minority" in the New Republic). Being the minority in the Senate presents a similar problem. It has grown so bad that Republicans are seeking to rewrite the rules on breaking a filibuster (the so-called 'Nuclear Option') because the Democrats have had to threaten it so often to gain any leverage at all. So its a bit disingenuous to suggest that a counterproposal could have been made.
As for the blame allocated to the American people, this amounts to indicting the victim instead of the mugger. The last time the American voter actually went to the polls to vote over an economic issue, they put Reagan in office (think "oil crisis"). The politicians in this country have spent the last twenty five years exploiting culturally divisive class, race and religious issues for the express purpose of diverting attention from economic issues. The growth in corporate welfare, unnecessary and wasteful military spending and the huge disparities in return on federal tax dollars between red and blue states are just a few of the "entitlements" we have apparently been "demanding".
Meanwhile, schools are in scandalous disrepair, pensions have been replaced by 401K plans, families have gone from one job to four to make ends meet, homeownership is out of reach for huge swathes of the population, health care has been priced out of reach, pollution is on the upswing, traffic has made everyday tasks herculean and there are virtually epidemic breakouts of asthma and autism with no apparent cause. Please, please congressman! Raise my taxes back up to pay for these "entitlements". I can't live without them.
The truth of the matter is that most Americans are too busy trying to keep afloat to have the time to pay attention to politics the way the boomers did. Therefore, they feel more comfortable voting on issues for which opinion (or well-settled belief) is the only requirement for making a judgement. We shouldn't be blamed for using the cliff notes provided by politicians and (increasingly) ineffective media.
Politics should be about representing everyone, not blind obeisance to the dominant political party. On that score, politics may be failing...but on Social Security it's working just fine.
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