One of the most compelling features of this higher education bit is how it brings together so many distinct personalities with their individual agendas and ambitions in this neutral setting where the opportunities to face the opportunities and plights of our shared realities exist.
Above: the people of the Mid-Atlantic advocating a common reality of Peace in
Philadelphia. My roommate, Josh, and I made it out to this rally; a crew of GMC
visionary realists made it out to another rally on the same day in Boston.
The Energy Bill is the apparation of this struggle for a world where we don't deceive ourselves into wars for peace, one where we don't give our neighbors cancer by our very modes of mobility. Here's where the jigsaw protozoa that are you and me fit in....
The vague, ameobic movement that environmentalism has become has yet to prioritize the issues it champions. Can we tackle environmental issues without first resolving social issues; aren't social issues the symptoms of environmental issues? Couldn't we all just get behind one and see what happens? Worst case scenario, we solved one crisis and developed the relationships needed to tackle the next.
In the US, only the Progressive Era, facilitated by the leadership of a Teddy Bear and--of all things--the Nixon administration has boasted the types of changes that the issues of today call for.
That which was true then, is manifest today: the path of least resistance is a very short one. The impending scarcity of our nation's forests and petroleum reserves created an atmosphere in which politics became a vehicle of public good. Enter the Forest Service and EPA, respectively. Though compromises were made, though we lost Hetch Hetchy and though the Embargo passed and oil stayed, I would venture that the national parks and investments in alternative energies that ensued were well worth the marches, letters to congresspersons, and reoriented dollars.
Good stuff for sure. Yet, a few administrations later those beautiful stepping stones my generation was born into are looking a little weather-worn. Agencies are unable to enforce the legislation they were created to regulate--some of the most progressive (and under-utilized) laws that exist in any contemporary political system. Legislation that was tirelessly fought for by activists who spent the prime years of their professional and personal on these hopes is benign underminded by misallocated funds and an absence of federal fiscal responsibility and accountability.
All of this serves to give context to what's now happening in Congress. The Energy Bill that Democrats brought into committee, which was already a modest measure in the present global context, is being held up by the prevailing deep-pocketed irrationale that has defined this past century.
Hybrid SUVs running on corn is not a solution, it's well-intended complacency wrought with opportunity costs.
Certain politicians are afraid to cripple our automotive industry by imposing CAFE standards that would obligate them to meet the current market demand for high efficiency vehicles; a federal renewable portfolio standard that would serve as a baseline for improving our country's health, employment rates, trade deficit...holistic wellbeing lingers with the promise of an executive veto; and the component that stands the best chance of being retained is a provision that will primarily benefit ethanol producers (i.e. Arthur-Daniels Midland and all those other GMO-pushing, monocropping entities that have diminished the viability of family farms and our agrarian heritage as a whole). This, when realists on all sides of the political spectrum recognize the energetic, environmental, and social shortcomings of the alternative fuel.
You can hear a more inclusive take on all of this through any media outlet, or by clicking here.
The big deal is, each of us have an obligation to do something about this. Whether you agree with me or not on particulars, you have the right and ability as a citizen to play a role in making our shared world one worth living in. The simplest, most effective way is to join myself and thousands of others and let your senators know what you want America to stand for in the years to come: petroleum, cancer, and conflict or self-sustaining, clean energy and vibrant new industries. The decision really is that stark and definative.
Solar Nation has created a straightforward way to get in contact with the people representing you. Time to represent yourself.
Though this may not be the last opportunity we have to change our collective course, one of these times it assuredly will be. The time for easy transitions is behind us. Impossible is a few foregone opportunities away.
We're not alone:
I don't want to have the likes of Amy Goodman and John Lennon be the only glimmers of hope and sensibility anymore. Let's use the tools and power we always had. We can't wait every four years to see what the lesser of two evils will bring about.